CHAPTER 166: A SURPRISE

Meanwhile, Zephyr, who was already a very long distance from them, was still widening the gap even more.

Immediately he had crossed the horizon, disappearing from Elara’s view, he burst into a full sprint, exerting himself fully.

He was sure a few champions might’ve spotted him from a distance, and would’ve been thoroughly shocked at his speed... but he didn’t care.

He just wanted to put as much distance between himself and the elf variant girl.

As he ran, he willed the general ranking panel into his view, to see where he ranked now that some minutes had passed.

And immediately he did, he nearly stumbled in surprise.

———————————

Rank No: 33,664

Name: ZeroOne Sovereign

Rep: Planet 7. J–22. 02–0038

———————————

"What the hell!"

Just within the span of some twenty minutes since the grace period had been lifted, and he had already been booted from the No.3 spot all the way down to 33,664!

The champions had started killing... In droves too.

He was sure that the majority of those kills came from the various oases.

Those were the real culling grounds.

He quickly scrolled up to the top of the list, eager to see whether ’Queen of the dunes’ was still leading the rankings.

’Yep. She’s still there...’

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No:

1

Name: Queen of The Dunes

Rep: Planet 3. B–14. 01–0142

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

And just below her, someone else had taken the No.2 spot from the ’Lord’ guy, booting him to No.3.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 2

Name: Alyra Ryvelin

Rep: Planet 1. J–22. 02–0031

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 3

Name: Lord Supreme Overlord of Absolutely Everything (First of his name.)

Rep: Planet 13. B–14. 01–0153

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Zephyr halted abruptly, stumbling to a stop as he stared at the name written very clearly in the No.2 spot.

Alyra Ryvelin.

There was nothing to even doubt.

That was Mistress Alyra... From the military camp... The sister of the Grand Commander!

’She’s here?!’ Zephyr was shocked. ’How?!’

His thoughts moved at a mile a minute, trying to understand what might have happened for her to be here.

He knew there were no other ’Exalted’ that had landed on Komi’s world besides him and Smiling Devil.

There had been no news whatsoever that told him otherwise.

Coupled with the fact that champions from the same world couldn’t be in the same sector — not taking Elara and the elf dragonkin into consideration — the only logical explanation was that she had landed in another world safely...

And that meant it was very possible most of his friends and acquaintances from the military camp could also have survived...

Zephyr pushed the doubts as to how they would’ve even survived the entry to the back of his mind.

If not for his enhanced body, he would have died on entry from the high velocity impact he made on the forest floor, and even Smiling Devil would’ve also, with no one to cushion his crash.

Zephyr let out a deep breath.

It didn’t really matter.

He wasn’t the same person he was back at the military camp. Even if they met, he was sure he could hold his own against her.

But given the choice, he would rather not face her at all until it was necessary.

Survive and avoid unnecessary trouble.

That was all he was going to do. He wasn’t going to attack anyone unless they attacked him first. His main priority would simply be to make it to the next day, and better understand how this place worked.

His current rank had dropped even further down to No.56,283. But he didn’t really care that much. Aside from the top five spots, Zephyr knew the rest of the rankings would be very volatile, changing positions for the first few days.

He could guess that only those who had the power to dominate any of the large oases would have a somewhat stable rank.

He could already see Braddox and Moonlight Sage at the No.9 and No.17 spots respectively.

"Damn..." Zephyr whispered, "Even holding the largest of the western oases is barely enough to hold the top 5... Just how many champions have these guys killed...?"

His eyes moved back up to the top 3 positions, and in particular, Alyra’s name.

How many champions had she killed already?

She was surely holding one of the large oases in her grasp...

He sighed, picking up his pace again.

He was already tens of miles away from the elf duo that were trailing him, but he still wanted to put more gap between them.

"Should I start looping towards the border now...?" Zephyr looked towards his left. That was his real goal afterall.

But just as he was thinking this, he suddenly frowned, noticing a dark mass on the horizon on his left.

He squinted his eyes, trying to make out what he was seeing.

"Some kind of large dune...? No..." Zephyr squatted, placing a hand on the sand to feel for vibrations while also straining his ears to the maximum, trying to pick up the slightest sound.

At first there was nothing... The distance was too far to pick up anything substantial.

But the more time he stayed in that position, the more he started to pick up on little sounds.

Like a constant buzzing drone. Like there was a massive swarm of bees coming from the far distance.

The sound was very faint, and Zephyr doubted whether he was even hearing correctly.

But Aegis’ voice cut through his thoughts with a loud warning.

It’s a sandstorm, host! Try to find somewhere to take cover if you can!

"A sandstorm?" Zephyr stood up abruptly. He had only read about something like that in a book once back in his world, so he had no real experience or particular fear towards it, but Aegis’ tone made him wary.

He looked back up at the mass that was looking even more defined now.

Already, he could hear the sound from where he was louder now even without straining.

And it sent a shiver down his spine.

It looked like an encroaching darkness, taking up the entire horizon as it drew ever closer.

"Fuck! There is no cover in sight, Aegis!" Zephyr yelled, scanning the dim surroundings as the sound of the incoming sandstorm became louder.

The other side of a dune is best! Aegis supplied quickly.

It breaks the force of the wind and keeps the sand from burying you fully! Just dig in, stay low, and don’t try to outrun it! You won’t win!

Zephyr cursed, already sprinting towards the nearest dune he could use even before Aegis started to explain.

Fortunately, he had just crossed one a couple of miles behind.

He charged towards it with speed, just as the sandstorm thundered closer, eating up ground rapidly.

"Fuck! Why is it so fast?!!" Zephyr reached the dune, bounding up to the top just as the sandstorm roared behind him, staring intently at the crest of the dune like it was his saving grace.

Zephyr let out a loud yell that got buried by the overwhelming sound of the sandstorm that had closed down on him, and as he got to the crest, with a massive leap, he jumped down the other side of the dune, hands flailing about wildly.

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This Chapter’s special thanks goes to LunarEcho. Thank you for the Ice-Cola Gifts!