The remaining skeleton soldiers also rapidly dispersed under his control. They did not need to destroy the cores themselves. Instead, they would serve as sensory nodes scattered throughout the sandstorm, allowing Zich to detect monsters and changes in terrain along the routes ahead.
Slimy jumped onto Zich’s shoulder. Several white silk threads wrapped around his arms and waist, helping stabilize his body whenever the wind suddenly intensified.
Once everything had been arranged, a black shadow surged beneath Zich’s feet, and his entire body instantly vanished from where he stood.
Shadow Blink!
He reappeared dozens of meters away without pausing for even a moment and continued rushing toward the crimson pillar of light in the south.
All four groups began moving almost simultaneously.
As they continued approaching the Storm Cores, the already violent sandstorm rapidly intensified. Countless tiny grains of sand struck their bodies like blades, while visibility dropped from several hundred meters to less than twenty.
Zich soon lost sight of the other three crimson pillars of light.
However, he did not need to rely on his own eyes to observe them.
In the northern sky, the vision transmitted by Tiamant constantly shifted. Countless demonic eagles formed from yellow sand emerged from the storm and attempted to knock her out of the sky, yet they could not even truly damage the bone armor covering her body.
In the east, the Silverback Ape Grunt encountered more than a dozen Sand Armor Puppets blocking its path. It did not stop to become entangled with them. Instead, it charged directly into the densest cluster of monsters and forcibly tore open a path using nothing but its body and overwhelming strength.
The Blood Leech in the west encountered even fewer obstacles. Most desert monsters completely failed to notice the lean blood colored humanoid moving silently through the dense sandstorm.
Three completely different sensory images appeared simultaneously within Zich’s consciousness.
Combined with the fourth route he was personally traveling, there was essentially no fundamental difference from the four ice paths inside the Winter Realm.
One difference was that this time, he did not need to protect fragile ice crystals.
More importantly, what he was controlling were no longer four Level 1 skeleton soldiers.
In less than half a minute, the fastest among them, Tiamant, had already reached the northern core.
The Storm Core floated above a depression in the desert. It resembled a crimson crystal more than three meters in diameter, with twelve rings formed from wind and sand constantly revolving around it.
A Level 26 winged sand scorpion crouched beneath the core.
[Storm Guardian. Lv: 26]
The moment Tiamant entered its attack range, the winged sand scorpion raised its tail, and dozens of poisonous spikes condensed from wind and sand shot toward the sky simultaneously.
Tiamant folded her bone wings forward.
Most of the poisonous spikes struck her bones, leaving only a few extremely shallow marks.
Black soul flames rose from deep within Tiamant’s eye sockets.
Several enormous dark chains rapidly condensed around her before surging toward the winged sand scorpion and the Storm Core behind it.
The moment Zich sensed that power, he immediately transmitted a new command through their contract.
She could not destroy the core directly..At least, not yet.
The chains surrounding Tiamant visibly paused, and a wave of dissatisfaction traveled through their contract. With the strength of this winged sand scorpion, she only needed a single attack to destroy both the creature and the Storm Core behind it.
She clearly could not understand why Zich wanted her to suppress her power.
"Kill the scorpion first. Break the core down to its final layer, then leave the skeleton there." Zich said.
Although Tiamant was dissatisfied, she still reduced the power contained within the chains.
The next moment, several dark chains poured down from the sky.
Boom!
The defense the winged sand scorpion had just formed was instantly torn apart. Its massive body was smashed into the sand, while large cracks rapidly spread across its carapace.
Before the winged sand scorpion could recover, Tiamant’s bone tail swept across the defensive rings surrounding the Storm Core. One ring after another shattered until only the final layer remained.
The skeleton soldier jumped down from her back and raised its bone blade beside the core.
Zich immediately returned Tiamant to the Graveyard Space before her maintenance cost could consume too much mana.
At the same time, the Silverback Ape Grunt had also reached the eastern core.
The guardian here was a giant formed entirely from rock and yellow sand. Although it was only Level 25, its defensive power was clearly greater than that of the winged sand scorpion in the north.
The Sandstone Giant threw a punch at the Silverback Ape Grunt.
The Silverback Ape Grunt didn’t dodge. It raised its right fist and punched forward as well.
Bang!
Two nearly identical massive fists collided head on in midair, and the violent impact blasted away the surrounding layers of sand.
Several cracks appeared across the surface of the Sandstone Giant’s arm, while the Silverback Ape Grunt merely took half a step backward before immediately advancing again.
It grabbed the giant’s wrist before it could pull its arm back and dragged the enormous creature toward itself.
The Silverback Ape Grunt slammed its forehead into the Sandstone Giant’s head.
Crack!
Half of the Sandstone Giant’s face shattered on the spot.
Taking advantage of the guardian losing its balance, the Silverback Ape Grunt charged past it and smashed a fist into the surface of the crimson core.
The first ring of wind and sand shattered immediately.
In the west, the Blood Leech also arrived without difficulty.
It approached the exposed energy roots extending from the Storm Core into the sand and discovered a narrow crack near the bottom of the core.
The interior of the Storm Core was not completely sealed.
Countless streams of crimson energy flowed through the crystal like blood.
Although the energy was not true blood that could be extracted using Blood Drain, the exposed conduits could still be physically destroyed.
The Blood Leech hooked its claws into the crack and used its claws and proboscis to sever the energy conduits one after another. As it continued attacking, the light radiating from the western core visibly dimmed.
All three battlefields had already fallen under Zich’s control.
However, he himself was still nearly halfway from the southern core.
[Remaining Time: 00:17:48.]
There was plenty of time.
Zich activated Shadow Blink again, rapidly crossing several regions engulfed by the sandstorm.
Just as he was about to reach his destination, one of the skeleton soldiers he had sent ahead suddenly transmitted a sense of danger.
The yellow sand in front of him abruptly collapsed downward without warning.
A gigantic mouth more than ten meters in diameter opened beneath the sand. Rows of circular teeth rapidly rotated as the creature lunged toward Zich passing above it.
’Damm!’ Seeing this monster pop out of no where Zich face Darkened.
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