It was a desert of yellow golden sand stretching as far as the eye could see. High in the sky was a sun that radiated a hot and stern light. There was no one in sight besides the redhead and the dark-skinned boy, "How awfully silent..." Elga said, her wolf ears perking up.
"I know, it's creepy." Viktor nodded as he took his sphere and crushed it, covering his arms and torso in translucent plates while equipping his weapon. He hummed as he felt the sun's light resonating with his gear. "This place..."
"Yep, I feel it too." Elga looked at her now fully material gloves. Upon reaching Level 2, one's Sphère D'armure would not need the Augmentation of Dévoreur Du Chaos to materialize completely. Now it was different with how high one's Talent is, and in Elga's case—who had a Level 2 Talent—it meant that the preexisting part of her Armure would be constantly material whenever she summoned them. To obtain the next piece would require her to reach Level 3.
For someone like Viktor, who had a Level 3 Talent, this meant that upon Level 2, he could fully materialize two pieces of his Sphère D'armure but he wasn't fretting over that.
"Is that what they describe as the Idée De Résilience?" Elga continued, closing her fist. She could feel her Darkness churning. "Would be nice for a Level Up or two."
"I think that's the idea, since we have to walk to Arbreris's trunk. Kill a few Ruinbringers, get their cores—pray that you get something you can use—and steadily become stronger." Viktor remarked, displaying a map of area from his ring.
"... I guess we'll be both praying then." Elga sighed as she looked at the map. They stood at one edge of the desert, and their destination was at the other edge. "Why do we have to walk all the way there again?" Elga asked in frustration, they would spend months if not an entire year on foot.
"Idée De Résilience. Get hit in the face, stumble a few times, get back up and keep advancing." Viktor recited. "That's what our path is all about." The Path Of Résilience was synonym of tenacity and endurance, take the problem head on and keep advancing, no matter what.
Elga grunted, she already knew that. She wasn't asking for a real answer. In any case, they needed to begin walking.
...
Four hours had passed since they began walking, and in that time nothing major happened. A few low grades Ruinbringers here and there, but they weren't anything to write home about. "How much did we walk?" Elga asked, wiping sweat off her forehead with a handkerchief.
"About one percent of the entire distance," Viktor replied as he kept his eyes on the map. "... At least we got some cores, right?"
"No, YOU got cores! With that much light, I'm not expecting to find anything linked to darkness!" Elga ruffled her hair in frustration.
"Oh please stop complaining, you can still use the light to cultivate." Viktor pointed out, "and even if we do spend an entire year, you'd probably be a higher Level than me anyw—" Suddenly, the dark-skinned boy came to a stop as his eyes narrowed.
"Hmm? Is something wrong?" Elga asked, she had purposefully kept her ears perked up in case something or someone would try to sneak up on them but she heard nothing.
"You've got to be... IT'S UNDERGROUND!" He shouted urgently, grabbing the redhead by the wrist as he placed one hand into the sand, it vibrated before forming a platform, sending the duo into the sky. At the same time, a colossal sandworm emerged, barely missing the two before burying back into the sand.
"Great... A Phi grade." Elga summoned her swords out of her ring as Viktor let go of wrist.
"Is it the heat that infuriates you or just all the walking?" Viktor inquired, looking at the redhead as they were both freefalling.
"Take a guess, big guy." She responded in annoyance, her form dissolving in darkness as she reformed on the sand. Viktor landed near her, gathering sand under his feet to act as a cushion. "Get him out of the ground and I'll finish it quickly."
"Damn, you really are in a bad mood." The dark-skinned remarked with a grin. He put in his hands into the sand and closed his eyes. He dispersed his focus into the sand to locate the worm, he could feel every grain vibrating in a five meters radius around him.
The sand under the duo's feet shook violently, "Get ready!" Viktor called. He then yanked his hands out, hills spilt apart, exposing the sandworm as he leaped toward the duo, its mouth wide open as thousands of teeths rotating like saws closed on them.
Elga coated herself in darkness, blood dripping down her blades as she became a blur of vicious slash. Dark green blood splattered as the worm wiggled violently, trying to shake off the redhead as small cuts appeared over its colossal body. It remained unbothered, the cuts closing as soon as they were made.
"Oh you motherfucker..." Elga grunted, reappearing next to the dark-skinned boy, her blades completely clean of blood. She started drenching her blades when the hills around the worm transformed into giant hands that latched onto the beast,
"Gantelet Terrestre!" Viktor called, the sand mimicking his movement. "You sure you can finish it off!?" He asked, struggling to hold the thing as it kept on wriggling.
"You doubting me now, big boy!?" Elga growled back, her ears flat.
"Don't make do all the work then!" He turned around suddenly and using the moment, he yanked the entirety of the worm's body out of the sand. It was hundreds of kilometers, with fin-like appendages all over. Viktor then proceeded to throw the thing as high as he could, stumbling onto his rear in the process.
Elga reappeared alongside the worm, "Chambre Noir, Dissection Écarlate!" Darkness spread from her body completely isolating the worm as blood red slashes flashed across its body. Chunks of flesh fell from sky as the redhead rampaged. When the darkness finally dispersed, she was nowhere to be seen as bits of the worm fell. She reappeared a bit further ahead, panting with a yellowish brown core the size of a basketball under her arm.
"Feeling better now?" Viktor asked, approaching with two bottle of water in hand.
Elga was about to growl at him when he squeezed one bottle, splashing her face. "... Absolutely not." She replied with a sigh, snatching the other bottle out of the dark-skinned boy's hand. "How are you so unbothered by the heat?"
"I used to work in a forge, remember? Heat isn't that much of a problem." Viktor replied, watching Elga down the bottle of water in one gulp. "They're gonna be a problem, I bet the entire area is filled to the brim with them."
"We need to find a safe spot to start cultivating, and I don't see anything besides sand."
Viktor held his chin, reflecting on Elga's words. "Somewhere safe..." He muttered, his eyes going down to the sand, narrowed. "I guess it can't hurt to try... Get a little closer. "
"... Have you done something like that before?" Elga immediately understood what the dark-skinned boy was going to do but she was a bit skeptical.
"Absolutely not. While I have a bit of dominion over sand thanks to my element, I haven't branched to its sub-elements at all." Viktor replied honestly. The sand around them trembled, separating into waves as they descended slowly.
"Just, don't bury us alive..."