Eldritch Creature's Guide

Some time ago, the 10th Floor of the Tower, Dunes of Sikarra

"We are amidst the desert, you brutish greenskin... and we are lost... and soon we will attract a sandworm."

It was several hours ago since members of the Khaos Chapters were teleported from the 9th Floor of the Tower to the 10th Floor of the Tower. Once again, it was relatively unfortunate; they were all teleported by groups into different parts of the Floor.

Worst of for the Templar Knight of the Holy Templar Knight Order of the Hall of Kadath, he was teleported together with the Ork Champion of the Green Gods and was separated from his familiar Tytos.

Fortunately, he sensed through his connection with his familiar that Tytos was okay and was apparently with the familiar of his Lord, Nefertari. Though his distance was immeasurable because he was teleported together with the ork, he could guess that his Lord was teleported together with Siulvermoon Crown Princess, which was logical because the teamwork and chemistry between the two of them was something not seen very often.

"What now?"

Juulius asked mainly himself because they were unlucky enough to be teleported in the dunes of Sikarra, meaning the sun would soon get them unless they couldn't get into some safe place. From what he could conclude bout the deserts of Sikarra, even Orks would have a hard time adapting to this place because the heat, conditions and other factors were hostile to all lives aside from the rulers of the dune.

Arrakian sandworms that lived here, creatures found and bred by the Korias Empire, long forgotten rulers of the 10th Floor of the Tower.

"We need to move as fast as possible to find some place to hide, or else we risk encountering worms."

Juulius stated as Dharzug reluctantly agreed with the human because he was aware that he could survive in the deserts of the real on the 10th Floor, but the real problem came not from the environment of the Floor, but rather from the inhabitants that were swarming through the floor.

Even though Dharzug didn't like the human Knigth, not like he liked humans in generals as they were self-entitled species that was weak, arrogant and squishy in almost all of the cases, he knew that the man was more resourceful and intelligent than him.

In the end, the expertise of the orks wasn't intelligence but Waaaggghhh.

And he didn't wish to become the food for the Arrakian sandworm; fighting even one was suicide; they were enormous creatures that, without AOE abilities, were essentially impossible to kill through normal means and unfortunately, Dharzug lacked that kind of ability right now.

Still, he followed after Juulius Crawford, who was heading towards somewhere, as Juulius had a special sensing ability, which allowed him to scan his surroundings in several tens of kilometers diameter; naturally, this ability was almost not possible to detect when he sued it, if not for that, this place would be already swarming with the sandworms that would want to eat them for dinner.

Through this Ability, Juulius was quickly able to find a cave-like construct several tens of kilometers west of their location, as they immediately headed there. He chose that place because it was well protected and defendable, not to mention it was from some kind of extremely tough stone, which should be able to resist the Arrakian sandworms below the Gold-Tier.

Fortunately, both of them managed to arrive at the place which Juulius found relatively quickly, because Dharzug wasn't bothered by the scorching heat right now because he could withstand it much longer than Juulius could, as the ork's adaptability was even above that of the High Human what Juulius was.

After they arrived at the place, a short time later, when they finished scouting the cave, they found that it was deep and cold enough to protect them from the scoring heat of the deserts of Sikarra, though they didn't enter the depths of the cave, only the outer area, because their main priority was to rest for now.

"We should remain here for a few hours and rest; after that we have essentially two choices... the first one would be to continue through the path up and traverse the dunes, while the second one would be exploring this underground cave system and seeing where it leads."

Juulius proposed, as right now, they had only these two options. One would be either going back to the desert, which was something that Juulius wanted to avoid and another one was to go deeper into the cave system, as due to his ability that allowed him to scout the area, showed him... this underground cave system was absolutely enormous.

He would rather prefer going to the tunnels of the underground cave system as that was first 1st safer than traversing through the dessert due to the presence of the Arrakian sandworms and heat and for the 2nd, it was also more exciting what was underneath the dunes of the 10th Floor.

Meanwhile, Dharzuh was pondering on what course of action to take, while in the end, he agreed with the human templar knight and decided that they would be going down through the underground cave system.

Even though Dharzug was confident in his orkish adaptability, he didn't wish to push his chances, and at the same time, he knew that even with his adaptability, it wasn't that comfortable walking endlessly through the dunes of the Sikarra.

"Then da underground go."

