“Ahhh! Run!” one yelled in fear.

*Booughm!

With a nearby house being swept as if it exploded, bodies started to fly through the air, only to fall to the ground as lifeless corpses.

At first, the villagers started running from the danger that the sandstorm was, but now they were running from an unknown being that was inside the sandstorm.

Observing the shadows of the beast was enough to determine how large the being was. At least those who managed to see it and made it out alive that is.

One of them described what he saw as someone riding a huge beast and wielding a huge weapon. Though others would have questioned that, everyone did in fact believe this one guy.

The reason was that every time a building was destroyed, a huge wind-cutting sound was to be heard with a faint growl in the background.

While a group of workers was running in the center of the village, they soon started to hear some steps nearing their position.

*Vrghhhhhh~!

As one of them turned to look behind on the sound, his face paled to the extreme.

“W-What the hell is that!?”

Approaching them, was Skull Claw with Danzel dragging the large voulge through the sand.

Because of the sandstorm and the lack of light, the man could only see a massive skull face of a wolve and chillout riding and dragging a massive weapon that had skulls carved too.

Not to say the less, the bloodlust oozing out of those two figures was too terrifying.

“T-They are going to catch up!”

“Run faster!”

“Run if you value your lives!”

Putting everything they got into moving forward, one of the men who was breathing heavily started to slow down.

“Ha~ha~ha~, e-everyone! wait for me!” The man falling behind the other cried out.

“Don´t stop Jame! We got to move-” Trying to motivate the man falling behind named James to keep going, he turned to look at how far he was.

But once he took a look, his mind went blank as he saw a huge mouth open behind James.

“E-Everyone! Wai-“

Before poor James could finish his sentence, the largemouth that could swallow every one of them with one bite closed.

But instead of devouring James whole orbiting him to death, Skull Claw threw James’ body through the air with such force that broke multiple of his bones.

“!!!”

Before the man was able to see James’ pained expression, the huge weapon was shot up from the ground and cleaved James in half with a swift move.

Turning their heads behind the air-cutting sound, before they were able to see the blood from James falling down, the huge voulge was swung down.

Crashing the man in the middle of this group.

Everything happend so fast that the people couldn´t even react to the fact of two of their colleagues dying in such a manner.

“Ahhhhhh~!” As their spirit was being crashed down with the sight of the huge weapon raising once more, they cried in despair.

“A monster!”

“Help!”

“It´s the Devil of Azu´rah!”

Unfortunately for them, their cries of help didn´t manage to bring them out of their situation.

One by one, Danzel started cutting them and creating a blood path wherever he passed by.

The majority of the people facing him were just some mere workers of the 1st-tier with only two of them being of the 2nd-tier. And yet they too perished.

Their massacre though came soon to an end.

“[Ice Shards]!” 

Hearing some sort of yell, Danzel turned around only to see many small ice blades coming flying towards him and Skull Claw.

Danzel raised the huge voulge in front of him and blocked the ice blades using the blade while Skull Claw just right of tanked it using his sole body.

“Ice magic, huh?” Danzel said, seeing the spots where Skull wolve was hit to freezing.

Turning his head to look in the direction where the spell came from, Danzel saw a group of 5 protecting someone with a staff in his hand.

`So they had gathered themself.´ Danzel thought as he looked at them.

“You! Don´t you move or that beast of yours! Drop your weapon and identify yourself!” The man holding the staff said to Danzel.

Ignoring him, Danzel looked down at the crystal he was holding.

“Is that guy suited for your taste? He is a magic caster” 

“No, every one of those is some useless nobodies. They couldn´t hope to put much of a fight against me…or you.”

“I see…”

“Hey! What are you mumbling to yourself! Didn´t I already tell you to drop your weapon!” The man yelled while gathering his mana into the staff he was holding.

Glancing at the man, Danzel raised the crystal up high.

“Don´t kill them, Nersan´rah.”

