Epic of Caterpillar

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FLAAAASH!

Luminous flew across the skies, this time, thanks to Invisibility Veil, we were not getting caught by any bastardly Desert King or anything of the sort. I had already learned my lesson this time around and- Well, even if it happens, I'll be greeting that damn monster with open arms.

We've got an evolved Luminous and Frank now within our Ranks, and also me of course, I think we can deal with anything right now. A Desert King might be hard, but I am confident in that we can beat it to death!

Anyways, the trip was extremely peaceful. We enjoyed the breeze and the hot sun atop the sky, and the vast deserts. I thought that spreading trees too much would end up destroying this beautiful desert, so I'll limit myself where I leave them.

However, this whole problem with this city got me slightly worried. I guess I'll have to see how I can help. Maybe it is my fault… After all, I went to take a visit to the governor some time ago and brainwashed him so he could act like a good governor instead of his corrupt ways.

But I doubt that would cause a fucking drought, right?

RIGHT?!

I hope…

"I can sense them closer, scattered…" Said Frank, his eyes glowing with cosmic light.

"What can you sense?" Asked Ariant curiously.

"Yeah, what is it?" Eriant asked as well.

"My Soul Fragments. I can sense them getting closer as we go to that city. They're not inside the city but in the surrounding areas, and slightly farther away." Said Frank. "Kireina, can you feel this enormous presence? This darkness…"

"Yeah…" I closed my eyes, clearly sensing this darkness getting closer, an enormous darkness, a deathly presence.

It was drawing closer, step by step.

A monster, maybe? Or a horde of them?

Can't really tell, but Elfina's far away, I can't properly sense her more detailed than this sadly.

"Oh, there's a Dungeon nearby!" Ariant pointed out.

The entire city of Goldsand Capital was beautifully surrounded by an enormous wall made of reinforced clay and magical ores and rocks. There was a big Oasis- or well, was. The Oasis was not as big anymore and the surrounding flora was barely managing to thrive near it.

However, the interior of the city was just as I could have imagined a desert city to look like. Mostly all houses were made of white rock and resembled beautiful ancient Persian architecture. The population was immense as well, for a city in the middle of an arid desert, here was over a million people there by far.

A vast market that extended all over the middle of the city selling all sorts of products and materials. Ingredients exported from around the desert's regions or even from outside of the desert itself. I also saw several plantations they made around the Oasis, but most were drying out.

There was a lot of cattle at least, but I guess those might be diminishing in numbers as well, or at least over time, which is quite sad. Nonetheless, the entire place had a big palace I had visited before where the governor lives.

Maybe we should go make him a visit? Like that we get treated like VIPS.

After all I brainwashed the dude and all…

Maybe we are friends now!

…Well yeah, for now we should just take a stroll and… see what I can do in this little time frame. I kind of want to explore a bit, just to unwind for an hour or two.

"Frank, can you sense where they are?" I asked again.

"Hmm… One is far away, over there. The others are there, there, and one inside the dungeon. They're progressively growing larger auras." Said Frank while looking concerned.

If those Stones are growing larger in auras, it means they were snatched by something, a monster or whatever. We have to catch the critters and kill them to get the stones back to our new friend and ally.

"But why are they so scattered to begin with?" Asked Luminous.

"Well, if they came to this world by falling from the skies… Meteors usually don't fall as a single big rock into the ground when they come from space. The atmosphere usually warms them so much they break apart into thousands of tiny rocks which fall all around the place." Said Frank. "Yeah, the Gods used many of them for whatever purposes, but after their long deaths they simply scattered with passing time. There's also the ones they never got themselves, such as these ones."

"I see…" Luminous nodded. "I want to apologize in regards… of my creators, my parents, for what they did to the fragments of your soul. I don't really know if they knew they belonged to a person's soul or not, but I feel like this is something I have to apologize for. For their mistakes."

"Ah…" Frank suddenly smiled. "Don't worry about it. Luminous, right? That was so long in the past and they're all dead, I cannot really get mad at them now, to be honest. You've already showed to be a good person, I hope you can become a God that changes this world."

"I… I will try, of course!" Luminous roared.

"Alright, we're here!" I said.

Luminous quickly flew down into the road leading to the entrance of the city, as he quickly transformed back into his small form and we slowly walked into the road, joining with many other people and carriages coming to the city as well.

"Wow there's a lot of people coming to the city!" Ariant said.

"There's a lot more diversity than I originally believed as well." Fiere said. "I guess this place's not just Desert Elves and Humans."

Indeed, there was a lot of other races.

Although the single super continent of the Grand Terra World only has three prominent Kingdoms/Empires in the Human Empire, the Elven Country, and the Demon Kingdom, it could be said Goldsand is the fourth of them as its own Empire but compared to these three it is very small and unknown.

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