(Elaria POV)

I watched in horror as the thing I feared the most occurred right in front of me.

??

Onii-sama had used himself to protect me.

I was still distracted by that fact to even start to question how Onii-sama had appeared in front of me.

The beam of light fired off from the man's finger hit Onii-sama instead of me, disintegrating him into particles of light.

"Oh what?" The piece of trash gasped. "No no no… What just happened? Oh no… No no no no no… That's not good, not good at all. Oh no…"

I recovered my senses, pulling out a revolver that was strapped to my inner thigh before pointing it at the man.

"What did you do to Onii-sama?!"

The imbecile ignored me, opting to continue his own mumbling, "Damn it… I'm already taking great risks to come here… Then this just had to happen… We're just lucky they decided to do this out in the open…"

With my patience worn thin, I fired a shot at his leg.

The bullet passed through him as though he wasn't there, the trash not even reacting to what I did.

I emptied the clip on him but it yielded the same result.

Switching to my combat knife that I had strapped on my other thigh, I stabbed towards his head, stomach and groin.

The waste of space didn't even flinch.

"Not good… It's a random transport too… I must report this!"

A light ray descended upon him and he dematerialised again.

I threw both the weapons down, screaming out my frustrations at fate.

This is not over, I swear upon it!

(MC POV)

The whiteness began to fade and I found myself lying on an unfamiliar land.

There was sand everywhere, the highest sand dunes reaching almost as high as the mountains Heaven Sect was built into.

I got up slowly, dusting the sand off my back as I did so.

I do not remember anywhere on the Earthen Plane that has a desert as a biome, so either this is an entire new dimension I got sent into, or I'm on a different Plane.

Either way, both wouldn't be good news to me in my current form.

And I've seen enough things to know that under all this sand, there's probably some kind of monster crawling underneath waiting for some prey to appear above them.

That means I'm royally screwed right about now.

Just kidding.

I did say that I still have my storage ring with me right? So there's still things inside I can use in the worst case scenario.

Like, for example, a scroll for sending myself back to where I came from.

I know, I know. Usually this would be the separation arc or whatever, but I'm quite prepared for these kinds of things. Why else did you think I jumped in front of the guy without hesitation?

Well, first things first, I'm quite interested in where this place is seeing as how those busybodies would have sent my sister here if it weren't for my timely intervention.

I should at least get a lay of the land, so climbing that sand dune to survey the area sounds like a good idea for now.

Unfortunately, the task was more daunting than I first anticipated.

One was due to my smaller body that lengthened the time needed to climb it and the second was the fact that the dune was harder to scale than I thought.

The sands constantly shifted under my weight and a wrong step could lead to me sliding all the way back down to the base again.

After two long hours of climbing under the gruelling hot sun, I managed to reach the apex of that damn sand dune.

Looking around the area, I saw what I just about expected.

Endless piles of sand in all directions.

Well… Guess hoping for some kind of city in the distance was too much to ask for.

Oh wait.

There's a dust cloud that seems to be heading towards me from my left?

Ok, a whole entire empty plain of desert and yet this dust cloud is heading straight towards me? What are the chances huh?

Five gold that it's some underground monster coming for its lunch.

Well, I guess I'm on the menu now?

Yeah, thanks, but no thanks.

I leapt off the dune, sliding my way back down as I searched through my storage ring for something that I can use.

Yep, I can just use…

Oh no.

All of the items that could hide me from this incoming threat requires me to circulate quarks in order to activate them!

Crap.

Well… How the hell was I supposed to know that I would regress into a child's body and be unable to circulate quarks back then? Can't blame me for that!

Thinking fast, I laid down flat on the sand in the shadow of the dune before moving my body side to side, shifting the sand underneath me away to bury myself in it.

Soon, the only part of my body that was visible above ground was the upper part of my face.

No sooner than that, the wall of the dune above me exploded outwards, a giant worm appearing from within it.

The worm was half the size of the dune and its jaws were wide enough to swallow the entire Lindulf mansion with space to spare.

Yep, called it. Five gold please.

The worm dived into the sand in front of me, eating its way into the ground.

I'm not sure if my eyes were playing tricks on me, but I think there was something riding on top of it?

Before I could even consider if I had just hallucinated the whole thing, the worm exploded out from the ground again, this time spraying its black blood all over the place.

On top of its head was some really muscular guy wielding a giant sword at least twice his size.

He braced himself on one of the worm's scales with a hand and plunged his sword into the worm's head with his other hand.

The worm let out a screech of pain, rearing its head in an attempt to throw that guy off.

The guy pulled out his sword before using the worm's momentum to catapult himself high into the air, lifting his sword over his shoulder.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any weirder, his sword extended outwards before igniting from behind, propelling him downwards towards the worm.

The sword cut through what I suppose is the worm's head, separating it cleanly from the rest of its body.

He did the typical three point landing with his sword stuck into the sand, remaining there as the body of the worm crashed into the sand behind him.

"Booyah… I'm still the best! Wish the others could see that!" He chuckled to himself, standing up from his half crouch.

He turned around to survey his handiwork with a proud gait, both his hands on his hips.

"And that, is how you get the job done. Man, sometimes I impress even myself!"

Oh wow, he's actually talking to himself… Not sure if I want to associate myself with these kinds of people.

He left his sword behind as he stepped towards the dead worm, some sort of carving knife held in his hand.

"Heh heh, now let's see what I got from this--"

The guy never got to finish his words as another worm exploded out from underneath him, swallowing him whole before disappearing back underground again.

The only thing that proved the guy was even here was his sword that was still stuck in the sand.

Well…

Free sword I guess?