Sand Mage of the Burnt Desert

[Translator - Peptobismol]

[Proofreader - Demon God]

Chapter 274

The Curse Sorcerer wore a tattered cloak, sewn together from the hides of some unknown monster.

He was a hunchback, and his appearance was hideous to the point of being grotesque.

His hair was a tangled mess, unwashed for so long that it stood up in all directions. His pockmarked face was covered in thick layers of grime, with large holes scattered across it.

Dark circles hung heavily beneath his eyes, and the air around him was so gloomy it seemed as if a dark cloud perpetually hung over him alone.

The Curse Sorcerer’s name was Phantsy.

In front of Phantsy knelt an Awakened scavenger who had just returned from a reconnaissance mission.

Fear was etched all over the scavenger’s face as he gazed at Phantsy.

He was a scavenger—a bandit who roamed the desert, surviving by looting.

His life was spent taking from others.

Attacking the few surviving settlements in the desert and stealing from them—that was how scavengers lived.

But ten days ago, that life had taken a sharp turn.

It was on a day when the desert was blanketed in a thick fog that a strange visitor, a man shrouded in darkness, had come to the scavengers' hideout. That man was Phantsy.

The scavengers had laughed at this unexpected guest.

To them, it was as if prey had walked right into the den of predators. But it didn’t take long for their thinking to change.

Phantsy had immediately cursed them.

The scavengers hadn’t been prepared, and their comrades writhed in agony as the curses took hold.

Phantsy’s curses were vicious and terrifying.

Those afflicted by his curses suffered unimaginable pain.

Their bodies rotted, melted—those were just the basics.

They couldn’t even die, no matter how much they wished for it.

Phantsy’s curses held their lives in a cruel grip, forcing them to feel every ounce of torment until their last breath.

That’s why the faces of those who died from Phantsy’s curses were frozen in expressions of agony, the pain they had endured visible even in death.

“Wh-why are you doing this to us? We’ve done nothing to harm you!”

“Do you scavenge because you have a reason? Or is it simply because it’s easier to live that way?”

“What does that have to do with—”

“I live this way because it’s easier for me too.”

That was Phantsy’s response to the surviving scavengers' desperate pleas.

Phantsy had then placed a curse on the remaining scavengers, turning them into his puppets.

With the curse embedded in them, they had no choice but to obey his commands.

Defiance would only lead to a painful death.

And so, the scavengers became Phantsy’s puppets, forced to carry out his orders.

Phantsy spoke now, addressing the kneeling Awakened man.

“I sent three of you, but only one returned.”

“They detected our surveillance and attacked us.”

“Sharp, are they? To notice a lookout.”

“They weren’t ordinary people. Before the others could flee, they were caught.”

“Did you identify who they are?”

“I… I’m sorry.”

Thud!

The Awakened man slammed his head into the ground.

Phantsy had turned the scavengers into his puppets to gather information about Archelon. But since they had failed to retrieve any useful information, the man feared for his life.

“Useless.”

“Please spare me. I swear, I’ll find out who they are next time.”

“And I’m supposed to trust a rat who ran away with its tail between its legs?”

“P-please…”

“Do you think a man who failed his first task will succeed at the next?”

Phantsy’s lips curled into a twisted smile.

The Awakened man knew all too well what that smile meant.

Suddenly, he sprang to his feet and attacked Phantsy.

“You bastard!”

Swish!

A dagger, which the man had always kept tucked in his belt, flew straight toward Phantsy’s throat.

Even as the blade streaked through the air, Phantsy didn’t so much as lift a finger.

He didn’t need to.

A tentacle, the size of a human torso, shot out from behind him and swatted the dagger away.

“Aaagh!”

The man’s face contorted in terror, more than it had during the earlier exchange.

The tentacle belonged to the creature Phantsy controlled—his Chimera, the Black Anemone.

Phantsy turned his back and spoke as he walked away.

“Bessie, it won’t even be a snack, but go ahead and eat him.”

