The creature’s maw—exceptionally massive even compared to the many Sandworms they had slain before—lunged at Elena.
Sharp fangs like honed blades were mere inches from her when a roar echoed across the dunes.
"Guruuuuuuuuu!"
The Sandworm’s entire body shuddered, thrown off balance by a lateral impact that struck with the force of a battering ram.
A moment later, the monster regained its senses and turned its gaze back toward the ground, but the human it intended to devour was gone.
Of course, even if she had been forced to face the attack head-on, Elena could have handled it in any number of ways. She could have leaped far back to evade, or dodged with hair’s-breadth precision while delivering a devastating counterattack. She even could have taken the path she liked least—diving directly into the Sandworm's mouth to tear it apart from the inside before its jaws could snap shut.
Regardless of her other options, Elena chose the most standard maneuver: a clean leap backward.
However, the fact that she didn't stop at mere evasion was exactly why she was hailed as the Princess General.
The moment she saw Seto slam into the Sandworm’s flank, Elena lashed out with her whip-sword mid-leap.
At this range, ordinary swords or spears would never have reached the target. But for a whip-sword, distance was a triviality.
The weapon’s segmented blades uncoiled, rending the Sandworm’s flesh.
Unlike her earlier strikes, Elena poured a significant amount of mana into the weapon. The enchanted steel tore through the Sandworm’s tough hide, sliced through muscle, and bit deep into the bone beneath.
Yet, even that strike was merely a distraction. As the Sandworm writhed in agony, Seto delivered another blow to its head. The strike pulverized an eyeball and shattered the surrounding skull.
The creature continued to thrash, its relentless vitality—a hallmark of its species—keeping it alive even through such trauma.
It didn't seem to realize that every desperate movement only sealed its fate.
"Seto!"
"Guruuuuu!"
At Rei’s call, Seto landed firmly on the sand and leaped back to stand at his side.
Elena was already there, whip-sword held at the ready.
"Rei?" she asked, her voice tinged with doubt as she watched Rei refrain from pursuing the wounded monster.
Rei offered a small smile from beneath the shadow of his hood.
"Don't worry. The moment it took a hit from Seto, it was over."
"...? Ah, I see."
Understanding dawned on Elena as she looked at Seto’s talons. She remembered the skills the Gryphon had mastered.
Seto’s Poison Claw had reached Level 4 after absorbing the magic stone of a Grand Scorpion. Watching the monster flail in the sand—its movements only accelerating the circulation of the venom—Elena realized the efficacy of the skill. In less than a few minutes, the toxins had completely permeated the giant’s system. It collapsed with a thunderous impact befitting its massive size.
"Poison Claw, huh? When we fought the Earth Crab, we finished it with the Thorn Spear and flame magic, but seeing the skill like this... it's quite a potent weapon."
"To be honest, I had my doubts about a Gryphon using Poison Claw," Rei admitted. "But seeing the results... it's not bad at all."
"Guruu!" Seto chirped proudly, trilling as if to say, "I'm amazing, right?"
Rei stroked the back of Seto’s head and let out a sigh.
"I heard the encounter rate was high on the Oasis Floor, but this is more than I expected. That’s the second time an intruder has jumped into a fight, counting the Earth Crab."
"The third, if you count the Bloody Diles that went after the Earth Crab," Elena corrected. "So, what’s the plan?"
She glanced at the dead Sandworm and the two Desert Lizardman corpses lying a short distance away.
Rei was hesitant to begin material stripping here, but even though the Sandworm hadn't fully emerged from its tunnel, it was clearly over ten meters long.
The Misty Ring meant transport wasn't a problem, but a specimen this large presented an issue of where to perform the dismantling.
(I can't exactly take this thing apart inside Exil. I suppose I could use the guild’s training grounds, but that would just invite a different set of headaches.)
Between his alias and the fact that he traveled with a Gryphon, Rei was quite famous in Exil.
However, fame often bred resentment. Rei knew that if he were seen stripping such a rare, massive monster at the guild, he would likely be harassed by jealous adventurers. He wasn't the type to show mercy to such people, but he didn't want to go looking for trouble, either.
(Besides, monsters are everywhere on this Oasis Floor. We might as well dismantle it here and just kill whatever shows up drawn by the blood.)
He did a quick risk-reward calculation and decided that they could handle anything this floor threw at them.
Though, the memory of the Basilisk of B14F incident kept him from being entirely overconfident.
"Taking this Sandworm back would cause too many problems at the guild. Let's dismantle it here. We can handle the Desert Lizardmen afterward."
Rei touched the two lizardman corpses and stored them in the Misty Ring.
"Seto, sorry, but keep a lookout. A Sandworm this size is going to draw a lot of hungry neighbors."
"Guru!"
Leaving the perimeter to Seto, Rei and Elena set to work on the Sandworm’s massive carcass.
"That's the last of it."
Rei muttered to himself as he carefully extracted the crystalline lens of the eyeball, placed it in a preservation container, and stored it in the Misty Ring.
