Meili Explanation POV
When I was an assassin for the organization, the Augria Sand Dunes was like my supermarket.
A supermarket without the need for you to pay. As long as you can take it, that's yours. In Y/N onii-san's words, a primitive version of supply and demand. Never understood what that meant.
Many of my mabeasts that I have today are gathered here, but many are also not. Augria Sand Dune is a wild card in my arsenal, because when it comes to my Divine Protection. it's all about compatibility.
I can't measure this compatibility in any way, as it did not come with the Divine Protection. However, the mabeasts that I have low affinity with are either too strong or just incompatible, which means they won't follow my orders. One such example is that Guiltylowes are very compatible, but Oirangumas, the Courtesan Bears, are only somewhat compatible.
I tend to avoid certain places, where the mabeasts I'm not exactly compatible with reside. To enter the desert, I usually come from either the north or the west, considering that Vollachia is quite the heavily fortified country and Elsa has absolutely no chance at beating one of their Divine Generals. Lugnica's only good thing is that they absolutely don't care about their slums, and that's exactly what makes it such a good hiding spot for me and Elsa back in the day.
Going in from the north, I usually depart from Elior Forest to the nearby mining city of Ganaks, before approaching the sand dunes. It's really interesting, especially when you first see the grass starting to blend in with the sea of sand. Sometimes it makes you wonder how the environment turned out this way, and why the grass on the border of the deadly region is not wilting.
Anyways, if I go in from the west, we'll always stop at Mirula, for it is the only city in the Augria Sand Dunes. We usually stay here to make sure we have a base to return to, or just for stocking up on general supplies. Of course, I have to keep my mabeast horde out, but they seem more than happy to do so. They stay at the forest to the southwest of the city, and when I need to venture into the desert, I call upon their help.
I usually ride on the Rock Piggies when I go in. Why not the Dark Lions? They are my greatest offensive force, and me using one of them as a steed would only diminish their attack power and I'll be a hindrance to them. So in order to maximize efficiency, Rock Piggies are best. Also I just learned from Y/N onii-san that the Rock Piggies are better for walking on sand due to their large paws. He said it had something to do with low pressure because the force is being exerted over a larger area? Again, I'm not the science expert. Palmyra is the star pupil and we all have to take our hats off for her.
Avoiding all flower meadows that I come across, I usually just go around the outer rim and collect any stray forest type mabeasts who have wandered into the dunes. Since most of the mabeasts here are either useless in other environments, such as the Earth Sandworm, or just too weak, like the Winged Moles who die in one hit to their horns. After collecting the ones I needed, I usually head back to the forests to get acquainted with my new partners or just rest in a nearby town with Elsa.
What you need to bring into the dunes? That's easy. Food, water, transportation, and cloaks and goggles for the sandstorm. That's pretty much it. You need to bring a lot of water, though, because you'll run out no matter how much you bring-
"Meili! Explanation time is over because we're under attack!"
Onii-san, this is not the time to interrupt me.
"Subaru already got sniped through the head! This is a code red-"
I shall pay my respects to onii-san. May he rest in peace.
"This is not the time for jokes-ahhh!"
BLACKOUT
Y/N POV
"Y/N, we have just looped twice." Echidna's voice came through the pendant, alerting me of the current situation. We have successfully snuck past the endless meadows of the Courtesan Bears, but the number of obstacles were far from over.
"Really?" Immediately snapping out of the daze, I turned towards Omega who was beside me in our capsule. "What exactly happened, Chid-chan? We looped twice? Why didn't you tell me the first time?"
"Even if I did tell you, you won't remember it now, right?"
"Oh, yeah..."
"Here... let me show you..."
"Move." Meili's voice suddenly turned cold, uttering the single command into the meadows of flowers that seemed to never respond as we slowly moved on.
There was a moment of deafening silence if not for the constant buzz of the roaring sand. I thought Meili had failed, but she simply repeated her command.
"Move."
Then, multiple Courtesan Bears emerged from the ground in front of us, slowly clearing a path, moving ever so sluggishly like they were half asleep. For a moment, they seemed to obey Meili's orders, only to suddenly focus their eyes on Subaru and I, who were both emitting a certain amount of miasma. I immediately decided to unsheath Amorum, but Meili stopped my hands.
"Let me take care of this, Onii-san. Tch. Tsk, tsk."
Meili began making sounds that sounded oddly soothing, for both mabeasts and humans. The Courtesan Bears, as if mildly bewitched, finally turned their attention away from our carriage. We started moving through, only to realize that the meadows are closing in on us as we move through, due to the fact that the Courtesan Bears will stop listening to Meili after a while.
"I'll lift the horde off like when we passed through Sand Time." I remarked. Snapping my fingers and connecting my soul to Zarestia, I began to use Spirit Wind Magic, despite me not having an affinity with the element itself.
