The Terrifying River!

The Shamang River was home to a creature out of nightmare — the White Sand Demon Soldier. Standing atop the swelling gobi plateau and gazing ahead, one could see a vast, sunken expanse of parched earth stretching out below.

"River" was the official name, but to everyone present it looked more like a sea — a broad depression sloping gently downward along the continental shelf, its bed blanketed in fine white silt of uneven depth. The silt rose and crested in gentle dunes, and from a distance the whole thing shimmered like a white ocean caught mid-swell.

"Didn't they say White Sand Demon Soldiers were everywhere here? I don't see a single one." Zhang Xiaohou raised one hand to shield his eyes from the sun and peered into the distance.

The others had the same question. Their field of view was decent — the white silt was visible for several kilometers in every direction — and nothing stirred within it. Apart from the occasional thin veil of white sand lifted by the wind, not a single thing moved.

Then Lingling reached into her pack and pulled out a worthless organ salvaged from their Sand Roar Tiger kill. She held it out to Zhang Xiaohou. "Here. Throw it as far as you can."

Zhang Xiaohou wound up and hurled the organ out into the Shamang River with everything he had. A heartbeat later, the still white silt erupted — wave upon wave of sand bursting skyward in cascading rings.

From within those waves, semi-giant figures rose to their full three-meter heights, each one gripping a long blade crystallized from packed sand. They formed a tight ring around the blood-reeking organ and swept their eyes across the surroundings — then, just as abruptly, each figure dissolved back into grains of fine white sand and scattered across the riverbed.

The whole thing lasted only a few seconds. One moment: a peaceful expanse of white silt. The next: forty or fifty sand-blade giants erupting from the ground. Then: silence again, the surface undisturbed, as though nothing had happened. Everyone stood there slack-jawed.

"It's one tiny little organ — did they really need to send that many creatures swarming up?" Zhang Xiaohou said, his face still frozen in disbelief. "If our whole group walked in there, they'd raise an entire army against us."

Mo Fan and Zhao Manyan both nodded vigorously. They'd nearly wet themselves.

Good thing no one had just wandered straight in. Heaven only knew how many White Sand Demon Soldiers would have erupted around them.

"We'll camp on the riverbank tonight — it'll be dark soon. We can leave at first light." Lingling announced.

When it came to setting up camp, no one could match Zhang Xiaohou.

The man operated like he'd been injected with pure adrenaline — limitless energy every single day, enthusiastic about everything without exception. While everyone else was resting, he had already briskly erected both tents: one for the men, one for the women.

Mo Fan walked over to the Swift Star Wolf and began running his fingers through the fur at its neck. "Are you tired?" he asked Xinxia, who was seated on its back.

Ye Xinxia shook her head and was about to answer — but the Swift Star Wolf slowly raised its great head with a deeply aggrieved expression, as if to say the question should clearly have been directed at it.

Mo Fan laughed despite himself and gave the Gloom Wolf Beast a pat on the head.

The Gloom Wolf Beast had certainly earned its keep. The entire journey, it had carried not just Xinxia but also the petite Lingling, whose stamina wasn't quite up to adult standards. Lingling was small and dainty; Xinxia was slender — together, they probably weighed less than Mo Fan alone. What the Swift Star Wolf truly resented was that this time, unlike every other, it hadn't been able to do what it loved most: charge headlong into the thick of battle.

"The White Sand Demon Soldiers seem to be defending their territory rather than acting on bloodlust," Xinxia said, a gentle smile on her face. "They're nothing like the savage Sand Roar Tigers. I should be able to pacify them."

Mo Fan looked at the fine beads of sweat on her forehead and felt a quiet ache — but her expression was unmistakably bright. She had never been to a place like this before. She had never fought side by side with him.

Night fell quickly.

The temperature swings on the gobi were extreme. Once the last warmth bled out of the yellow-white earth, the cold swept in without warning — silent and absolute.

The three women had already retreated to their tent. The three men took turns standing watch through the night.

Mo Fan had the second half. When he took over, it felt like stepping into another world entirely — the cold arrived with nothing to blunt it, raw wind slicing across skin like a blade.

He conjured a small flame and dropped it to the ground, coaxing it into a modest campfire.

Bored out of his mind, he spent the next stretch of time extinguishing it and relighting it over and over. About half an hour in, he caught a sound from somewhere in the distance.

He had night vision, but fine white sand hung suspended in the air, cutting visibility down to almost nothing.

He roused Zhang Xiaohou and left him to guard the tents, then headed toward the source of the noise.

It was layered, overlapping — footsteps, dozens upon dozens of them, belonging to some unknown number of creatures thundering across the gobi wasteland.

Mo Fan reached a jutting rock face and pressed himself into a crevice rather than rounding it blindly. Peering ahead, he found the air there clearer — the drifting white sand hadn't reached this spot. In the moonlight, he could make out a small pack of Sand Roar Tigers tearing across the ground not far away.

Their roars were deafening. Every stride sent tremors rippling through the earth.

Beyond them, a group of Hunter-mages was fleeing in full panic, terror written across every face.

Six or seven Sand Roar Tigers. A pack that size would have sent even Mo Fan's own team sprinting in the opposite direction.

In the moonlight, Mo Fan recognized two figures in the group — the sharp-tongued woman with the dark, sun-scorched complexion, and the black-bearded captain.

They were running blind, too far gone with fear to think straight — and they were running straight toward the Shamang River.

Within moments they had stumbled into the white silt of the riverbed. They didn't dare stop, pressing forward until they were four or five hundred meters in.

The Sand Roar Tigers that had been relentlessly pursuing them ground to a halt at the riverbank. They clustered at the very edge, bodies trembling with the urge to charge — yet something held them back. Not one took another step forward.

They stood there, seething, eyes fixed on their quarry with the helpless fury of predators watching a meal slip away.

Mo Fan was still puzzling over why these notoriously ferocious Sand Roar Tigers had suddenly abandoned the chase — when a sight rose from the Shamang River that stopped his heart dead.

Row upon row of White Sand Demon Soldiers burst from the white sands. Their crystallized blades rose and fell in a relentless, overlapping cascade, sweeping down toward the stranded Hunter-mages...

Screams of pure terror rang out across the riverbed — and then, in an instant, blood sprayed across the sky.