It had taken about forty minutes. Compared to Pleiades and his group, who could strip a worm in ten, they were moving slowly. Part of that was their relative lack of experience with this specific species, but the primary reason was the sheer size of the creature.
Rei had been forced to store the creature in the Misty Ring and pull it back out just to get the rest of its body out of the ground. When laid out, it measured over fifteen meters in length.
A typical Sandworm was roughly five meters long, making this one three times the standard size.
Rei had wondered if it was an Anomaly Species, but aside from its size, it looked identical to a normal Sandworm. Since every Anomaly Species he had encountered before possessed a distinct physical mutation, he eventually concluded this was simply a giant of its kind, likely due to the rich environment of the oasis.
Another reason for the delay was that the Sandworm’s stomach contained the Desert Lizardman it had swallowed earlier. Rei had sifted through the remains for usable parts.
Most of the lizardman had been shredded by teeth and partially dissolved by stomach acid, but Rei found a stroke of luck: its magic stone was intact. Since they had fought these lizardmen earlier, the kill fulfilled the requirements for his Beast Magic.
"Guruuuuu."
Seto approached Rei, trilling softly. Blood from the perimeter defense stained its beak and forepaws.
Rei had heard the sounds of combat while they worked, so he wasn't surprised. He pulled out the Dagger of Flowing Water to help them clean up.
"Here, let's get you washed off."
He used the water from the dagger to rinse the gore from Seto’s feathers and beak.
If anyone who had tasted the pure, magical water produced by the dagger saw this, they would have screamed about the waste. He was using water so delicious that even royalty might never have sampled it just to rinse a monster's blood off a pet.
"Guruu, guru, gurululu."
Seto purred happily, clearly enjoying the attention.
Elena watched them with a smile, but then looked down at her own hands, which were coated in Sandworm blood and fluids. She frowned slightly.
"Rei, I’m sorry, but could I use some of that as well?"
"Hm? Oh, sorry. I wasn't being very thoughtful. Come here; I'll give you a quick wash."
Elena joined them, cleaning the grime from her arms. When you dismantle a fifteen-meter worm, getting messy is part of the job.
Within a few minutes, the two men and one beast were reasonably clean. The arid desert air began to dry the wet spots on their clothes almost instantly.
(I suppose the heat of the Desert Floor has its perks,) Rei thought.
He began storing the Sandworm’s materials, the magic stone, the Proof of Subjugation Part, and the meat he had set aside for Seto into the Misty Ring.
"Ah."
The moment he touched the materials, his freshly cleaned hands were covered in gore again.
He let out a small sigh. Rather than pulling out the dagger again, he walked over to the oasis and gave his hands a quick rinse.
A few Bloody Diles were lurking near the shore, eyeing him for an opening, but he moved too quickly for them to strike and retreated from the water’s edge.
He approached Seto with a grin, knowing the Gryphon had been ready to pounce the moment a crocodile moved. He reached out and stroked Seto’s head in thanks.
"Guru?"
Seto narrowed its eyes contentedly. Rei chuckled and looked over the clearing.
The corpses of five Kobolds lay nearby. Drawn by the scent of the Sandworm’s blood while Rei and Elena were occupied, they had been systematically eliminated by Seto.
"...They really never learn."
Only a short while ago, a whole pack had been wiped out, yet more had attacked so soon.
Rei thought about it for a moment, then nodded.
"I guess it's because the last bunch was wiped out to the last man."
If even one had survived, it might have returned to the pack to warn the others about how dangerous Rei and his party were. But since there were no survivors, the information never reached the rest. They had simply smelled the blood, seen the humans busy with a carcass, and thought they had found an easy meal—only to be slaughtered by Seto.
"Still, it's a bit disappointing that it was only Kobolds."
The five corpses were in terrible shape. Some were missing heads entirely; others had heads rolling several meters away. One had a massive hole through its torso from a direct hit by Seto’s beak.
"Seto, it's fine to kill them, but try to go a little easier on them. At least try to keep the Proof of Subjugation Parts intact."
"Guruu."
Seto lowered its head as if saying "I'm sorry." Rei gave it a reassuring pat and told it to just be more careful next time as he stored the Kobold remains in the Misty Ring.
In this case, it didn't matter much since they were just low-rank monsters, but it would have been a waste if they were high-rank creatures with rare materials. Seto, for its part, seemed to have been rough precisely because the enemies were so weak.
"Rei, if there's no further reason to stay, shall we move on? We could wait for more monsters, but..."
Elena left the question hanging. Rei looked around for a few seconds before making a decision.
"Let’s keep going. Luring enemies with blood is effective for farming stones and materials, but we can't do it forever. It's better to quit while we're ahead rather than risk getting swarmed by something we can't handle quickly."
If multiple monsters like the Earth Crab showed up, it would take time to put them down, and the noise would only draw more. It wasn't worth the risk just for a few extra materials.
Elena and Seto agreed. The party left the bloody clearing behind and spent the next few hours trekking across the dunes, fending off the occasional predator. By the time the sun began to dip, they finally discovered the stairs leading down to B16F.