...
Somewhere on another continent.
"How sad, another one fell, now only 19 remain."
...
A scientist somewhere.
"Hmmm, I knew it! There is something out there. I knew they didn´t lie!"
...
Somewhere in a grant temple.
"Such a shame. You were so close..."
...
A king on his throne.
"The race begins now..."
...
"Hah, I should really get off my ass and start preparing. It won't be long till the others arrive."
...
The sand golem and a few fist-sized earth beetles materialized dozens of kilometers away from the blast radius. #11077 saw the bright tower of light. He saw a few of those, only dessert behemoths with red shells die in such a grand way. The ray kills everything in the region, while also saturating the surroundings with high amounts of energy and mana. The environment would surely change in the coming decades. It was theorized that the grand Sakata dessert was the result of a desert behemoth´s death.
But before it died it teleported them far away and left him a message.
'Find the origin cube that lays at my grave.'
"11077 was disoriented then surprised by the intelligence.
But then realization hit him.
He got a mission, a command, something to follow!
Now finally with a purpose again, he immediately started to walk towards the place.
Sand golems don't take commands from every one, only select few could command them but as desert behemoths are sacred to the Sakata empire, it overwritten the rule, like a lope hole.
The beetles followed him and skittled around, a few even crawled up his body, clinging to his armor.
It didn´t take long to reach the edge of the blast radius. The dessert turned into glass and long spirals of pure translucent crystal trees sprouted everywhere. He could even see some worms crystalize in the distance, making the ground uneven.
The crystal took all kinds of shapes and sizes. Few even changed in color right in front of him.
Stepping on the glass it didn´t even crack. The place was swirling with energy, making his senses go haywire like he was in murky water. He didn´t even have to expose his core to recharge as the energy was so dense that it saturated his whole body.
Live was already forming as he saw a few crystal branches break off, turning into purple translucent butterflies. They flew in front of him as if to guide him.
...
The purple butterflies glimmered as they guided the small 'entourage' through winded trees and crystal structures. The deeper they went the more bizarre the environment turned. Life sprouted all around them.
Even a river has formed as water poured out from a large blue gem. The water was so crystal clear that one had to look very close to even see that there was water. Small crystal crustaceans roamed around the river. And life would only appear faster with each passing hour.
Daytime came and the rays of the sun fractured all around them. Rainbow light shimmered and danced around.
The sand golem never saw something like this before and stood on full alarm the whole time.
...
A few days have passed. The landscape moved and changed on a daily basis as if it was alive. Large crystal maintains began to rise out of the ground. Trees and crystal growths he had never seen before appeared overnight. The silent night turned into a Carnevale of birds chirping. But the sound was quite peculiar as it sounded similar to someone drawing a sword. He took shelter between large crystal structures as he saw some larger animals appear. But they all ignored him and just walked passed him.
Little by little he traversed the unknown terrain but eventually, he found his destination. The sand golem now stood in front of a large crater.
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The earth bugs long left when they realized that there was ample food out there and no predators that would bother them.
Looking down at the crater, it was so deep that he could barely see the small cube in the middle, but it glowed with such a brightness in his vision, radiating immense amounts of energy. But the body of the desert behemoth was nowhere to be seen. Only the hundreds of thousands of translucent sandworms frozen in place covered the area, frozen in place. They were curled and bent as if having suffered agonizing pain.
Descending into the crater he noticed a few large holes and the sound of glass breaking.
Pulling out a buckler shield and a spear made out of core sand from his chest, he slowly approached the cube. Sensing the ground vibrating as something was closing in, he stood in place and prepared to strike.
*Crack*
Seeing the floor beneath him crack he jumped away, just fast enough as a familiar giant worm dug out of the ground right where the sand golem was. Splinters of sharp crystals flew everywhere. Seeing a crystalized worm shredding the ground into powder, he backed off. The worm was seemingly made out of smokey quartz but otherwise had exactly the same form.
Noticing that it has missed its target the worm burrowed underground again. The scraping of glass was apparent and it quickly vanished.
Feeling the vibration beneath his feet getting closer again, he jumped to the side, just barely avoiding the razor-sharp maw of the former dessert menace. The worm arced over him and raced down. With another leap, the golem jumped away but this time he was a little too slow. The core sand did nothing to protect him as his leg was cleanly cut off and shredded. Falling next to the worm which was burrowing down.
