The large sun blazed down on Oscar and Gol-4. Oscar got off his deer anima, unsummoned it, and walked slowly around the vicinity.
Forward, backward, and sideways Oscar paced while keeping his eyes on the bodies of the Great Sharakas, which were becoming more and more hidden behind the sands. But no matter what he tried, he always reached a point where he could not get any farther.
"The Sharakas must have swam very far, but where did I end up?" Oscar got tired after an hour of running back and forth, removing his helmet and wiping the sweat from his brow. "At least they taste good raw."
Oscar ate the raw meat of the Great Sharaka, a burst of refreshing flavor that was also slightly cool, perfect against the dry heat of the desert. With the meal in one hand, his other hand traced a large circle around the area. "The entrapment seems to be this big, around 2 miles each way."
"And these–" Oscar marked three dots in the sand close to the circle's edge. "Are the Great Sharakas."
"What a tricky trap. If you're stuck here, you may never get to the cactus tree on the third day." Gol-4 levitated over the makeshift map. "It's an entrapment formation. When one enters one, it feels like they're moving when they're not. Confuses the senses, and any attempts to leave only result in no progress."
"What rotten luck that the Great Sharakas died in an entrapment formation." Oscar finished his meal, wiped his oily hands with the clean sand, and put on his helmet. He traced his finger in the circle drawn on the sand, drawing a long winding trail. "These are my steps, but we saw nothing from the ordinary."
"If the nodes of the formation are placed deep in the sand, it'll be a fruitless endeavor to dig for them. I don't believe the Forest Heart Clan would make things that harsh for their clan members, or maybe this was set up by the Divine Stone Clan, but we wouldn't do that either." Gol-4 plopped to the sand, making a soft sound.
Oscar picked up Gol-4 and dusted the sand off of its battered head, shaking it to get the finer sand that seeped through the cracks. As he cleaned the golem, he pondered on its words. If the trial was meant for Middle Elite Exalts, then it stood to reason that they had the means to get out of this; the question was how?
"If I think about the previous trial I was in, they layered the traps beneath illusions to blend into their surroundings." Oscar snapped his fingers and stood up with a confident gleam in his obsidian eyes which started to shine with a purple ring in his pupils.
'Eliren Breaker'
It had been quite some time since he last used this special ability, minus his powerless attempts during the illusion at the dragon's gate. The power of the Eliren Breaker compounded with his Prinstyct. Within the distorted world of possibilities, some empty places in the twisting desert began to swirl until he spotted several small pillars.
"You have the power to see through illusions? That is astounding!" Gol-4 exclaimed.
However, Oscar shook his head and sighed. "It works well for single illusions or simple ones like these. But if it's a complex illusion with multiple layers or one that far surpasses my power, then it won't work."
Oscar wanted to find ways to strengthen his Eliren Breaker, but nothing came to his attention despite how much he read or trained with it. He asked Eleanor Shaw multiple times to use her illusion spells to train it, but it remained stagnant.
"It depends on my Ein and realm, but I sometimes wonder if there are other ways to upgrade it." Oscar talked as he walked toward the closest pillar. It was made of the same golden sand which filled the desert but smoothed out to a solid structure.
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'Shattering Wave'
From a single power fist infused with Reis, the sand pillar shattered and collapsed back into a mound of golden sand, flowing to become one with the desert. As it fell, Oscar turned his head around to see the other pillars self-destructing in a similar fashion.
The desert remained still with the occasional breeze, but Oscar felt something had changed. He stepped before the spot he could not go beyond previously and reached his foot past it. With a soft thud, his right foot landed safely.
"Finally, I can progress, hmm?" Oscar squinted behind his helmet. He wiped the black glass visor but tilted his head in confusion.
"What is it, lad?" Gol-4 was currently resting, tied around to Oscar's chest.
Oscar took off his helmet, and his eyes trembled, still with the purple ring of Eliren Breaker shining in the dark pupils, gazing in confusion at his surroundings, particularly the ground.
"Lad! I can't help if you won't say anything." Gol-4 shouted. Oscar's open confusion and speechlessness were concerning. He had to be rectified immediately, or Gol-4 feared the trial would consume Oscar.
"I see pathways…." Oscar knelt on the sand and put on his helmet. Within his Eliren Breaker, he saw the sands distorting away to show the faint traces of solid roads. The road was battered and broken apart, appearing closer to scattered pieces of rubble, but he could still see distinct paths being made from the traces.
"These roads look like they've been destroyed long ago, but why was an illusion overlaid to hide them?" Oscar asked.
"What do the roads look like?" Gol-4 fidgeted around, wanting to hover, but Oscar did not let him.
"As I said, they're all ruined, but–" Oscar tapped his foot on the hard surface of one of the broken pieces, inducing a clear sound that could never be heard in the sands. "These remnants remain. I can't see anything to describe it to you."
He reached his hands down to pick up a piece, but no matter how much strength he exerted, it remained immovable. Like the leaf on the large tree in ruins, he felt he was pulling up an entire mountain.
"Do these roads extend deep in the sands?" Oscar rubbed his hands. "Who would build a road like this?"
"A strange occurrence; let's follow it," Gol-4 said.
Oscar summoned his deer anima and set off on his way out of the broken entrapment formation. He went up the great dunes, tumbled down the sandy slopes, and cast a long shadow across the sand as the large sun reached its apex over the clear sky.
He entered several other entrapment formations along the way, but they were reduced to nothing before his Eliren Breaker. However, the constant use of Eliren Breaker started to bleed his Ein like an unclosed wound, along with the stress of being in the desert, sapping his stamina.
"Huh?" Oscar narrowed his eyes to look closer at the large clouds of sand being turned up in the air. "That's…."
…….
A green hawk flew by, swooping in with green winds swirling under the flapping of its wings. Its blade wings sliced through several strange insects, and the subsequent winds sliced all over and tore the monsters apart.
Frederick breathed out, sweating all over. His green hair stuck to his head in a greasy mess from the slick sweat. He swung his twin swords with great fervor, kicking up great clouds of sand from his cyclones and gust blades.
But no matter how many he cut apart, the monsters continued to pop out of the sands, clicking and clacking their jaws and mandibles. The insects were large ants heavily armored with golden carapaces with large red eyes. Frederick let out a large cry as he charged his way into the fresh new group of ants.
"Don't be too rash, Fred." Emily's voice came from behind a mass of ants that were soon tossed into the air; pieces of their body fell like a horrific rainfall. Emily swung her staff with all her might, using weight boost to crush every ant in her path.
Parts of the sand around here were wet with brown sand that entangled the ants and slowed their movements. Large earthen spikes impaled these trapped ants, and Emily began to pale.
"How many of these monsters are there?" Emily coughed.
For an entire hour, they had fought against these monsters, but there was no sign of their numbers dwindling or slowing down. Their Ein was slowly depleting into nothing.
"Emily! Behind you!" Frederick rushed ahead with the winds flowing under his feet.
Emily turned and saw a large ant had crept behind her, stepping on the bodies of its fellow ants to avoid the spikes and entrapping sand. Her orange hair whipped around, and she struggled to put up her stone wall in time. The mandibles of the ant drew closer to her eyes.
Suddenly, a fast silver blur went past and imploded the head of the encroaching ant. Frederick and Emily stared in the direction in which the object came from, and their eyes shone with delight.
A long black figure walked closer, the sole shadow in the golden lands riding atop a blue deer anima.
"Os!" Frederick laughed.
"Nice timing!" Emily bashed away another ant.
"Always in trouble, you two." Oscar chuckled and rode his deer anima into the mess.