Alex had understood after Mabi’s explanation that there would be beasts along the way to Sunspear City, but he had not been expecting this many.
The beasts seemed to appear every few steps, all of which they had no way of going around without fighting them. In the time it took for the sun to come up, the warriors had to fight nearly 2 dozen massive beasts.
The warriors seemed highly trained for this exact scenario, so there was never any issue. They fought each beast easily, having only a problem with the ones that could fly. Predator birds seemed to be something they couldn’t easily fight because flight was not one of their strongest skills.
Alex had been ready to fight many times throughout the night, but not one time did he have to do so. He stayed back with the old man and Mabi, letting the warriors do the fighting instead.
Alex asked many questions to the old man throughout the night, trying to get answers to questions he had for a while now. The biggest one of which was how the people in the desert had body cultivation.
He wanted to know if they trained in any specific way or not.
And the answer was exactly what he had been expecting. They did no training at all. They simply became strong as they grew by eating the beasts in the desert. When asked for a reason why that was so, the old man had no answer.
“Maybe it’s something in their meat?” he said. “I’ve never nearly given it any thought except that consuming the flesh of the desert beasts helps you grow. The stronger the beast you consume, the stronger you become.”
Alex sighed as he didn’t get the answer he wanted. There was yet no detailed explanation for their strength.
Once the sun came up, the beasts began appearing far less frequently. From appearing up to 3 times in the same hour, now they don’t even appear once every 2 hours. It was a change that surprised Alex a little.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Is there something wrong?”
“No, this is normal. Regular beasts just don’t appear out that often since they cannot survive the heat for too long,” Mabi said. “Very few are desperate enough to show themselves out here.”
Alex frowned for a moment. Could they not survive the heat? Or could they not survive the Yang?
“We will be okay, right?” Alex asked.
“My father carries sunhearts, so we will be fine from the heat,” the woman said. “But we might have other troubles instead. We will need to be more careful now. Stick closer to the warriors so they can protect you.”
Alex asked what trouble she was talking about that they hadn’t gone through the night, but she didn’t bother explaining. These people wanted him to experience everything by himself.
It seemed to be a way of the desert, where they believed that the best way to teach someone was to let them understand and answer the topics themselves.
2 more beasts appeared before noon, both of which the warriors killed with ease. After the beasts died, Alex watched the old man go through the exact same ritual as he did with the beasts over the night.
“Can we store it whole, or should we butcher it instead?” the old man asked the warriors.
And the warriors shook their heads in a simple reply. “There is no need to butcher it here. We can keep it whole.”
And so the old man would place the entire beast into one of his storage bags.
It was clear by the way they talked so formally during these moments that this was a tradition or a ritual they followed, but he couldn’t understand why. And he didn’t get any explanations either, so he would have to wait until he found the answer.
Alex continued walking through the yellow dunes. With the sun high in the sky, there was no shade to be sought in the desert, so they could only keep to themselves. The day continued to grow hotter still, and even the sunhearts failed to keep them cool.
They just had to struggle through this.
Alex was fine with the heat, so he walked without any concern, keeping his head down from the bright sky. He walked for a while when he began noticing something weird.
His shadow began to flicker from one direction to the next. It would randomly change orientation, fluctuating every which way.
“What’s wrong with my shadow?” he asked, staring at the weird fluctuation beneath him.
The four stopped and looked down.
“Oh, the Shadow Dance,” the old man said. “I haven’t seen it in a while.”
“A what?” Alex asked, confused.
“It’s called a Shadow Dance,” Mabi explained. “As the name suggests, it’s when the shadow begins to randomly dance around. It’s a normal phenomenon in the desert, albeit rare on the outskirts. Deep in the deserts, I hear it is so frequent that people see it every day.”
“Why does it dance?” Alex asked.
“We don’t know,” the old man said. “Legends speak of the sun being a giant golden crow which loves to dance once in a while, which is why our shadow dances along with it. But that is just a legend. The truth might have something to do with the Prison Wall instead, and how it glows. Although, it is very hard to give you a correct answer.”
Alex nodded slowly, taking in everything.
He looked at the sky and saw the way the sky shimmered. It seemed excessively fluctuating this time around, which Alex also believed was part of the reason why it was happening.
Before he could think any more on that, however, he suddenly felt the ground shake beneath him. The dune they were on began cascading with sand, and from before them appeared a massive beast.
As it appeared, Alex heard the woman shout at him immediately.
“We need to fall back,” she said. “It is about to get very dangerous.”