Brand glanced behind him. The massive black cloud was still moving forward, without a fixed direction. It then slowly drifted out of Brand's field of vision.
He started to assess the surrounding. Beneath him were the remains of Black Scarabs, although most of them had been disintegrated by his energy wave earlier, they weren't completely destroyed. He collected them as per Seraphine's suggestion, to sell at the Emas Tribe's village later.
The aftermath of the confrontation earlier was devastating. He never expected the skill effect of Reverse Strike to be so strong. An AOE skill with such strength and could strike numerous enemies at once.
This would be his primary mobbing skill. He imagined the scene of striking multiple enemies in a battlefield. That would be terrifying!
Brand took a deep breath to calm down. Then, he opened the System Log to check on the notifications he had received earlier.
==========
Achievement: Survive Scarab Swarm
==========
Reward:
1. Scarab Shell (Skill) - Cover body with Black Scarab's shell.
- Tremorsense (Detect underground vibrations)
- Increase defence.
2. Beetle Scout (Skill) - Transform a finger into a beetle scout.
- Send out a beetle to scout
==========
"There were two skills." Seraphine pushed his cheek while checking through the logs.
"These were better than expected!" She exclaimed. "This was because you actually managed to brace through the whole swarm!"
"You even killed hundreds of them."
While Seraphine was excited over the rewards, Brand was checking the descriptions of the skills.
He activated the Scarab Shell, covering his body with a thick exoskeleton layer. He wanted to try the Tremorsense function. When he placed his hand on the ground, he could feel the vibrations underneath. The vibrations painted an image in his mind, and he could 'see' voids underneath the sand. He could also detect the depth of the small pocket of empty spaces, like a radar.
After Scarab Shell, he checked on his other skill, but he couldn't help but feel spooked by the skill description.
"But there's an eerie part here." Brand pointed at the skill screen. "Transform a finger into a beetle?"
He was in disbelief at the skill description. How did this even work? He stared at his fingers intensely.
The skill didn't mention that he could only use it once. Could he use up all his fingers for ten beetle scouts?
He slapped his face, terrified at his own thoughts.
"Try it, please!" Seraphine was looking at him with puppy eyes. She was excited about the beetle or the finger?
Brand was taken aback and repeatedly switched glances between Seraphine and his hand. More precisely, his fingers.
***
"Sera, I could feel it." Brand muttered, his eyes were closed.
Seraphine hovered beside a silver metallic beetle and kept looking at it. She was amused by it and poked her finger at it occasionally.
"You could feel its sense of touch?" She asked. "How about other senses?"
"Hmm, the vision was blurry, mosaic-like." Brand bluntly replied. "Oh! I could see motion clearly!"
Brand was looking through the beetle's compound eyes. He was fascinated by the sensation. It was as if he was looking through the perspective of a drone, except he was the drone himself.
He could feel what the beetle felt. This includes sight, sound, heat, and most importantly, touch. He could feel the vibration of the wind brushing against the beetle's shell.
The sensation of vibration was the strongest when the beetle landed beside him. He could feel his own footsteps!
"You want to try exposing the beetle to danger?" Seraphine asked.
"Yeah, what if the beetle was in danger during the scouts?" Brand asked with concern. "Would I be inflicted with the same pain?"
If he were to feel the same pain, this would be a major setback. Nevertheless, the skill effect was too good for him to learn to be accustomed to it.
Brand recalled the beetle and commanded it to stay on his palm.
He tried squeezing the beetle, but it was unscathed. The beetle's shell was too hard. He had a minor discomfort, which probably came from the beetle's sharing sense.
"How about if it was crushed to death?" Seraphine looked at the beetle with curiosity.
Brand also wondered about it, but this was his finger they're talking about. Nevertheless, he still tried it; he needed to know.
He embraced the beetle with both his hands and slammed it. The beetle was crushed.
He felt a sensation in his hand. It was a mild pain, like accidentally poking his fingertips with a nail.
When he looked at his hand, the detached finger had returned and could move just fine.
"That's great." He said with satisfaction.
***
Over the endless horizon of sand dunes, there were oases where travellers would often stop by. They were the resting spots which provided temporary refreshment in the hard environment.
Naturally, there should have been a lot of travellers in each of the oases. However, in this particular oasis, there was only one human. Besides humans, there were not even monsters or insects. This was a peculiar scenario, definitely not a natural phenomenon.
The human was burying something in the sand while constantly looking out for the surroundings. Checking if there was anyone nearby.
While the human was busy, a beetle hovered in the sky, looking at the oasis below. It was registering the scene below for its master to see.
When the human finished the burying, the human looked up in the sky, noticed the beetle, and hurriedly killed it. It was as if not even a beetle could know what was happening in the scene and what was buried.
***
Brand soothed the mild pain in his pinky finger.
He could have dodged the attack, but he was too fixated on the buried item. Whatever he saw earlier was too weird, and he couldn't help but keep thinking about it.
"How is it?" Seraphine asked.
"The grey dot in the map was a human," Brand replied, describing what he saw just now through the beetle scout's eye. Albeit the vision was blurry, he could get a picture of what was happening. It was like a low-res surveillance drone.
"I'm not sure if the human was a male or female; the person was covered in a black hood."
"The person attacked the beetle as soon as it was noticed; there seemed to be no hesitation at all."
"The weirdest thing was…" Brand hesitated while speaking. "The person in a black hood was burying some skulls in the desert."
"What did it look like?" the little angel asked, curious and excited.
"It looked like… the skull of a goat," Brand answered.