Gourmet Hunter (HxH Fanfic)

The last meal before death.

Many people think this way, but they are all wrong.

After a lavish feast, they were tied onto sand sledges and taken out of Red Rock Canyon by a large group of sand bandits, heading toward an unknown destination.

They were indeed setting off, just not the kind they had imagined.

The sand bandits' procession was massive, countless in number, giving the impression of an all-out mobilization.

Millia lay prone on the sledge, quietly relieved. Though the future was uncertain, as long as she was out of the dungeon, there would always be a chance to escape.

At the front of the procession, Geralt rode forward, his deep gaze fixed on the endless horizon.

Some time ago, a team of nearly four hundred of his men had targeted a certain prey, only to be nearly wiped out by a Nen User who could manipulate quicksand. Only twenty or so had escaped.

When the team leader first mentioned a Nen User, Geralt immediately thought of an incident even further back… when he had led his men to ambush the entourages of Sixth Prince of Goro Kingdom, only for a black-haired boy, who is also a Nen User, to appear and slaughter a hundred of his men in mere moments.

The team leader's subsequent description, however, made Geralt dismiss his initial suspicion. This troublesome target was a middle-aged man, not the same as that boy.

The appearance of these two Nen Users had cost Geralt nearly five hundred men, which is not a small number, and also carried an ominous undertone.

Compared to the middle-aged man who could control quicksand, Geralt thought the black-haired boy was more troublesome.

He didn't want to go through the trouble of taking revenge on these two people, and with the grand plan he was preparing for, he chose to let it go.

However, according to the intelligence brought back by the team leader, the middle-aged man's group wasn't a trade caravan traveling between the three oasis kingdoms. Their route led straight into the heart of the desert.

Those who ventured there either sought the desert's myriad creatures or... the Forbidden Zone!

In other words, the other party's target was most likely the Forbidden Zone. Of course, there could be other motives… perhaps some painstaking field researchers wanting to observe the daily predatory methods of the desert's vicious beasts.

If he remembered correctly, among the dead in the dungeon were supposedly knowledgeable scholars from the outside world who had come to the desert. They might still have a few companions left, but they weren't worth his attention.

'If we run into them...'

Geralt snorted coldly and glanced back at the massive procession behind him. With his three-thousand-strong force, whether it was the black-haired boy or the middle-aged man, he could simply overwhelm them with numbers.

The Forbidden Zone was Geralt's goal. Nestled in his chest was a map, its precision rivaling that of Ali's.

He was a man of ambition, so he is unwilling to spend his entire life in the desert. He wanted the countless treasures hidden in the Forbidden Zone, and then he would leave this wasteland for the world beyond.

…

Perhaps it was fate's doing, but after so many years, two sizable forces were simultaneously making their way toward the Forbidden Zone… far beyond the usual small-scale skirmishes.

Law had came to the known world's largest and cruelest desert, the Kandhia Desert, learned of the Forbidden Zone, and developed a desire to see it for himself. Then, he met William and found the Desert Hawks. After trekking for nearly twenty days, he was not far from the Forbidden Zone.

Before the sun disappeared, the group set up camp in a small patch of rocky area.

Before leading the team in, Ali turned to Law and said: "If we set off tomorrow morning, we'll reach the outskirts of the Forbidden Zone by noon."

This meant this rocky area was only a few hours away from the Forbidden Zone.

As the group entered the rocky area, Law climbed onto the tallest boulder.

Then, in the last lingering rays of the sun, he faintly glimpsed a thin black line stretching across the horizon in the far distance.

Instinct told him that was the location of the Forbidden Zone.

Law only had a few minutes to observe before the sun sank below the horizon, its remaining light vanishing as the thin black line merged into the night.

The next day, the team prepared to depart, and everyone is in high spirits. They all knew the Forbidden Zone was within reach. Crossing the treacherous desert to reach this point hadn't been difficult for them, and the real challenge lay in breaking through the perpetual sandstorm surrounding the Forbidden Zone!

Before leaving the rocky area, Desert Hawks scavenged as many insects as they could find, stockpiling them as emergency rations.

