The White Sand Giants' Frenzied Formation

**BOOM!!!!!**

**BOOM!!!!!!**

A series of thunderous blasts tore through the white sand, shattering the quiet of dusk like death knells tolling across the wasteland.

Clouds of pale grit billowed skyward, as though countless serpentine dragons were writhing beneath the surface of the white sand river, churning up waves tall enough to blot out the sky.

A bone-chilling aura swept outward — demons clawing up from the depths of hell — and one after another, White Sand Giants standing five meters tall heaved themselves free of the ground.

Each gripped a three-meter blade carved from compacted sand. Their bodies, coated in layer after layer of tightly-packed grains, were anything but soft — the particles locked together into what appeared to be magnificent suits of battle armor.

Their eyes burned with savage fury. Whatever had slumbered here despised nothing more than being disturbed.

Pupils blazing crimson, they let loose roars like rolling thunder.

The sound hit like a physical force — it was as if something had detonated inside everyone's skulls. But before anyone could even begin to fill with dread, the White Sand Giants had already consumed every inch of their vision.

These Elemental Demons, soaked in untold amounts of spilled blood, were capable of a killing intent that made them far more terrifying than any flesh-and-blood Demon-Beast — utterly without restraint, utterly without mercy.

Several walls of sand erupted simultaneously. Through the haze of swirling grit, no one could see what was happening to anyone else.

Everyone recalled the plan they'd laid out beforehand. The knowledge that a failure on their end would drag the others down with them left no room for even the slightest lapse in focus.

"Trouble — Zhao Manyan's side has far more White Sand Giants!" Lingling called out from her position in the central safe zone.

Every plan looks perfect in theory. They'd assumed that spreading out would distribute the White Sand Giants evenly across the group. But the giants weren't machines executing a script — the stretch of dunes where Zhao Manyan stood simply happened to be home to a far denser population, and not one of them had any interest in seeking out Mo Fan or Zhang Xiaohou. Every last giant had materialized directly on top of Zhao Manyan.

*Guess it's his turn to find out what kind of luck he's really got.* The thought flickered through Mo Fan's mind from somewhere nearby.

Not that Mo Fan had any time for that. Whatever else Zhao Manyan might be — possibly the weakest link in the entire team — something had to be done about the mob converging on him right now. If nothing changed, that pampered playboy would be reduced to a smear on the sand within minutes.

Row after row, the White Sand Giants arrived with almost military precision, materializing in perfectly ordered lines.

That very orderliness made them deadly. Their formations became living walls of towering bodies, and when those terrifying sand blades fell, there was nowhere to dodge — an absolute maelstrom of giant blades, a formation designed to leave nothing behind.

Zhao Manyan stared at the White Sand Giants closing in from every direction. With his sightlines blocked, he had no idea he was in the worst position of anyone.

He forced himself to stay calm. First, he cast Water Control, wrapping his body in a circulating shell of liquid.

Water Control was an exceptionally practical defensive spell. Its third-tier special effect — Circulation — allowed the skill to be continuously layered onto one's own body, stacking multiple instances of Water Control at once.

Zhao Manyan had stacked three layers before the White Sand Giants emerged. Three was his personal ceiling. Water Element mages with more refined control could reach four or even five layers — though most relied on Water Element Magic Weapons to get there.

Three stacked layers of Water Control — Circulation should have been enough to weather the giants' sword strikes. But Zhao Manyan had badly misjudged both their strength and their numbers. When the sand blades fell like a curtain blotting out the sky, every last layer of his Water Control — Circulation shattered at once, dissolving into scattered droplets.

The color drained from his face. Thank god he'd already started sketching his Star Chart.

His fundamentals were solid — if he'd been like those Hunter-mages from before, shattering his Star Chart from sheer panic, the second wave of sweeping sand blades would have ground whatever was left of him into pulp.

"Light's Grace — Sacred Shield!"

He hadn't reached for the second tier of Light's Grace. Light Grace — Painted Wall was better suited to blocking attacks coming from a single direction. Sacred Shield offered weaker overall coverage, but it wrapped around one target completely — a full sphere of protection.

Holy light radiated gentle warmth as a seamless arc sealed itself around Zhao Manyan. He had barely begun to exhale in relief when, through the gaps between the giants' bodies, he caught a glimpse of the true scale of what surrounded him — an uncountable mass, stretching beyond anything he could take in at a single glance.

These White Sand Giants were not especially powerful on their own, but they fought with the coordinated discipline of ancient battle formations — attacking in staggered, rotating waves.

The moment one group finished a barrage of hacking strikes and fell back to reset, the next group — already fully wound and ready — cycled forward to take their place. Wave after wave crashed down on Zhao Manyan's position, three consecutive sweeps of coordinated brutality, each one carving the ground beneath him into a deeper crater of sand. Even with his defenses intact, Zhao Manyan was nearly buried alive.

"Help!! HELP!!"

He screamed into the Communicator jammed in his ear.

Chaos thundered all around him — his cries barely carried past his own lips, let alone to anyone else. Every other corner of the battlefield was equally deafening: sand surging like a howling river, blade impacts crashing like rolling thunder, White Sand Giants bellowing loud enough to shake the earth.

The only ones with any view of the full picture were Lingling and Xinxia, positioned to oversee everything from above.

Xinxia stood on the sand, her gaze fixed on Zhao Manyan's position. She began extending the range of her Mind Element magic toward him, hoping to pacify some of the White Sand Giants pressing in on him.

"Don't." Lingling stopped her immediately. "White Sand Giants already roused to a killing intent are nearly impossible to pacify. If you burn through your Magical Energy this early, the road ahead gets a lot harder."

Xinxia bit her soft lower lip, worry for Zhao Manyan written plainly on her face.

"Relax — he's not dying that fast," Lingling said.

"Mm." Xinxia nodded, choosing to trust her. Then, almost without realizing it, her gaze drifted toward Mo Fan.

Her concern for him had long since become something close to reflex — barely even conscious anymore, nearly instinct.

Fortunately, the number of White Sand Giants that had appeared on Mo Fan's side was nothing compared to what Zhao Manyan was dealing with.

If Zhao Manyan had known what was going through the two women's minds right now, he probably would have thrown himself headfirst into the nearest White Sand Giant.