A tide of sand composed of tiny black scarabs swept in. William, with his rich battlefield experience, and Ethan, with his aggressive nature, both reacted in a way that matched their combat instincts.
William's military boot stomped heavily on the ground. His body shifted sideways a step, shielding Julian, who was rich in theoretical knowledge but weak in direct combat within the team, behind him, while simultaneously drawing the Colt revolver from his waist.
Ethan's movents were even swifter. Without hesitation, he drew the luxuriously modified "Peacemaker" from its holster. The dual muzzles of [Morning Star] and [Evening Star] glead with a cold silver light under the dim illumination.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Three crisp reports from revolvers rang out simultaneously, shaking the small, cluttered souvenir shop with a buzzing reverberation.
Several silver slugs soaked in holy water and specialized alchemical bullets containing "Saint Relic" powder, carrying the sacred power to purify spirits and dispel curses, shot accurately into the oncoming black tide of sand.
However, the scene that unfolded next caused the pupils of the two experienced hunters to contract.
Those projectiles, capable of tearing through steel and annihilating evil spirits, lost all kinetic energy the mont they touched the sand tide, as if fired into a sea of nullifying curses.
They triggered no explosions or purification effects;
they were simply swallowed, enveloped, and then subrged by the black tide composed of fine sand grains.
Conventional physical attacks, alchemical attacks imbued with spiritual damage—none of it worked on these tiny creatures ford from spiritual sand grains!
"Damn it! These things have no physical form!" Ethan growled, forced to take a step back to avoid the "Holy Sand Scarabs" that had already surged to his face.
A frustrating indoor skirmish erupted.
This was how combat in the inner world was;
you could never predict what your opponent would pull out the next second.
"Don't attack the sand;
the target is her herself!" Lin Jie's calm voice cut through the chaotic gunfire.
But Nephthys clearly wasn't going to give them that chance.
A cruel smile appeared on her face. Her slender body leaned back, rging into the shadow cast by the beaded curtain behind her, vanishing from sight in an instant.
Her voice, accompanied by a scalp-tingling buzzing sound, echoed from all directions, full of mockery.
"Too late, infidels. In this web I personally laid, your struggles will only bind you tighter."
Just as she said, the rickety wooden shelves inside the shop were suddenly pushed, toppling one after another towards the location of the four-person team!
Crudely made plaster statues and papyrus paintings poured down, quickly compressing the team's already limited space for movent to the extre.
"William!" Ethan shouted.
"Understood," William responded in a low voice.
The veteran directly grabbed a nearby small table, using formidable brute force to prop up a row of collapsing shelves, creating a precarious safe space for his teammates behind him.
But the pervasive Holy Sand Scarabs wouldn't stop their advance because of this.
Like living liquid, they flowed through the gaps in the shelves and the corners of the floor, surging from all directions towards the four people trapped in the center.
Their target didn't seem to be direct consumption, but a more torturous form of "polishing."
Using their own hard sand grains, ford from UMA power, they continuously ground against the hunters' clothing, skin, and even their ntal defenses, attempting to wear them down bit by bit, both physically and ntally.
Julian gripped his cane, [Withered Thorns], tightly, laboriously activating the faint runes within its body to release waves of attenuation fields carrying a scent of decay.
This field slowed the attack speed of the sand scarabs to a certain extent, but it couldn't fundantally stop their infiltration.
"This won't work!" Julian's voice trembled. "Our space for movent is being compressed constantly. Sooner or later, we'll be completely subrged by these damned bugs!"
Just as Julian predicted, Nephthys, relying on her Grotesque Armant that could control Holy Sand for attack and defense, and her familiarity with the secret passages and chanisms she had long prepared within this shop, played the four of them like puppets on strings!
She had transford into a puppeteer hiding in the shadows, while Lin Jie and the other three beca the miserable marionettes on her stage with nowhere to escape.
"This way!"
A flash of ruthlessness passed through Ethan's eyes. The muzzle of his [Evening Star] revolver suddenly swung around, firing towards a window on the left side of the shop hung with an Egyptian tapestry.
The alchemy-imbued bullet erupted in a dazzling white light the mont it struck the tapestry, instantly burning a large hole through the heavy fabric.
"Trying to run?"
Nephthys's mocking voice rang out again.
A massive arm, composed of highly compressed black sand grains, suddenly extended from the floor before the window. The hand, fingers spread wide, effortlessly blocked the escape route Ethan had tried to create.
Attack? They couldn't break through. Defend? They couldn't hold out for long.
The team of four had fallen into a serious tactical predicant.
Lin Jie, who had always been the team's brain, maintaining his composure, now had his brows tightly knitted together.
He was analyzing the current predicant at an extrely rapid pace, trying to find the path to victory in this chess ga. However, Nephthys had no intention of giving them any more ti to think.
She seed to have grown tired of this lopsided ga and unleashed her trump card!
Her figure flashed past behind a dilapidated wooden window on the shop's second floor. She placed two slender fingers, painted with black nail polish, to her lips.
Then she blew a sharp whistle. That whistle was like a dinner call.
The entire floor of the shop—the ordinary yellow sand spread to create a desert atmosphere—boiled as if alive!
"Whoosh!"
Countless grains of yellow sand, summoned by a mysterious power, began to continuously converge, surge, and climb towards the center of the shop. They coalesced into a vast, terrifying force!
In re seconds, the yellow sand gathered into a sand wall several ters high, almost touching the shop's ceiling.
That sand wall sealed off all the shop's entrances and exits, imprisoning Lin Jie and the other three within a sealed death cage constructed from yellow sand.
Yet this was not the end;
it was rely the beginning!
The towering sand wall began to restructure and reshape itself in a way that defied everyone's understanding.
The top of the sand wall stretched, outlining the contours of a massive crocodile head filled with sharp teeth!
The middle section of the sand wall bulged outwards to both sides, condensing into two powerful forelimbs with lion-like sharp claws!
The base of the sand wall continuously expanded and sank, finally transforming into the bloated, corpulent, yet powerful and heavy lower body of the Nile's overlord, the hippopotamus!
Finally, under the astonished gazes of everyone present, the sand wall vanished.
A soul-devouring beast, entirely composed of sand, possessing the massive jaws of a crocodile, the sharp claws of a lion, and the lower body of a hippopotamus, appeared here!
Its body flowed and shifted constantly under the dim light, looking as if it could disintegrate at any mont, yet bound together by an invisible external force, maintaining this terrifying and sacred form.
It had no eyes on its body, but Lin Jie could sense a ravenous will had already firmly locked onto the four of them.
Julian's lips trembled. In a voice that had lost its proper tone, he uttered the na that existed only in the oldest copies of the "Book of the Dead," representing the "Final Judgnt" and the "Second Death."
"A... Ammit..."
"The Devourer... Ammit, the Devourer of the hearts of the dead!"
This UMA had descended into this small souvenir shop in a way that defied imagination!
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