Shwack!

Before Phantsy had even finished speaking, the tentacle coiled around the Awakened man and began draining his fluids.

The man’s body shriveled like a dried-out husk, and he died instantly.

Before Phantsy stood a massive, cylindrical monster, its writhing tentacles reaching out in all directions.

It was the Black Anemone—Phantsy’s Chimera.

Phantsy reached out and stroked the anemone’s body.

“Oh, my dear Bessie. Just wait a little longer, and I’ll let you devour that giant turtle.”

Phantsy had named the Black Anemone Bessie.

It was a name taken from the language of a country that had perished over a hundred years ago—France. In that language, Bessie meant “sacred.”

Even though most people found the Black Anemone repulsive, to Phantsy, it was divine. That’s why he had given it the name Bessie.

Phantsy had come across Bessie by chance.

As a Curse Sorcerer, he was never welcomed in any settlement. Even scavengers rejected him because of his class as a Curse Sorcerer.

But it wasn’t just his class—his hideous appearance also played a part. His grotesque looks repulsed people, driving them away.

And so, he wandered the desert alone.

Had he been more powerful, he would have cursed every person or scavenger who rejected him. But at the time, he had only been an E-rank Curse Sorcerer.

An E-rank Curse Sorcerer, at best, could only curse one or two people, making their lives miserable.

Even that didn’t work against Awakeneds with strong resistance or immunity.

Phantsy had vowed to take revenge on those who had mocked him, but reality had been unforgiving.

For a long time, he wandered the desert alone.

His life changed in a nameless canyon.

The canyon, a crack in the middle of the desert, emanated an eerie energy from the moment he stepped inside.

Any normal person or Awakened would have felt fear and run the moment they set foot in that place, but for Phantsy, a Curse Sorcerer, the eerie atmosphere felt comforting.

As if drawn by an unseen force, he ventured deep into the canyon.

It was like a slaughterhouse.

The deeper he went, the more he saw the remains of countless monsters strewn across the canyon floor.

Sandworms, Ghost Scorpions, and countless other creatures lay dissected and discarded.

Suppressing his fear, Phantsy pressed on.

The further he went, the larger and more formidable the monsters' corpses became.

If they had been alive, Phantsy wouldn’t have dared approach them.

As if in a trance, Phantsy walked to the very end of the canyon.

There, he found the massive Black Anemone—Bessie.

The moment Phantsy laid eyes on the grotesque Black Anemone, he fell in love.

He had suffered all his life because of his own repulsive appearance, and he knew immediately—no one could love such a hideous creature except him.

The Black Anemone was on the verge of death.

Its tentacles flailed weakly, and its main body lay limp.

Phantsy used all his strength to drag the monster corpses from outside and place them near the anemone’s tentacles.

As soon as the dead creatures touched the tentacles, they reacted.

The anemone instinctively began absorbing the creatures' fluids. As it consumed the fluid, it regained some of its vitality. But the corpses of the smaller monsters weren’t enough to fully revive the Black Anemone.

Phantsy continued dragging more and more monster carcasses into the canyon.

The hundreds of smaller monsters he brought became nourishment for the anemone.

It wasn’t until it had absorbed the fluids of hundreds of monsters that the Black Anemone was able to move on its own.

It then began feeding on the larger monsters that Phantsy had been unable to move.

In this way, the Black Anemone devoured every monster in the canyon. From that moment on, the Black Anemone became Phantsy’s companion.

It followed Phantsy as if repaying him for saving its life.

Phantsy then formed a soul contract with the Black Anemone.

It was during this process that he realized the Black Anemone wasn’t a naturally occurring creature.

It was a Chimera—a creature made from the bodies of many monsters, pieced together in the canyon.

Someone had captured monsters and used them to create this Chimera as part of an experiment.

The result of that experiment was the Black Anemone, the same creature Phantsy had now formed a soul bond with.

Phantsy didn’t know who had created the Chimera, nor did he care.

