“Quing Da!”

Nili’s panicked voice rang through the air with such desperation that even Linnea, lost in the ecstasy of gestalt, flinched before the young-looking kitsune’s obvious panic as the obvious princess in disguise’s bodyguard was yanked off the ice platform, sent tumbling into the lamprey-like maws of the swarming beasts that sure as hell shouldn’t be flooding the entrance of any delve.

Linnea, her thoughts racing at a Bronze Speed Cultivator’s efficiency, thanks to forging a gestalt with a being that both terrified and exhilarated her, noted the tragic scene unfolding through both her own senses and her cousin’s and uncles, as the desperately striking Quing Da slowly toppled over into death, a stoic look on his bristly bearded features, lips curled in a snarl even as his wicked-looking guandao cleaved right through the ebony carcass of yet another lunging lamprey.

Before being shoved with a stumble, right back into the center of the massive disk of impossibly thick ice that her uncle was concentrating so much elemental ice and cold into forming and reinforcing, to the point that their barrier was now two feet thick, even as Hanz and Linnea blasted a pair of lunging lamprey with swirling blasts of fire and spears of deadly ice. Each of them savored the glorious, terrifying sensation of simultaneously being utterly autonomous in their actions, and perfectly calibrated cogs of a uniform whole. Linnea could sense both her uncle’s fierce determination to bring his family safely home and her cousin’s terror inspired resolve to slay their foes, rescue a city, and never delve again, just as much as she embraced her own feelings of being a wild firebrand absolutely reveling in her searing blasts of plasma in the form of crimson corkscrews as she obliterated yet another lamprey attempting to ambush the ambusher as the kitsune girl steadied the gruff, powerfully built man that Linnea was now certain was the father of her kits. Which meant that both parents were here, so who was protecting their children?

A stray thought that had no place in these killing fields, Linnea instead feeling a warm glow as all her new friends pulled their weight, thinking and acting as one, even if theirs was only a partial gestalt, and for a brief moment as Linnea shared a fierce sisterly smile with Ya Ling who had managed to save Nili’s husband from certain death… Sunlay gazing at them with the eye-twinkling warmth of a queen adoring her beloved soldiers… Linnea actually thought they had a chance.

Then the impossibly glorious and perfect desert sun overhead was blocked by the doom Linnea had been desperately pushing out of her mind, as one second bled into another and all of them fought not for cores or to solve the riddle of this hellish place, but simply to survive.

Yet it appeared that their time of triumph was at an end and the tragic final act of their life stories was now about to unfold.

And Linnea didn’t even need to look up.

She could perfectly see the reflection of death in Ya Ling’s wide-eyed gaze.

Yet she couldn’t help but twist around to glare at the absolutely enormous desert worm now rearing up above their heads, spiraling teeth vibrating as it let out a thunderous howl that sent the smaller worms fleeing and Linnea crashing to her knees in sudden dizziness, never having seen death so clearly, or having felt the sense of utter inescapable doom resonating through the psyche and souls of her entire gestalt.

All, save one.

A fierce howling flame of bitter hot rebellion, lashing out against the crushing synchronicity of certain doom.

Eternal defiance before death’s unforgiving gaze.

A blond-haired blue-eyed boy now racing through the heavens with lightning crackling with his every step, fangtian ji held high as he charged right into the maw of certain death…

Before the world exploded in lightning and flame.

Zichen, the female wujen who, along with her obvious partner Anjen, had been unleashing blasts of fire and steel that had perfectly complimented Linnea and Hanz’s own elemental strikes gazed up with trembling wonder. “Black lightning. He would channel death itself!”

And it was true.

Even as Linnea felt Alex’s agony as the very element of chaos, change, and ultimate destruction that he dared to unleash turned on him right before being sucked right back into his bones, it was a distant thing. Their pilot, the master of their gestalt, had somehow pulled himself all but free, allowing Linnea and her kin to think and act in a hyper-accelerated state while being able to act independent and autonomously of him.

Just like the very best pilots of old, fighting wars using machines of death and destruction she could barely fathom, in a universe that was home to electromana currents and forces that didn’t even exist in this reality.

But their legends would never be forgotten, and their abilities still shown through as Alex weaved and darted around the massive snapping maws of oblivion with more than inhuman quickness and supernatural grace.

The man she now desired above all others wove about their monstrous foe like a dancer embracing the performance of a lifetime. A dance where the slightest mistake would result in a horrifically gruesome death.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Somehow, oftentimes by only the slimmest of margins, Alex always managed to dodge each monstrous lunge, bite, and deadly blast of spice-scented sand that Linnea just knew would effortlessly rip flesh from their bones, had that titanic abomination directed its breath weapon their way.

It was as if Alex knew precisely where the creature would lunge before it did itself, and Linnea was strangely certain that such was exactly the case.

