A little lizard can be seen running on a desert, and behind him was a human being pulled. Despite the size, the lizard wasn't feeling any weight from it. As if it was the human crawling for him.
Soon, it reached a location where it began to dig until it reached a cave and ran inside, and the human body followed. Inside were skeletons of other beasts and even humans. There was also a rotten rat.
The lizard sprayed some venom on the rotten rat and then ran outside; the meat then rolled and followed it before the lizard closed the cave, leaving the human inside to suffocate.
'Damn it!' Lawa can only curse himself for being careless. But the truth of the matter was, he had never ventured out of the Clan Wall alone like this.
He has heard stories, read murals and also educated well about the outside world. He also had fantasized about how he would plan and be cautious, but that was all in his head, and he never truly experienced it.
Now, he was paying the price.
The dream doesn't count as that was being suppressed now and he was never alone but in group with otger hounds.
But hope hasn't been lost because of his Miracle Stone.
The stone was in his pocket hidden compartment at his inner shirt that was weaved with Iron Grade Leather around his stomach where a packet was created and tightened on his body.
A portion of the stone was touching his skin; it doesn't provide him with additional energy, but it aids in adjusting and keeping his mind fresh.
As of now, his Rena was not moving, and he couldn't use any of his Rachis Innate, but the Miracle Stone was affecting his Rena to resist the venom in his system.
Lawa was already suffocating slowly; minutes were passing, and the venom effect was also reducing.
Around 10 minutes, the Yellow Desert Lizard concluded that its prey was dead and so it began to dig.
Lawa began to panic; some of his ability had come back, so he pushed some sand from his face.
But the venom still does not allow him to use more power.
Realising that the Lizard will reach him and if it saw he was still alive, more venom will be injected into him, and that will be the end of him.
He has come out on a glorious journey but was cut off by an Iron Grade Maha Beast.
Having this thought, he felt like banging his head on a stone due to frustration.
He quickly stopped trying to breathe or close the hole the lizard was making. Instead, he focused on pulling sand particles around him.
Especially in places where his skin was exposed.
Places like their hand and face further made him unable to breathe.
He concluded that he could last another 10 minutes without breathing and not dying. The reason was he was a cultivator now and had a Miracle Stone touching his skin.
He made sure that any part of his body that didn't have armour was also covered with sand.
By now the little Maha Beast has entered the place. Lawa immediately used another skill that every Marmara Clan knew about.
Marmara Normal Skill: Brown Taint
Because this doesn't require a lot of Rena it was fast to do it work.
Normal Skills were easy to use and activate even if someone had zero Rena available.
In Lawa's case, because he has a Yellow Desert Dune, the Brown Taint came as Yellow Taint. This made the sand covering his weak regions become one cohesively, and Lawa had more grip on them.
If he had more power, he would have managed to merge them into stone, but he doesn't. Now he has to grip them well against the Maha Beasts.
The lizard wasn't confused; seeing its prey moving little by little, it knew that it was dying.
This was due to low intelligence.
It pounced trying to bite the shoulder and places that weren't covered by the dense sand.
The goal was to feed the human before it died. It was hotter and more fresh like that.
The moment one of its limbs touched the dense sand on the head of Lawa, it immediately understood that the prey was alive and used a skill.
Very fast, it sprayed venom on the dense sand; it used Venom Drag and tug at Lawa's attempt to cover his face.
With ease, the tainted dense sand was yanked away, and a portion of his face was revealed.
The lizard jumped at that opportunity, but normal sand moved around and covered the face, and the lizard rammed at it. It clawed it but the place has become hard enough to prevent that.
Most Iron Grade Maha Beasts weren't strong physically; they may have special features like sharp organs or fangs but don't have enough power to do more with them.
Yellow Desert Lizard has sharp claws that can pierce a strong tree bark, weak scales of other beasts, and easily injure humans, but in this case, it was struggling with the dense sand clustered together.
It moved back and sprayed venom and tugged it away. It won again, and a portion was revealed, but the next moment, another sand cluster covered the place, and they became more yellow.
Realising the problem, it opened its mouth and sprayed the venom all over the place, which covered the whole sand around Lawa's face and the one around him.
This will prevent the prey from bringing more sand and covering its skin.
But the lizard was tired and used up its available venom. It used Rena and began to nurture another one.
However, it still has some, just enough for what to do next.
It sprayed on the head of its prey and tugged the sand away. That revealed a portion of skin, and it jumped at it, but then it saw a shadow; the whole cave was being flooded with sand, and they all drowned inside.
Lawa has gained access to more power and was able to pull the sand file.
The lizard was already tired, and the sand washed it down, and it lost balance, unable to sink its teeth into Lawa's skin.
A few minutes later, at the top of the sand where the cave was underground, a quick sandstorm happened before a whirlpool of sand gradually increased in size and a humanoid man stood from it, gasping for air.
His eyes bulged out as he tried to look around for more enemies. Even after seeing none, he remained vigilant.
'Damn critter!' He cursed inward. He dragged his body out of the sand and stood looking around.
At that moment, he sensed movement beneath him. Lawa quickly moved away and got ready to fight.
The lizard's head protruded, and they looked at him; they stared at each other before the lizard dived back inside the sand.
Lawa then back stepped until he was far before he tried to walk fast to reach where he lost his staff. Reaching there, it was not in place.
"Damn thieves!" He cursed before he looked around. Thankfully, there was a trail, and he began to follow.
Not very fast but very vigilant for any trap.