Sand Mage of the Burnt Desert

[Translator - Peptobismol]

[Proofreader - Demon God]

Chapter 283

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The Sand Blasters pummeled Lee Jung-ho in rapid succession.

Each impact made his body shudder violently.

The shocks were overwhelming, sending jolts of pain through his entire body, but Lee Jung-ho held firm.

Though he’d been hit by dozens of Sand Blaster shots, he still stood strong.

The Meteor Slash technique he’d activated cloaked him in aura, protecting his whole body.

But as he closed in on Zeon, the number of Sand Blasters hitting him grew exponentially.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

With every high-pressure sand strike, the cumulative force weighing on his body grew like a snowball rolling downhill.

The desert held an infinite supply of sand, and Zeon’s mana reserves were far from depleted.

If he wanted, he could keep firing Sand Blasters until the sun went down the next day.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

“Gahhh!”

At last, the relentless barrage shattered Lee Jung-ho’s Meteor Slash.

The aura protecting his body dissipated, and he took the full force of dozens of Sand Blaster shots in quick succession.

With a cry of pain, Lee Jung-ho was thrown far back. But Zeon wasn’t finished with him.

He raised his hand, and a towering column of sand shot up into the air.

As he clenched his fist, the sand compressed, solidifying like sandstone.

Then, as if Lee Jung-ho stood right in front of him, Zeon brought his fist down with all his strength. The rock-solid column of sand came crashing down toward Lee Jung-ho.

Crash!

The earth trembled, and clouds of dust billowed up.

Lee Jung-ho’s limbs, caught beneath the sand column, were twisted at unnatural angles. His chest had collapsed inward, a testament to the severity of his injuries.

“Haaah… haaah…”

He gasped for breath.

Blood trickled from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.

As if unable to accept his defeat, Lee Jung-ho blinked, bewildered.

Zeon stepped toward him, looking down as he spoke.

“Seems like you were the one to receive that lesson in death.”

“You think… you’ll be… safe?”

“What do you mean?”

“Can you… face the Mayor’s wrath?”

At this, Zeon tilted his head.

“Why would the Mayor be angry?”

“You… really don’t know? If you don’t bring back Moby Dick’s heart, the Mayor will be furious.”

“We just need to retrieve it. Why would that be a problem?”

“What?”

“It doesn’t have to be ‘you’ who brings the heart back, does it?”

“You bastard!”

Realizing Zeon’s intent, Lee Jung-ho’s eyes went wide with fury.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Rip!

Zeon tore the necklace from around Lee Jung-ho’s neck as he replied.

“This subspace is enchanted, isn’t it? As long as we put Moby Dick’s heart in here, Jin Geum-ho won’t question anything.”

“The Mayor…”

“The Mayor’s foresight isn’t perfect. He may foresee outcomes to a certain extent, but not the details of how they’re achieved. He probably foresaw that, with you present, Moby Dick’s heart would be secured. But whether you survived in the process? That likely wasn’t part of his vision.”

“How do you… know about the Mayor’s foresight?”

“A person who knows Jin Geum-ho very well told me.”

“You…”

Just as Lee Jung-ho attempted to rise, sand engulfed him.

Whooosh!

The sand whirled fiercely around him.

A Sand Mixer had been unleashed.

There was no scream.

Lee Jung-ho’s body was ground away in an instant.

The sand beneath him turned crimson.

And that marked the end of Lee Jung-ho, a member of the Numbers.

“H-How could this…”

Claire’s face turned pale as she witnessed his end.

Lee Jung-ho was the person she feared most in the world. Now, seeing Zeon kill him so effortlessly left her terrified.

But Zeon had done more than just kill Lee Jung-ho.

He’d also wiped out every beast that had attacked Moby Dick.

If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she never would have believed it.

The shock overwhelmed her.

Her legs shook so badly she could barely stand.

Though she had only been following Lee Jung-ho’s orders, she knew she bore a heavy responsibility for Moby Dick’s suffering.

And she had no idea if Zeon would forgive her.

But Zeon didn’t even glance at her as he approached Moby Dick.

The creature’s state was dire.

Its thick hide was cracked and torn, exposing raw, bloody tissue, and its entrails and blood were spilling out.

It was clear to anyone that recovery was impossible.

Moby Dick seemed aware of this, too.

—Screeeeech!

The baby whale, sensing its mother’s impending death, let out a sorrowful cry.

It rubbed its body against its dying mother’s face, a heart-wrenching sight.

Moby Dick, even in its final moments, gazed fondly at its child, then turned its massive eyes toward Zeon.

Its eyes, larger than Zeon himself, seemed to communicate a message, though words were impossible.

Zeon nodded silently. At this, a look of peace came into Moby Dick’s gaze.

Zeon extended a hand and gently touched the baby whale.

The calf, feeling his soft touch, looked up at Zeon.

Their eyes met and held.

For a long time, human and whale stared deeply into each other’s eyes.

In that moment, they felt an invisible bond form between them. Suddenly, both Zeon and the baby whale began to glow with a radiant light.

The particles of light circled them briefly before absorbing into their bodies.

This wasn’t the forced taming that tamers practiced.

It was a mutual bond, formed through an understanding of each other’s hearts and emotions.

At that moment, Zeon gained a deep understanding of Moby Dick.

Through the baby whale, a cascade of knowledge about Moby Dick poured into him.

Moby Dick was no ordinary beast.

It wasn’t an evolved creature of Earth’s whale lineage.

It was a spirit born on Kurayan.