Even as Alex choked back a howl, agonized by the very forces he dared summon forth to buy them even a few minutes of survival… before that agony shattered his perfect flow, jarring his supreme battle meditation for just long enough for the monstrous worm to score his left foot with a blast of caustic sand, sheering the flesh right off Alex’s left calf, the air suddenly alive with the crimson spray of his blood.

“Linnea! Abort mission! Get everyone to the gate! Now, Now, Now!”

Linnea’s eyes bulged, sensing his urgency as Alex desperately dove and somersaulted through the air like the best pilots, cutting off his enemy’s deadly spray of sand that was coming so close to spraying their way with an explosion of ebony lightning that scored massive bloody furrows on the giant sand worm, pulling it’s focus to Alex once more as he desperately tried to lead it away.

Still dripping his lifeblood.

“Alex! Seal your wound!” Linnea cried out, terror turning to relief when she sensed the sudden easing of just a bit of the terrible weight of potency already threatening to crush her if she didn’t grow the crystal of her soul and level up very, very soon.

But there was no time for that.

There was no time for anything at all.

“Ya Ling! Princess Sunlay! Mission is aborted! We flee now, while we can!”

Six pairs of eye immediately fastened upon her, her kin already acknowledging it with a thought.

“This… this is a Deep Silver dungeon at the very least, it’s death for anyone save a legendary Gold Titan to even enter!” A horrified Zichen whispered.

Sunlay grit her jaws, then nodded, eyes hurriedly going to the absolute flood of shredded sand worms all around their shelter.

Linnea flashed a fierce smile, instantly understanding. “Yes, collect and store their heads! The two dozen swarmers remaining were scared off by their elder’s cry, but they’ll be back, and soon!”

“We have no time to pick free their beast cores!” An anxious, frustrated Ya Ling cursed.

“No need to worry!” Nili quickly soothed, gently squeezing the girl’s arm. “Just hack off the head portion a good foot or so down, and I can store them all in my storage ring!” She braved a trembling smile. “And thank you, Ya Ling, for saving both my life, and my husband’s. I won’t forget.”

Ya Ling blushed, oddly flustered as the pair of wujen proved chillingly effective at tearing right through spirit beast flesh with streams of razor sharp ice and steel, Quing Da effortlessly cleaving through trunks as well with his guandao, though not before also favoring Ya Ling with a look of genuine gratitude.

And in just a handful of seconds that stretched forever while Alex furiously danced and spun around the worm that was so much greater even than the earlier giant that he had already brought down… it was done.

Fifteen ambushing desert worms that had come so close to killing them all were now the prizes of the most perilous battle that delve had ever been a part of.

Ya Ling, eyes blazing like one born to the desert sands, gave a fierce, satisfied nod. “Alright, it’s done!” She then pointed unerringly to the distant desert sands. “See the way the sand shakes and trembles? The heat shimmer over the air? That’s not temperature, that’s spiritual energy! The swarm’s returning, and there’s more of them than ever!”

Her eyes took on an urgent intensity. “You all have to go back, now!”

Sunlay paled, freezing in horror as she caught sight of the approaching storm of worms and death.

Linnea was awed to sense the very earth tremble and shake, eyes widening at the fierce swarm of heat she sensed gathering in the desert sands.

“Now, now!” Ya Ling screamed, breaking them of their deadly trance as Alex desperately fought for his life while drawing away the massive worm.

Sunlay paled and jerked her head. “To the gate, as one!”

It was almost comical, their stumbling steps through the porous sand as they desperately raced to the shimmering gate. A sliver of perfect darkness in the bone-white sands that both seemed a void that would devour them forevermore, as if they only existed during these moments they fought and bled and raced through the desert sands and the minute they entered… they would be no more.

“Faster, you have to move faster!” Ya Ling’s desperate urgency filled Linnea with an awful sense of dread, suddenly certain that those sand worms were racing far faster than they ever had before.

It was as if they sensed their prey was on the cusp of escaping, and they refused to let anything leave these bone-white sands.

Then Linnea was struck by sudden inspiration. Or perhaps it was Alex or her cousin, as thought became action and Hanz and Lieberman acted as one, projecting their will over the hundreds of yards between them and salvation. The stiffened sand was by no means a frozen slab of worm-proof rock. But it was suddenly more than firm enough for a cultivator’s mad sprint, and much to the credit of Ya Ling, Quing Da, and even Sunlay herself, they all gripped their Ruidian companions by waist or shoulder and helped sprint them across the desert sands.

Just seconds before the chilly bridge of sand was shredded to oblivion by nearly two score sand worms.

Holding back a scream clawing at the back of her throat, Linnea swore she felt the caustic maw of lamprey jaws snapping at her leather boot heel… heard the wujen couple giving a desperate cry, before a gust of hot desert sands literally lifted them off their feet, all of them hurtling toward the sliver of starry darkness as desperately flailing hands touched the gate in tandem, and Linnea disappeared as if she had never been there at all.