With a dark golden glow coming out of the crystal, the group of six got alarmed.

The magic caster who cast his ice magic before was about to release another one of his spells when suddenly he and the others got entangled from the sand completely except their head,

`[Sand Prison]´ Nersan´rah finished his spell that controlled the sand and hardened it when it covered someone. Though the was originally meant to cover the whole person and suffocate them to death, Nersan´rah although a bit perplexed, considered Danzel’s words.

Nodding in satisfaction, Danzel stapped the huge voulge into the ground and jumped using his skill behind the group who were trying to free themselves.

“You were right, to be incapable to escape some mere sands. They truly weak.” Danzel commended as he sheathed his sword out and cut the magic caster’s throat.

Turning around and stabbing through the man that was imprisoned in the sands, Danzel pierced his heart and turned in front of the remaining 4 people struggling for their lives.

Danzel though wasn´t as generous as to wait for them to break free.

Cutting their throats one by one while ignoring the XP notification, he was about to swing at the last one.

But before he did, the man managed to break free and clash his weapon with Danzel’s sword at the last moment.

“Ughh…” The man who held his weapon with both hands struggled from the pressure that Danzel’s sword was giving, who in fact was holding it with one hand as usual.

“…” Daznel who saw this though wasn´t much impressed by him.

Throwing the crystal that was Nersan´rah´s vessel up to the air, he punched the man with his now free hand in the center of his chest. Making all the air in his lungs together with saliva coming out of his mouth.

“Guagh!”

Catching Nersan´rah´s vessel, Danzel cut the man’s throat without much hesitation.

“Don´t start throwing my body around…” Nersan´rah complained to Danzel for having his body being treated as such.

“Right, sorry. Is just holding you while fighting is quite troublesome.”

“I see…but then why did you tell me not to kill them? And the way you killed those guys was quite slow, no?” Nersan’rah said, annoyed to be called troublesome.

“I tried killing them with the less amount of damage possible in their body. Now they are in a perfect condition to be possessed by your wraith” Danzel explained.

‘Also if you killed them I would even lose the free XP.’ He thought to himself.

Another reason as to why he did that was also to observe the wraith’s state.

While he read through Nersan’rah’s status, he did find a skill related to storing ethereal undead.

But about their state, he didn’t know.

Though he knew that Nersan’rah could only possess courses or living beings and not actually undead, he wasn’t worried about being possessed by him.

He even checks him with a contract of his.

His being wary was just because his contract of his failed once in the past.

So if the case were to happen that he was forced to fight Nersan’rah, he wanted to know the state of the wraiths too.

‘Though if possible I would like to avoid that of happening.’

As he thought that, some dark most shot out of the crystal and entered the bodies of the deceased ones.

Twitching a bit, the body of the group started to rise once more with newly created voulges in hand.

“Mhmm, follow me,” Danzel said to the bunch.

“Now let’s finish the remaining ones,” Danzel said followed by 6 undead holding voulges and giant skull wolve.

****

At the same time, the huge building serves as the landmark of Sashia Village.

Running inside was a young woman wearing a pure white robe with golden strands and a staff in her hand together with a fairly thin man who was breathing heavily out of exhaustion.

The village who were already on edge from the loud sounds of buildings collapsing had their face brighten up as soon as they saw Sasha coming in.

“Sasha!”

“Chief!”

Seeing people rushing towards her, she imminently looked around concerned.

“Is everyone ok?”

“Yeah, everyone here is safe, but some of us are missing. And the group who went to search for others hasn’t turned back yet. There are also those loud sounds outside…”

Staying silent for a moment, Sasha looked at everyone.

“I am in believe this sandstorm is…artificial.”

Hearing that the villagers got confused, while the warriors and a few magic casters frown in response.

“What do you mean artificial? Like someone used magic or?”

Nodding her head, she replied with a serious tone.

“Yeah, most probably the sandstorm is the work from an enemy.”