And not just any spirit—a Great Spirit, imbued with four elemental attributes.

Swept away to Earth as a byproduct of terraforming, the Great Spirit had immediately faced the threat of extinction.

For a Great Spirit to survive, it needed an environment rich in elemental power. But Earth, now a desolate wasteland, lacked nearly all elemental energy.

Powerless, the Great Spirit began to wither and die.

And that’s when it discovered the massive whale.

The whale, too, was on the verge of death as its oceans dried up.

It may have been fate that brought together the dying spirit and the dying whale.

The spirit needed a vessel, and the whale needed a source of vitality.

In that desperate moment, the two beings fused, rebirthing as Moby Dick.

Thus, the creature known as Moby Dick was born.

Strictly speaking, Moby Dick was not a monster but a spirit lifeform.

A new life adapted to Earth’s harsh environment.

But it was incomplete from the start.

Because of this, Moby Dick periodically burrowed deep into the sand to absorb the last traces of earth and water attributes or ascended high into the sky to gather fire and air, sustaining its life force.

And so it lived on Earth for a hundred years, eventually conceiving a baby whale.

This was the first spirit lifeform to be born on Earth, not on Kurayan.

It was neither a pure spirit nor a typical creature, but a being with the strengths of both.

To give birth, Moby Dick had claimed this area as its territory.

It knew the beasts would come for it, but it had no other choice.

If a typical S-rank monster had claimed the territory, A-rank beasts wouldn’t have dared attack. But Moby Dick wasn’t an ordinary monster.

Instinctively, the beasts knew that devouring Moby Dick, with its stored elemental energy, would allow them to reach new heights. Thus, they’d come, disregarding their own lives.

“So that’s how it was.”

The baby whale was a completely new spirit lifeform born on Earth.

Unlike its incomplete mother, the calf was whole.

While it would take ages for it to grow to its mother’s size and wield its full strength, its completeness from birth held profound significance.

In some ways, it might even be the last hope for a broken Earth.

And then—

Fwoosh!

Particles of light began to stream from Moby Dick’s dying body.

The radiant light encircled Archelon, who lay nearby, also near death. The particles of light slowly absorbed into Archelon’s body.

As the light infused it, Archelon began to change.

The shattered shell reformed, and the sagging skin of its limbs regained firmness.

The injuries inflicted by the Black Anemone healed instantly, and a spark of clarity returned to its dulled eyes.

The transformation didn’t stop there.

Crunch!

Sharp spikes protruded from Archelon’s hexagonal shell.

Already tough, the shell was now armed with large, formidable spines.

A horn, like that of a unicorn, also formed on Archelon’s forehead.

Previously it had only had strong defenses, but now it could launch physical attacks as well.

Zeon recognized this transformation as Moby Dick’s final gift to Archelon, for its attempts to protect it.

As the particles of light scattered, Moby Dick’s enormous body began to dissolve.

—Screeeeech!

The baby whale let out a quiet cry as it watched its mother disappear.

Though it was tragic for the calf to witness its mother’s death so soon after birth, this extraordinary lifeform seemed to accept her passing as part of nature’s order.

The massive body that had filled its field of vision vanished, leaving behind only a huge black, round gemstone the size of several people combined.

Zeon recognized it immediately as Moby Dick’s heart.

“You left me a gift, didn’t you?”

He gave a faint, bitter smile.

As he’d suspected, the enormous round stone was the heart containing all the elemental energy Moby Dick had accumulated.

Though much of its energy had been drained to save Archelon, what remained was still a tremendous amount of mana. Whether it would meet Jin Geum-ho’s expectations, however, was uncertain.

But Zeon didn’t worry about that.

His mission had only been to retrieve Moby Dick’s heart, and there had been no conditions about its condition or amount of energy.

“Phew.”

With a sigh, Zeon opened the subspace within his necklace and carefully stored Moby Dick’s heart.

The baby whale, floating in the air, observed everything.

Zeon looked at the young whale with a gentle expression and spoke softly.

“I’m sorry, little one.”

—Screeeeech!

The calf responded with a gentle, plaintive cry, as if to say it understood.

Zeon reached out and stroked the baby whale’s head.

The calf then began sniffing around Zeon, as if picking up a particular scent, and wagged its tail as it floated around him.

“What’s this?”

—Screech!

“You think I smell… good?”

—Screech!

“You mean I’m carrying something that smells good?”

—Screeeeech!

Thanks to their bond, Zeon could fully understand the baby whale’s meaning through its cries.

The young whale circled around Zeon’s right arm.

It was the arm wearing the Inferno Gauntlet.

‘Could it be interested in something inside the subspace?’

There were countless items stored within the space.

When Zeon opened the subspace, the baby whale fearlessly poked its head inside.

With a flick of its tail, the calf eagerly rummaged through Zeon’s belongings.

Amused by its cuteness, Zeon allowed it to search.

After a while, the baby whale emerged from the subspace, carrying a large mineral clamped in its mouth.

“That…?”

It was the mineral Zeon had confiscated from Park Man-ho during his recent visit to the Mana Stone Mines.

This mysterious mineral had been mined alongside premium-grade Mana Stones from one of the deepest veins. Though it held no mana, its unusual warmth had intrigued him.

Zeon asked the baby whale.

“Why are you so interested in that?”

—Screeeeech!

The baby whale’s reply left Zeon’s face rigid with shock.

“A seed… of the World Tree?”

[Translator - Peptobismol]

[Proofreader - Demon God]