The desolate yellow sand was swirling, kicking up a sky full of flying dust.
This was a barren desert Gobi.
"Marquis Domain Zone Thirty-Six, a second-level danger zone, no longer like the Cultivated Domain you visited before, most of the desolate beasts here are at the Meridian Opening stage. You can go in and look for something suitable."
Elder Luo had brought Xiang Beifei here but did not proceed any further. He could easily handle any of the desolate beasts here, but Xiang Beifei planned to face them himself, so Elder Luo refrained from intervening.
Xiang Beifei didn't need to search for any specific desolate beast, he would just randomly pick a few and take down whoever he encountered, without being choosy.
"You haven't been here before, and don't know what desolate beasts exist here, so I won't introduce them to you. You'll have to figure things out on your own." Elder Luo said sternly.
Although he valued Xiang Beifei as a treasure, he was cultivating successors for the future of Jiuzhou; if Xiang Beifei were to explore the wilderness beyond the domains in the future, he would need to explore on his own.
Any desolate beast could be encountered in the wilderness beyond the domains, unlike in a simulated class where the types of desolate beasts were prearranged and everyone was prepared. The desolate beasts in the wilderness beyond were not fixed; this required on-the-spot response abilities,
Xiang Beifei understood this, and without any hesitation, he walked into the shallow shores of the Gobi.
The wind in the Gobi was strong, whipping up sand like blades, scraping deep grooves into the Gobi's surface.
In the distance, it seemed that a sand dragon tornado was forming, and the windblown sand roared like dragons in the sky, rushing and crashing, wanting to destroy something, but then swiftly disappearing.
As Xiang Beifei walked forward, stepping over an exposed rock, he paused for a moment and then planned to head toward the Gobi. However, he hadn't walked more than a few steps when the ground's quicksand suddenly started undulating like waves, layer upon layer.
He furrowed his brows, preparing to leap backward when a flash of light suddenly snaked silently around his ankle, pulling him into the midst of the sand and mud.
The thing moved incredibly swiftly; Xiang Beifei hadn't even realized how the desolate beast had appeared under his feet.
This desolate beast buried in the sand was very powerful! Its strength was definitely at the Meridian Opening stage!
His spiritual power covered his feet in an instant, and he fiercely stoked up flames, scorching toward that tendril. The tendril, seeming to fear his flames, immediately loosened, but by then the sand under Xiang Beifei's feet was rolling like a marsh and directly surged upward.
Unable to leverage any force, his body was suddenly buried in the sand!
Elder Luo next to him watched Xiang Beifei intently, his spiritual power constantly clinging to Xiang Beifei, monitoring him.
But suddenly, it was as if a stream of magma rose from the sand, and rolling flames spread from the gaps, immediately causing the entire patch of sand to explosively burst open with a "boom", and all of the sand was forcibly lightened, becoming as light as feathers.
The wind in the desert blew even stronger, and with the sand lightened, it was immediately swept up into the air.
Xiang Beifei stood in the midst of a sand pit, staring at the brown desolate beast before him.
This desolate beast was very small, resembling a peculiar mole, but it was covered in hard Scale Armor and had many long tentacles on its head, which still slightly twitched with grains of sand clinging to them.
"Illusory sand rat." Xiang Beifei slightly furrowed his brows.
He recognized this kind of desolate beast, whose strength was extremely formidable. Ordinary experts at the initial stage of Meridian Opening might not be able to kill it effortlessly, for it possessed a rather eccentric ability.
The Sand Rat firmly fixed its gaze on Xiang Beifei, then suddenly lunged at him.
Xiang Beifei's fist instantly enveloped in flames, and he threw a punch straight at the oncoming Sand Rat!
The Sand Rat's entire body directly turned to sand, taking on the appearance of sand, and Xiang Beifei's punch passed right through its body, but simultaneously, those grains of sand quickly morphed into a rat's head. It bared its hard teeth and bit down on Xiang Beifei's wrist!
Xiang Beifei's wrist immediately trembled, forcefully vibrating out a firm wave of spiritual power that circulated in a very unique way.
The Sand Rat's teeth clamped onto his wrist but were immediately blocked by his "Counterforce", and the counteracting spiritual power reversed and hammered back at the Sand Rat's teeth!
The Sand Rat was directly shattered into sand by Xiang Beifei's spiritual power.
However, the wind picked up again, and those grains of sand in the air once again gradually took the form of a Sand Rat!
"Heavy as Mount Tai can't affect it." Xiang Beifei felt somewhat somber inside.
The Illusory sand rat's formidable nature lay here, being able to turn its body into sand. A punch that hit it only turned it into broken sand, but these sands would re-agglomerate.
This meant it feared no robust force— even if Xiang Beifei's "Counterforce" shattered the Sand Rat's teeth while it bit him, it could still reconstitute!
And since the Illusory sand rat was a desolate beast of the Meridian Opening stage, it could turn into sand, which also allowed it to resist Xiang Beifei's gravity, making it impossible for Xiang Beifei to restrain it.
The books mentioned that there were two methods to kill an illusory sand rat. One was to use the saliva-based soluble gel from a ghost bug to stick it together, preventing it from turning into sand, and then ignite the gel to burn it to death.
The other was to suppress it directly with a higher level of cultivation.