The team set off again, and four hours later, Law finally saw the sandstorm that enveloped the Forbidden Zone, which had not weakened all year round.

Thick black clouds churned violently in the sky, like a massive wad of ink-stained cotton tossed into a high-speed washing machine, torn apart by gale-force winds yet never dispersing.

Beneath the clouds, endless sand was swept up by colliding winds from all directions, forming shifting black curtains that covered every inch of the visible landscape, suffocating in their oppressive weight.

Desert Hawks halted, every member falling silent as they took in the spectacle before them. The only sound was the howling wind rushing toward them from the Forbidden Zone.

The armored bull pressed themselves into the sand, trembling violently, their cowardly nature laid bare.

No one bothered to question why the sky and sandstorm had persisted for a hundred years without fading. Aside from the brief, pitiful lull that occurred once every century, this phenomenon had endured for a millennium.

What was its origin? No one cared.

Those who came here sought only the Millennium Imperial Capital hidden within the calm valley at the heart of the sandstorm.

"Brothers, are you ready?"

Ali suddenly shouted, raising his arm. Holding a small syringe in his palm, he stared at the sandstorm in the distance.

"Do you even need to ask?!"

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

Every member of the Desert Hawks raised their arms in unison, gripping the syringes Ali had distributed the night before, which is the key weapon to breaking through the sandstorm!

Inside the syringes was the toxin prepared by Gel. Once injected into the armored bulls, it would send them into a state of frenzied excitement, driving them forward relentlessly, even if they were charging into a mountain of blades or a sea of flames.

With these syringes and the extensive use of ropes, the armored bulls could carry them through the sandstorm. After all, though the sandstorm was ferocious, its coverage wasn't vast.

Law stared at the sandstorm, his eyes gleaming. If this was the extent of it, he had the confidence to cross it even without relying on the armored bulls.

Ali swept his gaze over his team, his chest swelling with pride. If they emerged alive from the Millennium Imperial Capital, laden with untold riches, his name would resound across the entire desert.

"Inject… and charge!"

In an instant, everyone plunged the syringes into the armored bulls' necks. Within moments, the trembling bulls that had been cowering on the ground suddenly reared up like bulls seeing red, charging madly toward the sandstorm.

The group surged into the sandstorm, vanishing from sight in seconds.

Everyone clung tightly to the backs of the bulls, not daring to lift their heads for fear of the sand blinding them… except for Law, who observed the interior of the sandstorm with an almost fascinated gaze.

This was the first time he had ever remained so calm inside a sandstorm. What kind of visual experience was it?

It was like standing in the abyssal depths of the ocean, surrounded by pitch-black darkness. With each step, clouds of dust billowed around him, and the light only illuminated a meter or two ahead.

The armored bulls were running at full speed, reaching a velocity surpassing even that of galloping horses… nearly 70 kilometers per hour. In less than five minutes, the group broke through the sandstorm, arriving at a valley that towered into the black clouds. Here, it was as if they stood in the eye of the storm, untouched by the raging winds.

Ali had no time to revel in the thrill of crossing the sandstorm. His first priority was confirming that no one had been left behind.

Law administered the antidote to the frenzied bull, calming it down, then leaped off and walked toward the valley with Buhara.

They were lucky and arrived directly at one of the four passages.

Seeing Law and Buhara moving ahead, William quickly dismounted and followed them.

It was said the valley had four passages. Law approached the entrance, finding it roughly three times the width of the Zoldyck Family's Testing Gate, which was neither too wide nor as narrow as he had imagined.

The depths of the passage were shrouded in darkness, but the visible ground was covered in bones… a true and literal path of white bones.

Meanwhile, outside the sandstorm, the massive force led by Geralt had also arrived.

Of the five hundred expendable captives he had brought, two hundred had perished along the way. But with three hundred remaining, it was still an acceptable outcome for Geralt.

The greatest obstacle to entering the Forbidden Zone wasn't crossing the desert to reach it, nor was it passing through the unending sandstorm… it was traversing that path of bones and the ancient capital's minefield beyond, which were riddled with deadly traps!