#11077 took the opportunity he thrust his lance into the crystal body of the creature. The clean thrust pierced the body and broke off large chunks. Quickly changed the spear into a Halbert. Having a seemingly unlimited energy supply he made the bladed side of the weapon spin like a saw. The core sand rasped the smoky quartz away leaving a long cut and cracks along the worm's side as it burrowed down. Some clear brown liquid sprayed and painted his whole body with it, but he stayed unmoving till the blade finally reached the end of the worm. The brown liquid crystallized the vital sand and he quickly pushed a layer of sand off his body. The cut was far too shallow to have ended the creature. He immediately moved to another spot and waited for the worm to come back up. Holding the smoking halbert high overhead ready to cleave down.
He realized that due to the large amounts of energy this worm somehow managed to absorb enough of it to mutate into a mana beast. It was still a new one, but nevertheless, mana beasts are creatures of legends.
But something wasn't right with this one, it was far weaker than every other mana beast he encountered. It may be a side effect of forming the mana heart far too quickly, making its mutations suboptimal. Its strength may only be a pseudo mana beast at this point.
Jumping on one leg the golem decided to sacrifice some of his energy to remake his leg. His core glowed with a yellow sheen as sand poured out of it, reshaping his missing leg in mere seconds. It cut down his energy by roughly 10%. Recreating body parts was very energy-consuming, but with the highly mana-saturated environment, it wasn't a big loss.
The varmint rose out of the ground again but thrashed its head around trying to swat the golem with its massive head. The soldier dodged and weaved around, but in the end, got hit, the immense kinetic energy behind the impact flung him off his feet and straight into the wall of the crater. His sand body deformed as he splattered against the wall. His core was unhurt, the sand absorbed most of the force, but his body took a while to reform.
The worm screeched and dug underground again. He could feel the vibration getting closer and closer, but his body has yet to fully reform itself. Having no other choice the golem created more vital sand and pushed itself away. Just a moment later the worm bursts out and shredded everything in its path.
His energy was low but luckily he was recharging at all times. Pushing his core to the limit he reformed his boy again and created a javelin, throwing it at the mana beast's head.
The worm turned its head and a sheen of brown light enveloped it.
The javelin left a few cracks behind but otherwise bounced off.
The golem could swear that the worm just smiled, as it discovered his new ability.
[Golem #11077
Type: Common Footsoldier
Learned Types: Common Scout/ Common Shieldberear/ Elite Spear Thrower
System Rank: 5
Energy: 20%
Energy: 70%
Core endurance: 86%
Vital Sand capacity: 77%
Core Sand capacity: 61%]
Quickly inspect at his status, he could see that the energy recharge rate was far greater than he imagined.
It was now a matter of endurance, the sand golem couldn´t deal significant damage, but it could slowly and surely chip away the large mana beast. With a seemingly endless energy supply, he could form unlimited core sand weapons.
The calculation only took a moment, but the worm was already charging him like a train. The maw of the creature rotated so fast that he could feel a small suction force. knowing that he has enough energy to spare he dodged just enough that his legs got cut off. Creating a large Warhammer swung the weapon on the already digging worm.
*CRACK*
A large crack formed on the midsection of the worm, #11077 reared his hammer to swing again, but the large end of the mana beast whipped around and smashed his body into the ground. Sand sprayed everywhere as the core immediately tried to reform its body again.
The arms formed first and he promptly created six throwing knives while the rest of the body reformed.
The ground vibrated, the golem quickly threw all six knives at a crystal structure. At the end of the weapons, a string of sand was connected to him. With a quick tug, the structure buckled and fell right toward him. Not expecting it to fall #11077 system calculated every possibility to get away. Large amounts of sand exploded out of the core sending the energy reserves into critical conditions, but the sand managed to push the core away.
The worm emerged but what meet him was a large crystal pillar falling down.
*Booom*
The structure pressed the worm back to the ground and the whole place shook from the force. The worm was stunned and stuck under the crystal tower, it beast was helplessly thrashing around in a dazed state. The core sat on a pile of sand motionlessly with loose sand desperately trying to reform, the core had large cracks running through the intricate runes. The glow was dim but he was still active.
#11077 slowly refilled, and immediately turned the energy into vital and core sand. The stuck mana beast pushed its body forward gradually freeing himself.
Now it was a race against time...
...
[Some sand golems choose a star that no other sand golems claimed and watch it on cloudless nights. Instincanses of fighting over stars have been seen numerous times. -excerpt from "Sand golem facts" by Dalium Krad.]