"Tch, tch tch tch." Meili started moving her fingers all of a sudden, as if to increase the level of control, and it actually worked. Lured to the movement of that arm, the Courtesan Bear, which had brought the dragon carriage to a standstill, turned its face towards that and moved, taking a single step in that direction. Slowly following her fingers' movements, the Courtesan Bears finally walked out of our way completely, and we slowly marched onwards.
At the Courtesan Bear's conduct, of distancing itself away from the dragon carriage, a reflexive sigh of relief leaked out of Subaru's throat. Emilia or Beatrice too, who had stiffened their bodies up earlier, loosened their shoulders in relief. When the one who had caused a standstill moved, the other Courtesan Bears too, tried to return to their own movements of distancing themselves.
It was all going well until I noticed a low growl coming from the front of the group, and realized it was the ground dragon pulling the carriage, Josef. I completely understood why he was irritated by the passing mabeasts, but I cannot let him jeopardize the safety of our group.
"Valgren, tell your kin to shut up right this instant, or we'll all die." Relaying my message to the pet hydra perched on my shoulder, he flew off and immediately tied Josef's mouth shut. This gave us just the time we needed to cross the fields, but it wasn't enough. As soon as we left their territory, the Courtesan Bears turned on us, and Meili's strength was exhausted from controlling.
"Shit!" I immediately injected mana into Meili's body using a Yang spell, and the horde of mabeasts started fighting with the Courtesan Bears. Meili, now slightly recovered, summoned a few Sand Earthworms to attack. Sphinx and the other long-ranged fighters also started to support the horde, and everything was going fine until I noticed that Josef, the ground dragon pulling Meili's carriage collapsed.
"Hm? Its head is gone?"
SWOOSH
SPLAT
Horrified at the sudden sound of flesh and blood, I faced my left and saw Subaru getting shot through the head by a white laser, and Beatrice screamed.
"Subaru-"
Before I knew it, I died too.
"And in the second loop, you froze the entire field solid along with Emilia, and asked Meili about her experience in the dunes before. But as you can see, Shaula attacked much faster the second time."
"Shaula's Hell's Snipe... it really isn't something easy to deal with, huh? I think I didn't take into account that it's not when she attacked, but rather, how far we were from the Watchtower will she attack."
"That seems to be the better assumption. Now, get ready, we're entering the Courtesan Bears' fields."
"I'll go with the strategy we did last time. We'll freeze this place until time stops."
"You're seriously going overkill here... but to use Absolute Zero like nothing when it's Emilia's absolute trump card... you've really grown, Y/N. Alchemis will attest to that."
"Was that a compliment I hear? Chid-chan? Come on, say it louder, I didn't hear-"
"Get to work or I'll drop a Shario on you. We can save the flirty stuff for later..."
"Fine." I made my way to the carriage in front of us, and started explaining the plan to Julius, Anastasia, and Emilia, before telling Subaru and Beatrice outside. Everyone affirmed the plan, and we stepped onto a wind platform that Zarestia made for us outside the barrier that covered our entire group and the mabeast horde.
Subaru didn't look too happy that I was going out to cast the spell alongside Emilia, so I sliced my finger open and made a magic circle on a piece of paper I created from my Authority. "Let me just say this, bro. I swear on my soul and astral body that I will never get hooked up with your beloved. I believe we both can confirm that NTR is bad and sucks as hell. By this contract formed by my own blood, let's swear an oath on this, how about it?"
Subaru seems to be taken aback by the level of sincerity that I was showing, considering that my finger was still bleeding. "Thank you, Y/N." He let out a deep breath in relief, before also nipping on his own finger and added his blood to the circle, and we swore our oath on not touching each other's love interests. I healed our fingers afterwards, but I was a little woozy from the loss of blood while I spoke. Quickly forming some red dates (the fruit), I ate them to replenish red blood cell creation within my body. (Yes, this actually does work, in case you didn't know.)
This is what you get for trying to show off, haha. Echidna snickered in my head, and I only gave a sigh in response.
Wait, I just realized something.
Why didn't Subaru say anything about the last two loops if we did indeed loop?
Wouldn't he be panicking?
Shouldn't he have said something? This is weird...
"Y/N, are you ready?"
"Yeah, go ahead and use the spell!"
"AL GLACIUS!" Emilia yelled as a layer of ice started to form all over the meadows, and I activated my own spell.
Keeping everyone inside the barrier and the Witch of Glaciation beside me out of its power, Absolute Zero activated, stopping the thermodynamic arrow of time for everything enclosed within its range. When the domain lifted, everything was still frozen but only slowly recovering since nothing's heat capacity would allow them to regain thermal energy faster than an instant.
"There we go, and that's the first problem solved." I wiped off a bead of sweat while Emilia and I climbed back down into the barrier. Speaking of the barrier, Subaru still got shot through it, so I'm assuming the raw attack power of Hell's Snipe transcends the defensive power of the Great Spirit of Wind. Huh. Does that mean the sage is stronger than Zarestia..?
