Alex grabbed hold of his sword midair and pulled it out from behind him. In a single sweep, the sword hit the centipede square in the head. He didn't manage to cut it open, but the force alone was enough to break it open.
Alex landed with a thump and roles over a few times to stop himself. He immediately turned around to attack the centipede again, but it was dead.
He took a deep breath and calmed himself. He wasn't expecting a monster to appear out of nowhere here.
"Damn, isn't there a ton more monster around this place?" he thought. He had to be careful now.
He felt the heat radiating from the ground and was surprised just how hot the ground still was. He leaned down to grab a handful of the sand and felt it. It was way hotter than he was expecting it to be.
He let it fall from his hands and watched just how fine it was. Riverbanks had sand too in the real world, but they were nothing like this. The sands outside were mostly white in color and were usually wet and lumpy from being around the rivers.
This, however, was yellow in color and very, very dry. Even just a few meters away from the river, it was no humidity in it. He felt it a bit more and said, "It's so coarse and rough."
He looked around the desert; It was everywhere. He was baffled by just how much sand there was in this place, and even more so baffled by just how large the land itself was.
As far as his eyes could see, there was nothing but desert.
"I'm going to get dehydrated at this rate,' he thought and went to the river to drink some more water before leaving the place. He didn't know where he had to go in this vast desert, so he randomly chose a direction and walked forward.
Along the way, he made sure to drag his feet or sword and make a marking wherever he went. He wanted to find his way back in case he reached a place from where he couldn't see the cliff side anymore and needed to come back.
The dire direction he chose to go was in a small angle from the river such that the further he traveled, the further he would get from the river.
Still, he didn't wish to go very far away as he didn't know exactly what monsters there were in the desert. Just the ones on the river shores were skin tempering and muscle tempering equivalent.
If he went in and found some bone tempering equivalent monsters, then he would have a hard time fighting them. If he found some organ tempering equivalent monsters, then he would be as good as dead.
A lizard monster appeared a few minutes after he started walking, so Alex killed it without hesitation. A few minutes later, another centipede appeared. Alex had no problem dealing with that as well. However, he was a little slower in killing this monster.
He went further and killed more monsters. Within the next hour, he had killed over 15 different monsters in the desert. They were all the same speed and strength as any other monsters he had fought till now.
But he realized that killing them was taking longer than usual. That was all because of the pressure he was feeling. The same pressure that suppressed his Qi and spiritual sense, was now starting to suppress his body too.
It was very little suppression when compared to the one he got for Qi and spiritual sense, but it was still there. He could clearly feel the slight pressure all over him.
And it got worse as he walked forward.
A snake monster slithered towards him from underneath the sand. Alex could clearly see the undulations on the ground and got ready. As usual, just as it was near him, the snake monster jumped out of the sand and tried to bite and eat him.
Alex sidestepped the attack and prepared his sword. As soon as he saw the exposed neck of the snake, he hacked at it.
BANG
A large sound appeared as the sword dug deep into the snake's body, but the snake didn't die. The wound wasn't enough to cause severe harm to the snake, and could only harm him.
The snake launched an attack with its tail and managed to hit Alex. Alex immediately grabbed the snake's tail in hope of not being thrown away.
The snake shook its tail around, in hopes of making him let go, but it couldn't. In the end, Alex took the opportunity to leave the tail and run right at the snake.
The sands made it hard to run, but he still managed to reach it in time. The snake was once again bringing back its tail around to hit him, but before it could even do anything, Alex slashed it one more time, with extra power this time, and managed to fully hack through the snake's already half cut neck.
He took a few minutes for a breather and thought to himself, "The monsters are getting stronger and stronger. Thankfully, the pressure is stopping them from becoming strong as well. Still, their defense is unaffected."
He looked at his sword that was starting to get dull and thought, "will this even be useful anymore?"
After killing the monster, he walked forward until he felt like he wasn't going anywhere. He could still easily see the cliffs and knew that if he were to walk for a few minutes, he would reach the riverside.
"I do have to walk towards the north if I want to get anywhere. However, that would mean getting attacked by the monsters that are much stronger than the snake just now. Can I even do that?" he thought.
He deliberated for a while and in the end decided to walk towards the north direction, directed away from the cliffside. If anything dangerous came up, he thought he could just run away.