Dharzug then answered as they decided that they would alternate the watch, as one of them would be resting while the another would keep the guard in case they were attacked by sandworm or by some sort of magical beasts that were living in the desert.

The ork was the first one to go rest for the next three hours, while Juulius stood guard while polishing his sword in the meantime, as he had a bad feeling about entering the depths of the cave system for a pretty simple reason.

While it was a fact that the surface of the 10th Floor of the Tower was right now inhospitable to almost anything that wasn't Arrakian sandworm or any other magical creature that didn't thrive on the dunes.

Juulius predicted that something would be living down there and whatever it was, it wouldn't be friendly. During the time he was standing on guard and polishing his sword and then his shield, the sun started rising on the 10th Floor and the temperature was rising to the point that even Juulius felt it in the cave, forcing him to wake Dharzhug prematurely by one hour.

Afterward, they went a bit deeper into the cave, as both of them clearly seriously underestimated the scorching heat of the deserts of the Sikarra, as they changed positions and this time, Juulius went to sleep while contrast, Dharzug went to guard the area.

When Juulius finished his sleeping, both of them checked their weapons, supplies and other things needed for combat or diving into dangerous areas before they descended down into the underground cave system.

As they were traversing through one of the corridors of the cave system, suddenly, both Juulius and Dhartzuh readied their weapons as they saw the sound of howling... similar to dog or hyena, immediately knowing that this place was inhabited by the gnolls.

Soon enough, they saw incoming hundreds of gnolls their way as they howled at them as they were the invaders of their territory.

Gnolls were extremely tall, with the average member of the race standing on average between 2.1‒2.3 m. Though gnolls were relatively lean for their height, weighing in usually between 130kg to 170kg, depending on the sub-breed of the gnoll.

Gnoll skin was greenish-gray, and their furry hide had a light or dark brown hue, sometimes marked with spots or stripes. Many gnolls also had a dirty yellow to reddish-gray crest-like mane that stood on end when they were angry; they were also believed to be bearers of the Fiend Bloodlines, which was actually the truth.

"It seems that we have here our fun..."

Juulius said with glee in his eyes as his golden eyes lit up in mild light; while he brandished his shield and sword, Dharzug did the same thing with his waraxe as the two of them rushed at the incoming horde of the gnolls.

Poor hyena-like creatures were slaughtered mercilessly by the due, because they couldn't stand a chance against the superior firepower of two Siulver-Tiuer Professionals that could fight even those above their Level rather effortlessly, as Dharzug's waraxe 'Da Big Choppa' cleaved through tens of gnolls at the same time like a hot knife through the block of butter.

Most, if not all, gnolls were either peak of the Iron-Tier or Steel-Tier, they were not the strongest creatures around and in fact, they were weak. Gnolls were weak in nature because they preferred using their numerical advantage against their enemies, ganging up on those who were stronger than them, but this time it didn't work.

Juulius was typically a logic-ruled person and was always stoic and calm, not letting his emotions to afflict his thought process. Only during the battles he typically lost himself in the bloodlust when he was slaughtering his enemies with a sharp blade and sturdy shield, as he used his shield, shattering the head of another gnoll that was unlucky to approach him.

With a precise slash, he severed the head of another gnoll while dodging the sword attack by another one, as he was agilely either dodging or counterattacking the gnolls, killing them one by one with fast speed, while Dharzug was killing them in bulk.

The ork's overwhelming physical strength allowed him to smash apart the gnolls with his bare hands like nothing. With his waraxe 'Da Big Choppa', which was enormously big and unpractical waraxe, more appearing like just a curved and sharp piece of metal that would be impossible to pick up even by some physically weaker Gold-Tier Professionals, he was like war god incarnate on the battlefield.

Soon enough, after the initial ambush of the gnolls went wrong, as the cowards they were, a few of them that were standing back behind the lines started howling into nothingness before all of them started escaping from the place as fast as they could.

The gnolls were actually simple-minded creatures that attacked and ambushed. If they were losing, they would escape as fast as possible without any kind of shame to save their own lives... a pretty contradictory for the creatures that were breaking the blood of the Fiends of the Infinite Abyss.

Neither Dharzug nor Juulius were keen on pursuing the gnolls; thus they let them escape where they wished... there was a still high probability that they would encounter them at a later date when they were exploring the deeper parts of the underground cave system.