"Man… it hasn't even been 5 minutes, yet I'm already starting to feel worn out…

" Ming Hao complained as we dragged our bodies forward in this endless sea of grey and death.

One of us had erected a protective sound barrier around us so that we could hear each other properly without having to scream, which was certainly useful.

"Stop complaining,

" Si Ye muttered, smacking Ming Hao on the back of his neck.

"O-Ow!

"

"Hmph.

"

"You two… settle do-

" Long Lu began, but suddenly stopped as he saw what was coming up ahead.

"Everyone, DODGE!

"

"Wha-!

"

Immediately, The girls and I leaped to the right, just as a large grey tumbleweed tore through our group at an insane speed.

Others, however, were not so lucky.

Five people — an entire team — ended up being crushed by it, too fast to even react. Their corpses immediately decayed into nothing but bones, then swallowed by the ash-grey land.

"What the hell…

" Ming Hao muttered in shock, frozen still.

"Tch, it's not done yet!

" Long Lu roared as he used his Earth Magic and slammed the floor.

"Level Three Earth Magic — Mountain of Prometheus!

"

Faced with several more angry tumbleweeds charging at us at full force, Long Lu created a large mountain of rock before us to block them off. But-

"Brother Long, they're going around!

" One guy in his team yelled.

"Level Two Fire Magic — Celestial Fire!

"

Thin bolts of flames shot out of his hand and struck the tumbleweed, lighting it aflame. Within seconds, it had burnt to a crisp — being made out of wood and all. However, there were more to deal with, and killing them like this wasn't the way to go.

I stepped in and mimicked Long Lu's actions.

Level Three Earth Magic — Mountain of Prometheus.

Creating a massive mountain even bigger than his on the left side, the tumbleweeds were forced to go in a different direction. However, I continued and formed mountains all around us so that we were trapped inside a square of sorts. That said, although we were trapped, it also meant the tumbleweed couldn't get in.

"So quick…

" Long Lu muttered, looking at me in surprise.

"Brother Xuan, how did you…

"

I shot him a look that implied 'don't ask further', and he did as told obediently.

Now that we were protected on all four sides, we could afford to relax a bit.

"What were those things…?

" Ming Hao muttered in disgust.

"The Xing Family's… they were wiped out in an instant…

"

"They looked like tumbleweeds, but we're in a forest biome…

" Si Ye murmured.

"Well, what's left of one, anyway.

"

"The moment these mountains fall, those things will be all over us. We can't keep going like this,

" Long Lu said.

"Therefore, I propose we take the high road.

"

"The high road… but not all of us can fly here,

" Long Yi said.

"That's fine,

" I interjected.

"We can use Ice and Earth Magic to build our way across while letting those with Sky Magic carry one person each.

"

And so, that was exactly what we did. Feng Mian, Mei Gui, Obsidia, and I all worked on building a path across along with a few others, while Ming Hao and the air scouts from earlier each carried one other person.

We could spot the tumbleweed below us, still ramming up against the mountains we had made, having no idea we were passing through high up above them.

The 'building' team took turns creating a bridge of ice and earth, slowly making our way through this grey land of death. Although the 'sky' team could technically go a lot faster than us, they still stuck close to us out of fear of what might lay ahead. We wanted to stick together; there was no telling what other surprises might be coming for us.

Hell, there might even be man-eating bird-

"CA-CAWWWW!

"

"Woah- look out!

"

Just as I was thinking this, an enormous shadow swooped down at us, donned with two evil red eyes and an all-black body that blended in with the dark environment. Everyone ducked just barely in time as the creature flew by, deadly sharp claws grasping nothing but thin air.

"CAWWWW!

"

It screamed in rage at its own failure, before immediately turning around and diving in for another attack. However, this time, we were ready.

"Level Three Ice Magic — Frostbourne Needle!

"

Feng Mian launched a barrage of ice needles towards the bird, piercing through it instantly.

"SKREEEE!

"

The creature shrieked in pain as green blood spilt out of its body where the needles struck them.

Feng Mian then balled her hand into a fist, causing the frozen needles to shatter within the monster's body in a beautiful crystal explosion. With one final cry of pain, the red light in the creature's eyes died out, and the rest of the body fell to the ground dead, serving as nothing more than a stepping stone for the tumbleweeds down below.

Unfortunately, there was no time to rest as more creatures of the same type appeared out of nowhere, some going for us and some going for the sky group.

"Tch-!

" Ming Hao swerved up, just barely avoiding the claws of one of the birds. Si Ye, who he was carrying, hurriedly launched a Water-Element attack that exploded on the creature and knocked it away, but wasn't enough to kill it directly.

Mei Gui and I leaped into battle as well, each taking down two of the creatures instantly without our Chaos weapons. Conserving mana was important, so I refrained from using actual magic. I cut directly through the neck of another bird who tried charging straight at me — not the best idea. But suddenly-

"CAWW!

"

I heard an ear-splitting cry coming from behind me, and it was too late to turn. My eyes widened a bit and hurriedly tried to cower behind my blades.

BOOM!

"Huh…?

"

Hesitantly, I opened my eyes again and saw the creature that had been planning on biting my head off dead on the bridge we had built. On the other end of the body was Long Yi, with her hand still outreached and a fiery purple energy rising out of it — Void Magic.

"Thanks,

" I said awkwardly, scratching my head.

"Uh… I owe you one.

"

"Hmph,

" she snorted and turned away, clearly unamused. My shameful display just now served to prove her point on why she had to follow me, so now it was difficult for me to reject her.

A blunder on my part, but she was quite strong anyway, so I'll gladly take the trade-off.

The battle against the flock of monstrous man-eating birds concluded soon after that. Corpses lay littered on the bridge and down below on the ground — all bird ones, thankfully. But that didn't mean none of us died — the ones who did just ended up in the birds' stomachs, and in pieces.

Overall, we lost ten people. Two whole teams' worth of people, gone. Minus the five we lost last night and the five earlier from the tumbleweeds, we were now down to only half of what we left Fragment with.

By now, some people were starting to panic and fall into states of trauma — not that I could blame them. After witnessing the dangers out here and their allies fall one by one, dying horrible deaths, it is only natural that they would become scared.

Still, it was in these situations that remaining calm was absolutely essential if they wanted to survive.

"Everyone… I'd like you to stay vigilant,

" Long Lu said, taking on the role of leader and calming the minds of those who needed it.

"I know it must be hard, witnessing the deaths of your friends and family, but… if you want to get through this, we have to keep a level head and think clearly.

"

"Basically,

" Ming Hao cut in rudely.

"What he's saying is, save the mourning crap for later. Let's get the hell out of here before we end up becoming the ones who need to be mourned for.

"

Well, that was insensitive.

Strangely, however, it seemed to have actually worked. The ones who were on the verge of tears wiped their eyes and shook their feelings of sadness off, forged anew with determination. Those who had been about to have a mental breakdown stabilized their conditions and took deep breaths.

Ming Hao's somewhat harsh words had resonated them far deeper than Long Lu's motivational speech had, which came as quite the surprise to me.

The emotionally fallen picked themselves back up and began putting their all into the escape from this place once more, continuing with the construction of the bridge while the aerial team decided to go just slightly ahead of us to scout for any danger in case something like that takes us all by surprise again.

I guess, in a state of desperation like this, people didn't need some false hope, some shining beacon of light that motivated them to go forward.. All they needed was a good slap across the cheeks to wake them up and face the reality.