Is this really a Game?!

"So this is it, huh?" Wolf asked as he looked at the new area from the peak of a mountain. They had managed to get to the edge of the mountainside and were now overlooking a desert area that was right next to it.

"A desert right next to these huge mountains that have snow on their peaks while the places below are full of life and greenery, you really don't know what to expect here." Reign smiled a bit as he stared at the desert below them.

It made him remember the challenge they had gone through together with the Ice Angels. Unfortunately, they had only done a couple of more challenges before they stopped doing them altogether as the rewards had stopped being good enough for them.

Even though it did not cost them much to participate in the challenges, Reign and the others simply decided against it since at the end of the day, there were no more hidden tasks that Drayce was giving any of them, something the man had told them after the temple was built.

Without those additional rewards, and with the possibility of seeing Drayce any time of the day thanks to him being in the territory, the challenges became simply boring to them.

Winning was easy, it did not take Reign and the others much to achieve a victory, but after thinking about it, they decided to simply stop and focus on leveling up and increasing their power.

Drayce had actually agreed with them, the other teams were far below them, even the Ice Angels were not their match, and they were the one team that was much more powerful than the rest, making the power divide too great.

The other teams from the territory had continued going to the challenges and were doing good, making all the teams present know about one fearsome territory that was in their region that had multiple powerful teams.

"Let's go, we need to find out what kind of monsters we might come across here." Reign said as he started making his way down the mountain with the rest following after him.

The desert would probably not hold many monsters that M'azgara would wish to devour and use for her main army, but it was still better to scout the area and see if there were any monsters that were useful to them anyway.

Upon reaching the foot of the mountain and walking toward the desert, Reign and the others were immediately able to sense the incredible heat of the area. Thanks to their high stats, the high temperature did not affect them that much, but they would still be using more energy than normal when walking around and fighting.

Some time passed, and even though they had been walking around the desert for all of this time, they were yet to come across any monsters. The desert was incredibly large and Reign and the others had been unable to see its end even from the top of the mountain they had previously stood upon.

Walking around aimlessly like this was not very wise as the desert could make it easy for them to get lost and end up wandering around without managing to find a way out. They were using the mountaintops that could still be seen in order to know where they were, but they were getting further away from them as they moved deeper inside the desert.

They came to the idea of leaving some marks on the ground or perhaps leaving some things that could be used to navigate their way through the area, but M'azgara quickly gave them another solution that was much more effective and easier.

She still had some nutrients left, and by using them, she created a low-grade Tier III monster that she sent back to the mountain range. The existence of the monster would allow her to sense it, and no matter how deep they were to go inside the desert, they would always be able to go back thanks to her.

Upon doing so, Reign and the others continued walking around. They wanted to find some monsters so that M'azgara could devour them and create more monsters that they would use as scouts. But by setting them loose and having them explore the other directions, they could gain a lot more information about the area.

Still, that did not happen. Even after they had walked about 20 more minutes, they still hadn't come across any monsters.

"Hey, do you think that maybe this area simply doesn't have any monsters, or maybe most of them left after the barriers started breaking down, after all, the other areas are much nicer compared to this one?" Reign asked Wolf and M'azgara who simply shrugged their shoulders.

They had no idea if that was why the desert was so empty and devoid of any life, but if that was the case, then their trip here was truly useless as they gained nothing from it.

The party still persevered on, trying to find out anything they could from the desert and what might lie ahead, and the answer was ... nothing. There was absolutely nothing to be found in the desert, even after Reign and the others had spent hours walking through it and doing what they could cover as much area as they could, they were unable to find anything. They had even managed to get to the edge of the desert after some 6 hours of walking, which although might seem as if the desert was small, it wasn't as the walking speed of Reign and the others was quite fast and allowed them to travel quite a lot of distance. In the 6 hours they had walked, they managed to cross over 100km of land before getting to the edge, which was where the ocean was.

"Nothing, there really is nothing here." Reign said with a blank face as he stared at the beautiful beach that was in front of them.

"Well, at least we found a beach, it is quite nice," Wolf stated with a calm expression as he looked at the beach.

"Yeah, too bad we have no idea what kind of monsters might be in the ocean, making it way too dangerous to go inside." Reign said with a sigh before turning around.

"Alright, mission failed, we'll get em next time boys." Reign said as he started walking back, making Wolf and the others laugh.

"Yeah, we should probably head back, it's way too hot here, and I really don't want to stay here any longer, not to mention that by the time we get to the mountain range, it will already be night and the temperature will drop by a lot," Wolf added as he followed Reign, eager to get out of the desert.

And so, the party walked back to the mountain range, and once again, they found absolutely nothing along the way.

"We wasted an entire day because of this dumb place." Reign said as he looked around at the empty desert before shaking his head.

"I just want to go and have a cold shower now, I'm sweating a lot thanks to the sun." He added as they moved through the desert and neared the mountain range, they still had about 3 hours till reaching it however, which meant that they would have to persevere the heat for a bit longer.

M'azgara's monster was at the mountain range, and they were walking straight toward it, which did make the trip a bit shorter, but only a little bit.

Finally, they were able to see the peaks of the towers and Reign smiled upon seeing them. They all continued forward and were quite close when night fell and the temperature became low. The incredible heat from before was gone, and what was left was only the cold.

Suddenly, there was a change. The sand started moving about 375 meters to their left. Reign and the others had barely sensed the movement, but as more and more sand started being shifted, they were able to sense the weird movement and stared at the small hill of sand that was slowly forming.

Suddenly, Reign's eyes widened in shock as he grabbed them and made his way to the mountain range.

"Guys, run!" Reign shouted with a slightly fearful voice as the others started running after him immediately. They knew his mana sensitivity was greater than theirs, which meant he had definitely sensed something, and whatever it was, it was not good.

"What is it?!" Wolf asked Reign as he ran behind him, only for the latter to glance back at the hill that was still rising and gulp.

"A monster."

"What, how could that be, we haven't sensed a thing all day, there were no monsters at all!"

"Yes, that's true, but right now, there are many of them, and they're slowly rising from below the sand all around us, just look around man!" Reign shouted back at him, prompting Wolf to look around and gulp as tens of small hills were slowly rising.

"All of those are monsters?"

"Yes, and from what I can sense, each and every one of them is much more powerful than we are, so if they catch us, we're finished, I don't know if my transformation will be able to help."