But he thought he understood why the Chimera had been abandoned.

The Black Anemone was flawed.

It was made from too many different monsters, resulting in excessive energy consumption and an unstable internal structure. It required a constant supply of food to sustain itself. Without food, it would begin to collapse from the inside.

The creature’s creator had likely deemed it a failure and left it behind.

But Phantsy didn’t feel the same.

For someone like him, who had wandered the desert alone all his life, the Black Anemone was the only friend he could rely on.

Even though it was flawed, Phantsy couldn’t discard or abandon it. That’s why he had entered into the contract with its imperfect soul.

From the moment he bonded with the Black Anemone, Phantsy’s life had changed.

Even the massive monsters that had once terrified him were no longer a threat.

Seeing the giant monsters die as the anemone drained them of their fluids amplified Phantsy’s sense of pleasure.

It was as if he had personally brought down those powerful creatures.

Each time the Black Anemone defeated a monster, Phantsy’s rank increased.

He eventually rose to the rank of an A-rank Curse Sorcerer.

A-rank Curse Sorcerers were extremely rare.

Even rarer was a Curse Sorcerer who commanded a Chimera like the Black Anemone. Phantsy was likely the only one.

From that point on, Phantsy plundered everything in his path.

Monsters, humans—it didn’t matter. He took everything.

The humans who had once shunned him all became food for the Black Anemone.

Phantsy believed that if he kept growing in strength, soon there would be no one left in the desert who could oppose him.

Not even the one who had created the Black Anemone.

Phantsy wanted to show them.

The Chimera they had discarded—he had perfected it.

They had failed, but he had succeeded.

However, it wasn’t long before he realized how wrong he had been.

At some point, both he and the Black Anemone stopped growing.

It seemed they had reached their limit, and the Black Anemone had begun to collapse from the inside.

To stabilize the anemone, they needed a special kind of prey.

Something with the durability to prevent the internal collapse.

That’s why they had targeted Archelon.

Phantsy believed that if the Black Anemone could absorb Archelon, the mobile fortress, it would evolve to the next level.

That was why he had attacked Archelon.

But Archelon had escaped to the Steel Fortress, fending off the Black Anemone’s assault.

In the process, the Black Anemone had sustained significant internal damage, preventing them from launching another attack on the Steel Fortress.

Phantsy and the Black Anemone had only one chance left.

“I missed it last time, but I won’t let it escape again. Let’s go, Bessie!”

With that, Phantsy and the Black Anemone left the scavengers' lair.

All that remained were the dried husks of the bodies that had been drained of every last drop of fluid.

* * *

Far in the distance, Lee Jung-ho frowned as he looked out at the scene before him.

Lee Jung-ho had prided himself on experiencing all manner of strange things. But what lay before him now was something even he had never seen before.

It was the middle of the day.

The sun was shining brightly, its rays so intense they stung the skin. Yet, far on the horizon, the land was pitch black, as though it had been sliced cleanly in two.

It was as if night had descended only on that distant place.

Pavilsa, standing next to him, spoke in a trembling voice.

“That… That’s where the land whale’s nest is.”

“Was it like this the last time?”

“No, it looked just like the rest of the desert.”

“And now, just when we arrive, it looks like that.”

Lee Jung-ho’s voice dropped, heavy with tension.

His instincts screamed that something was wrong.

The blackened land stretched far and wide.

There was no telling what might happen if they set foot in that ominous place.

No matter how strong he was, Lee Jung-ho was still human.

The unknown—something he had never encountered before—naturally instilled fear.

“What in the world could that be…”

“It’s a Territory.”

Zeon’s voice came from behind them.

“A Territory?”

“It’s a power that only S-rank or higher monsters can use. They forcibly change the environment to suit themselves.”

Zeon’s voice was calm but grave.

Humanity had encountered such a power once before.

Terraforming.

The very power that had nearly driven Earth to extinction—the power of Krasias.

[Translator - Peptobismol]

[Proofreader - Demon God]