Chapter 116: Double Cross

Chapter 116: Double Cross Time dragged on, and apparently deciding they’d softened up their prey enough, the elite sand lizards suddenly joined the fight! Attacking from both sides, they cleverly smashed through the Golden Sand Society’s defensive line. In a heartbeat, the other sand lizards split up and surrounded them, charging forward in a frenzy... "Ah! Save me!" "Quick, kill it!" "Boss! Help!" "..." Screams echoed one after another as the black-robed figures got ripped apart one by one. In just a few moments, except for the three mid-tier Psionics, every other black-robed figure was dead! ... High in the sky, Carlos stared down at the several thousand sand lizards below, scratching his head: "Way too many—this doesn’t add up." Sand lizards were notorious loners, fierce beasts that almost never ran in packs. The total number of sand lizards in the entire White Poplar Desert was probably only a few thousand tops. This was clearly way off—most likely someone or something had gotten them organized. "Has a sand lizard commander shown up?" Carlos thought of one possibility. Only a sand lizard commander could boss around this many elite sand lizards and regular ones. Raising the Alchemical Telescope, Carlos searched around with interest for the sand lizard leader. As for most of the Golden Sand Society members getting torn to shreds, Carlos couldn’t care less. As long as one person made it out alive in the end, that’d be plenty. "No rush, no rush. Maybe it’s exactly because of this sand lizard pack attack that they’ll stumble across the Silver Thornblade clan sword." ... "Damn it! We can’t keep this up!" Right then, the black nails on Tammy’s hands had grown long and razor-sharp, with thick shadow energy swirling around them. "We’ve got to find a way to bust out of here!" With one claw strike down, she actually punched through a sand lizard’s skull and yanked her hand back out. The sand lizard flopped down like a rag doll, its head showing five bloody holes. At her feet lay a pile of sand lizard corpses, but the number of sand lizards surrounding them hadn’t dropped one bit. "Break out? Break out where?" Every time a skeleton soldier got chomped to pieces, Kitz would immediately use Skeleton Revival to build up his forces again. Looking around, there were sand lizard packs everywhere. He didn’t think charging out blindly was worth a damn. "Go straight back the way we came!" Delya swung his greatsword, cutting down several sand lizards while trying to hack his way out. But he got tangled up again right away, moving like molasses. At this point, none of them gave a hoot about the treasure anymore. ... High in the sky, Carlos felt more and more like something was off. "Don’t these three have any ace up their sleeve?" This was weird. Had he read the situation wrong? The Silver Thornblade wasn’t buried here? "Could be they showed up a day early." If they hadn’t run into Carlos, they definitely would’ve crashed in the cabin for a night before heading out. And they wouldn’t have been booking it so hard on the road. Maybe being a day late, they wouldn’t have walked into this sand lizard mess. Carlos was torn about whether to step in. Seeing that these three were running on fumes, and with the sand lizard commander making its move, the sand lizard pack’s assault was getting even more vicious. If he waited much longer, all three would probably be goners. Just then, Purple Vortex sent some surprising news through their soul connection. "What? There’s actually another living person’s aura not far from here?" His wings beat hard as Carlos shot forward at breakneck speed, quickly spotting the figure Purple Vortex had picked up. Below, a black-robed figure was frantically digging a hole. "The sand lizard pack’s been drawn away—I’ve got to hustle." He dug like his life depended on it while gloating. "Those three suckers would never guess that the location the boss gave them was bogus—the whole point was to make them serve as bait to lure the sand lizards away!" Bang! He broke through! The black-robed figure immediately jumped in... Before long, rumbling sounds came from inside the hole... He came out looking rattled and spooked. "That was close—nearly bought the farm down there." The black-robed figure was shaken, never expecting there to be terrifying alchemical puppet guards in the deepest part. Lucky for him he was fast enough and sneaky enough to successfully swipe the greatsword the alchemical puppet was guarding. If the guards were that scary, how valuable must this greatsword be! The black-robed figure felt pumped and couldn’t resist pulling out the greatsword to check it out. "???" "Blue quality?" The black-robed figure gripped the greatsword in his hand, his face full of disbelief. How could a greatsword guarded by such terrifying alchemical puppets be nothing but blue quality? How... how was he supposed to explain this mess to the president? He couldn’t very well say, "You sacrificed three mid-tier hotshots and ended up digging out a blue quality greatsword." If he really said that, the black-robed figure figured he’d most likely get accused of skimming off the top, or with any luck, just get buried six feet under. Just as the black-robed figure was wrestling with how to report this disaster, a cheerful voice rang out from above his head: "If you don’t want it, just hand it over." "Boom!" Before he could look up, four Shield Guards radiating murderous intent surrounded him from all sides. Using their giant shields, they formed a tight cage that trapped him like a rat. Being just a low-tier black-robed figure, his legs immediately started shaking and big beads of sweat dripped from his head. "You... who are you..." The masked guy! The masked guy from White Poplar City! After several seconds, it finally clicked and he hurriedly held up the greatsword: "Please... please take it!" Carlos hovered in mid-air and picked up the silent greatsword. [Unknown Legion’s Rare Greatsword] [Quality: Blue] [Sharpness: 25] [Equipment Requirements: Spirituality 15, Strength 5] "Bingo, one of the Silver Thornblade clan swords." Though silent, Carlos recognized it right away. Stashing the greatsword, his gaze fell back on the black-robed figure. "Spill it—what’s down there and how’d you know about it?" Ancient power radiated from the Crimson-Gold Feathered Serpent Wings. The black-robed figure was drenched in sweat, scared out of his wits. This... what terrifying presence! He’d only felt this around the president before! Could this... could this masked guy be high-tier... Tammy’s big mouth had been right on the money! Desperate to stay breathing, he didn’t dare hold anything back: "This humble servant is a member of the Golden Sand Society from Rock Sand City. The president said there were precious treasures here, made the others serve as bait, and secretly ordered this humble servant to dig and bring it back." "...Below is a tunnel that leads straight to a secret chamber. The chamber only had this one greatsword, so this humble servant brought it out. Who would’ve thought it was only blue quality—this humble servant absolutely didn’t pocket anything!" The black-robed figure prayed like hell that this mysterious powerhouse would spare him for the Golden Sand Society’s sake. Though in his words, he deliberately left out the bit about the alchemical puppet. After listening, Carlos nodded slightly. The black-robed figure got the wrong idea and thought Carlos was satisfied and that he was off the hook. A sucking-up smile had just started spreading across his tense face when— "Crack!" A sword flash cut through the air. Blood splattered, the head rolled down with that brown-nosing smile frozen on it. "Too clever for your own good." Carlos had quietly dropped down when the man went below. Not long ago, he had heard those weird rumbling sounds from below clear as day.