AN: I originally planned on having this and the next chapter together, but I split them since they cover two different events.
It took two weeks for Adam and Lilith to reach the desert. They spent the days riding and the nights training. The focus of this training was to shore up their weak points: Adam taught Lilith melee combat, while she taught him magical combat.
By the fifth day, they were in a landscape with no trees, just scraggly shrubs and short, tough grass. The water bodies were few and far between. And although the days were hot, the nights were cold, forcing them to huddle around the campfire.
On the eighth day, they came across a small village, one that was at the very edge of the Order's influence. Here they traded their horses for camels, as it was increasingly difficult to find suitable grass for horses. They also bought rations and various other supplies needed for the desert.
By the twelfth day, there were no shrubs and even the grass was limited to a few scattered clumps. Adam had to stop wearing his armour, as it was now too hot even with his enhanced physique.
Finally, they reached the point where there wasn't a blade of grass in sight. From horizon to horizon, there were only sand dunes and gravel beds. Naturally, there was no animal in sight either, not even a rat or insect. The heat was ferocious: the air hurt to breathe, and the ground burned their feet if they tried to step on it directly.
"It's a good thing we bought these clothes," Adam said. On top of his usual clothing, he was now wearing a sort of long tunic that covered his limbs and a piece of cloth that covered his head. Both were white in colour to reflect the sun's rays.
"Yeah… if we hadn't, I'd have already melted," Lilith said, fanning herself. She was wearing similar clothing. "My village… was far to the north of here… so it's a lot colder there."
"It's much hotter than I'm used to as well," Adam said. "Still, we made the decision to come here, so we should follow through with it."
"Hah… sure," Lilith said. "Anyway, according to the last village… the next one should be about two more days' travel."
"And before we reach that, there should be an oasis," Adam finished.
They continued riding. The desert heat grew even more oppressive over time. It wasn't long before Adam had to cast a spell over the two of them that would help keep them cool. It was a drain on his spirit energy reserves, making him weaker if he later needed to fight. On the other hand, neither of them would be able to fight at all if they were roasted by the sun.
About three hours after they'd entered the desert, they encountered the first native animal. As they passed by a dune, Lilith spotted a tiny lizard in the shadow of the dune. It was poking its head out of the sand, but withdrew just as Lilith pointed it out to Adam.
So there is some life around here, Adam thought. I wonder how something so frail can survive in such a harsh environment? The villagers back there said that the desert—or at least this region of it—receives rain just once a year.
They continued on, and came across more and more signs of life. There was a small bush with thorny branches and few leaves, with countless tiny insects clinging to it. In the shade of a rock was a strange sort of insect: it resembled a spider, but with a pair of pincers and a tail tipped with a stinger. Scattered among the dunes were clumps of short grass, one of which contained the nest of a small bird.
Soon, the reason for this change became apparent: the oasis. In the middle of the desert, there was nevertheless a large pool of lifegiving water. The shores of the pool were covered in grass, shrubs and even trees. Birds flew through the air, insects buzzed in the vegetation, and fish could be seen swimming in the water.
Adam and Lilith dismounted their camels. Without needing to be led, the desert animals walked over to the oasis and began grazing and drinking.
"Even after being told about it, it still seems strange to see water in the middle of all… this," Adam said.
Lilith drank all of her remaining water in one gulp. "I'm just glad we came across water. I was only a few minutes away from shrivelling up."
Adam headed for the oasis, wanting to take a drink from it directly. The sight of mere water had never before been so enticing.
Suddenly, he felt a spike of demonic energy from the sand before his feet. He leaped back and drew his sword.
Three figures burst from the sand. Adam slashed horizontally at the nearest of them, causing it to fall backwards. In the distance, he noted that the camels were running away, then pushed that thought aside to focus on the bigger problem.
It's not unusual for monsters to hide in a place like this, where travellers would rest, Adam thought. But why couldn't we sense them!? Wait—
The monster Adam had attacked stood upright again, ignoring the large gash on their chest… a gash that did not bleed. All three monsters were humanoid in form, but the resemblance ended there: their skin was the colour of dried blood, bony spikes protruded from their flesh, and their mouths were full of sharp teeth.
"Undead!" Adam shouted. "Lilith, burn the—"
Lilith must have already started casting, because at that very instant a fireball struck one of the undead. It went down in flames, but that left two more. Adam threw himself at a second undead, using his shield to knock it back. Nearby, he heard Lilith engage the third undead.
The undead was a difficult opponent. Though it had the size and shape of a human, it was much stronger and faster. It fought in the same bestial manner as most monsters, with rapid and unpredictable strikes. And Adam had used up much of his energy protecting against the heat: he could keep up with the undead for now, but a prolonged battle would be dangerous. Sooner or later, his guard would fail, and since he wasn't wearing his armour, it would only take one good strike to bring him down.
Undead don't need blood, or any of their organs besides their brain, Adam thought. They also don't feel pain… but they're not invincible. They still need their muscles and bones to move, and they're vulnerable to fire and… to holy power.
Adam raised his shield to deflect a swipe from the undead.
That spell may work… Before, I couldn't cast this spell in combat, but after our recent training, I might be able to manage it!
With another shield bash, Adam knocked the undead back.
But I can't use that, not while Lilith's around. She could get seriously hurt. In that case, I'll have to use brute force.
Adam blocked an attack, then swung the pommel of his sword at the undead's neck. He missed, but still managed to hit the shoulder, producing a loud crack.