Before I had time to think about it further, Subaru suddenly spasmed and started sweating, and I noticed an unusual glint in his eyes. He just Returned by Death. Wait. He JUST RETURNED BY DEATH? NOW?
Something ain't right. How could I be here already when Subaru has not looped? Chid-chan, what is happening-
"Y/N!" Subaru's yell jolted me from my thoughts, and I immediately ran over.
"You looped, didn't you?"
"Yes, how did you know?"
"The panic and fear in your eyes says it all."
"Okay, this is going sound really crazy, but I think I got sniped twice and was mauled to death once after being shot twice."
"Wait, so you died five times?"
"No, no, I died three times. The last one was very painful though. Why?"
Wait, what? So this is the fourth loop? WHHHAAAT? Then how come I only looped two times when even Chid-chan said so? No, Chid-chan wasn't lying, Deceit didn't trigger nothing, so...
There was something wrong with the timeline.
"Anyways, that's not important right now!" Subaru yelled. "The white light from the tower will kill us! We need to turn back now! Maybe it'll be safer to go through the dunes on the other side-"
"Dunes? Subaru, did you just say dunes? Like the secret entrance?"
"Huh? Yes! That place, we need to go there now! You probably realized it too at this point, right? The light can tear through even a Great Spirit's Barrier! This will be a massive problem, so we need to act now!"
"Subaru, you need to slow down for just a moment. We're about 1000 metres from where the light will start shining, so I need you to tell me what happened in the last two loops, because I believe there is a... discrepancy."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
In the most concise way possible, Subaru explained the events that transpired. "You're right, Y/N. Something doesn't add up. Wait, what about Josef? I thought the earth dragon was going to scream, and if he was going to, I was going to use Invisible Providence to stroke him."
"Subaru, we left that point around 5 minutes ago. I had Valgren make Josef keep his mouth shut."
"Oh, right... this is really weird. How could you loop-"
SPARKLE
SWISH SLASH SH-PING
"What just-" I spoke, and before I knew it, a few mabeasts erupted into flesh and blood as I saw Zarestia's barrier bisect itself through the influence of Hell's Snipe, and one of my fingers were torn off in the midst of that attack. Wincing in pain, I healed it before yelling out an order.
"Everyone turn back to the Sand Time entrance right now! We will die if nothing is done!" Subaru echoed my order and repeated it, and Emilia, who was in the carriage, heard his message and relayed it to Julius and the others inside. Meanwhile, Omega, who was inside the capsule, took control of it and made it start flying. Everyone landed as Zarestia disabled her barrier, and the mabeast horde dropped onto the flower meadows where the Courtesan Bears resided, causing chaos to ensue.
"Everyone just take care of yourselves! We'll meet at the dunes outside later!" I yelled over the roaring wind. Meili who was controlling the Earth Sandworms to fight of the Courtesan Bears gave me a sharp nod before fending off her own enemies. Zarestia took the spot of the gunner and started shooting wind pellets at the Bears who were quite vicious although not able to reach the capsule in the air.
"Al Akra-" I enhanced my body and senses with the Yang magic buff, but before I realized it, I glimpsed the white light in the corner of my eye, aimed right at my head. At this point, instinct took over.
"Rage Pulse!" The red energy exploded out of my brain and temporarily saved my life, but I sensed another one was coming. Summoning my own Unseen Hands, I fused to the two together in front of me as I created a dense ball of energy with the two hands.
When Petelgeuse had his Unseen Hands cut, they seemed like droplets of water that dissipated. If I gather those droplets together and condense them, before shooting them all out with an extreme amount of force, we get-
"Imperceptible Extensions Phase Five- Shadow Laser!"
My own beam of shadow countered the beam of light, but it proved inferior as the light started to rip through my own attack and I was forced to dodge. I immediately crossed my fingers and Prudence's Barrier activated, defending myself for a second shot that came again, out of nowhere.
"Subaru! Get away from here and to your destination! I'll stall the light and I'll get to you there!"
Nodding, he ran off with Beatrice on Patrasche. I faced the Watchtower before activating Infinite Multiplication along with Critical Overload, creating over 100 clones of myself across the sand.
"Bring it, Shaula!"
Declaring my determination, I started to evade countless white beams of light, all while using my Authorities to nullify or block the attacks. At least Subaru and the others are getting farther away.
"No sniper from Hell can kill an Outerworlder with their bullet."
"That's the unwritten rule."
"We're surviving this no matter what!" Charging into the white light, I felt my clone disintegrate, while I blocked another snipe with my Authority of Greed.
Activating my Authority of Pride, the Dominator's Domain helped me and my clones in defending against the continuous bombardment from the concentrated Yang energy. Occasionally, a few would pierce through and end a few of my clones.
Sighing, I stabilized myself on the shaking sands from the impact of the Hell's Snipes, and looked up towards the source of the light.
"Shit just got real."