The Sand Devils

After around 10 minutes, Darius cautiously opened the dome of sand to see if the object was gone. Seeing that the coast was clear, he dispersed the dome and let everyone take a deep breath of air. It had been getting very stifling inside the dome due to the limited air supply.

Finally out, they walked back to the end of the road to wait for Entsy. He arrived a half-hour later, panting and out of breath.

"I had to shake off a group of those orb shooting things. It seems that they have a radius in which they search for the target before giving up, so I managed to escape. I also found a jeep abandoned about a kilometer. The fuel gauge says that its almost full, but there are no keys and I don't know if anything is wrong with it.", he said, after regaining his breath.

"Lets go check it out. Especially with those things around, its better to have a vehicle. Because you said they have a radius, we know how to avoid them now.", replied Lance.

After another 10 minutes, they set off towards the jeep. It was a old, black hunk that looked like it had seen the vicissitudes of time.

Lance wondered whether it would even start. The fuel gauge was indeed almost full, so someone must have been driving it before having to abandon it due to some reason.

Lance checked again for the keys but to no avail. As he was scratching his head wondering what he was supposed to do, Yu Ying said, "Let me." with a cute expression and entered the car.

She grasped under the steering wheel and pulled out some wires before expertly pulling the ends off of 2 specific wires and touching them together. The car started with a loud noise before settling down into a deep hum.

Everyone was shocked seeing that she actually had the skill to hot wire a car.

"I used to sneak away from home a lot. Just one of the skills I learnt outside.", she said, blushing, looking straight into everyone's eyes as if it were something very normal.

She learnt this wandering outside? Where the hell did she live to be able to learn skills like these? Wondered the rest as Lance got into the car and checked to see if everything was ok.

Everyone climbed into the car after seeing Lance give the OK signal. Checking the map, they decided which direction the pyramid was in before starting to drive towards it.

The plan was that even if the comets were attracted, they would just attack and let them go after they crossed out of their address. They would only have to defend from the attacks, which would be Darius' job. If possible, Lance would also try to dodge.

After going about 5 kilometers into the desert, Lance saw 4 figures in the distance. They were right in the jeep's way and Lance would have to swerve away off a dune and loose balance if he wanted to avoid them.

He honked continuously, hoping that they would get the hint and move away. Seeing no movement, he had no choice but to brake seeing them get closer and closer.

To his horror, it seemed that these 4 figures were actually mummified by sand. Their bodies were completely covered in sand and they stood there, not moving.

Getting off, he motioned at the rest to stay in the car.

On reaching the figures, he stretched his hand to poke one in the shoulder, wanting to see just what material it was that had made these people become mummies. Although it looked like sand, he still had his doubts.

Lance felt his back tingle and immediately leapt back.

The figure had moved! Its fist was now where Lance's stomach had been. If he hadn't leapt back, he would definitely have been sent flying judging from the sheer speed with which the fist had moved.

Alarmed, he started running back to the car. He had no idea what these things were, but standing out in the open away from his team definitely wasn't a good idea.

As he was running, a few inches in front of him, a head started coming out of the ground.

Reaching it just as the legs were materializing, Lance decided to take a shot and gathered power in his fist.

He simply focused the power of the construct and did not give energy to the wishroot, like in the first task in his training.

As he punched with terrifying strenght, he was puzzled to feel only a little resistance before his hand went through the stomach of the 'man' in front of him.

The hole that had formed from the punch started closing around his fist while the fist of The Sand Devil, as these creatures would be christened, moved aiming for Lance's head.