The undead didn't flinch or scream, instead continuing to attack Adam relentlessly. But a lack of pain couldn't compensate for one of its arms now being dead weight.
Adam swung his sword at the undead's neck, aiming to decapitate it—
"Watch out!"
There was a blur of motion from the left. Straining his muscles, Adam redirected his attack so that it hit the newcomer instead. A charred corpse, head separate from the rest, fell to the ground.
Wait—isn't that the one Lilith set on fire!? How could it still—
There wasn't time for Adam to consider this mystery. The undead with the broken shoulder attacked, knocking Adam to the ground.
Adam quickly rolled to his side, avoiding a strike that would have split his head. He then kicked the undead to make it stagger, creating an opportunity for him to get back on his feet.
The undead charged again, only to be hit by a spell. This wasn't another fireball: it was instead a mass of ice shards and chilling fog, which froze part of the undead's torso and hindered its movement. Adam was surprised by the change in element, but not enough to keep him from finishing off his opponent.
Adam looked around and saw the third undead on the ground, frozen and with its head shattered. Then Lilith landed and folded her wings.
"Are you alright?" Lilith asked.
"I'm fine, thanks for the help," Adam replied.
"Hold on a minute, I just need to bring the camels back," Lilith said.
The succubus took off, leaving Adam behind. He pulled out a cloth and began cleaning his sword of ash and dried flesh. When he was done with that, he tested the sharpness of the edge. Fortunately, it didn't need sharpening yet.
Lilith returned, leading the camels. She wiped sweat off her face and said, "Ugh, now I'm thirsty again. Just how can the desert be this hot? It's like there's a giant furnace burning away under the sand!"
"We need to rethink our preparations for the desert… if we were in our usual condition, those undead wouldn't have been able to take us by surprise," Adam said. "Come to think of it, what sort of undead were those? They clearly weren't skeletons or ghosts, and while they were similar to zombies, they were tougher. Smarter, too… I've never heard of zombies using ambush tactics before."
"I've heard of these before, they're ghouls, a kind of zombie found in the desert. My mother," Lilith spat out the word like it was a curse, "mentioned them to me once. They're not as dumb as regular zombies. She didn't mention that they're more resistant to fire, though I suppose I can't really blame her for that, since she was just passing on rumours she'd heard."
"More resistant to fire… I suppose it makes sense for monsters capable of withstanding the desert heat," Adam said.
"Yeah… though it does make me wish I'd spent more time practicing with elements other than fire," Lilith said. "I can use other elements like ice, but it takes me longer to cast and I need more energy to put out the same amount of power."
Adam knew just what his companion was talking about. Nine years ago, when he was just a reckless hero-in-training, he'd thought he could become a hero from the legends, a master of every weapon and every magical discipline. His trainers very quickly disabused him of this notion. The sheer time it took to master even one skill meant that even heroes, despite their divine blessings, had to specialise in order to be effective. Some specialised in melee combat, like Adam himself, some in ranged weapons, and others in magic.
Then Adam noticed something else in Lilith's words, something that stood out to him. "From what you just said, it sounds like you…" Adam struggled to find a polite way to express himself, "don't consider undead to be fellow monsters."
"That's because most of them aren't," Lilith replied. "There are some who can think and talk, like wights and liches, but most of them are no better than animals. To give one example, just now they also attacked me, when a real monster would have at least hesitated after seeing a monster and human working together. Basically, most undead are just corpses moving through the power of demonic energy. They don't have the mind of the original person within them… or any mind at all."
Adam nodded. In the past, he'd only encountered undead twice, but both of those cases lined up with Lilith's description. The lower forms of undead made no effort to communicate with each other, nor did they have any self-preservation instinct: they simply attacked humans relentlessly. Fortunately, this simple behaviour also made them easy to outwit.
But higher undead are a different story, Adam recalled. Once, Hero Brutus told me and the other trainees about his encounter with a lich. He was the kind of man who would fight even a wurm head-on… but that encounter terrified him.
By now, the sun had reached its apex. Adam and Lilith remained at the oasis for a few hours, resting in the shade of the trees. The people at the last village had emphasised the importance of resting during the hottest part of the day. To borrow their words, those who were foolish enough to disobey this rule inevitably littered the desert with their bones.
Once the sun neared the horizon, the pair continued their journey. The plants and animals grew scarcer and scarcer, and eventually they were surrounded by barren sand once more.
The temperature plummeted when the sun set. This was a phenomenon that Adam and Lilith had already experienced, but it had never been this severe before. It was so cold that if there were any water present, Adam wouldn't be surprised to see it freeze. The two of them put on additional clothing, but even this was barely enough to keep their body heat in. The one advantage to the situation was that magical lighting was unnecessary, as there were no clouds to obscure the light of the moon and stars.
It wasn't long before it was simply too cold for them to travel. They set up camp on the lee side of a dune, where they were sheltered from the wind.
They resumed their journey once the sun rose. As in the previous day, they travelled during the morning and rested during the afternoon. They didn't encounter any more monsters during this time.
Night, however, was a different story.
Shortly after sunset, they climbed over the crest of a dune and finally spotted the village. Due to the distance, they could only make out the shapes of the buildings against the background of the starry sky. Sighing with relief, they began heading towards it. Then Lilith held out a hand and said, "Wait!"
"What is it?" Adam replied, his hand already on the hilt of his sword.
"There's demonic energy coming from over there! And from the amount—there's more than one monster there!"
