SAND DEMONS

I pulled out my katana and gripped it hard with both my hands.

They stood in the distance, as tall as seven feet to my measurement, with red blazes where I thought their eyes were supposed to be. They were large, looming figures, made of sand and with sand continuously pouring off their human-like forms. They also had what I thought were horns all over, and looked very much like walking desert lizards from where I stood.

One of them stopped and yowled again, before rushing towards me. I ran towards it as well, cutting sideways with my weapon to attack. Alas, nothing met my surprise when I heard my katana ring upon the skin of the Sand Demon with an impact that was so hard it jarred through my entire metallic body and was felt by the rest of me.

I pulled the katana away and rolled through the sand, while the demons followed after me. One held its hand open, and shot a gust of sand that missed me. I tried to get up as fast as I could, but another gust of sand hit me, knocking the katana out of my hand and throwing it elsewhere.

Before I could understand what was happening, all three were upon me, shooting these gusts of sand at me, with one powerful enough to throw me far off. It would have killed a normal human for sure, by cutting him into pieces, but Hades planned to keep me alive, so that the ones that hit my human parts hurt well enough to make me want to black out and without life leaving me.

Luck found me near the katana, and I picked it up as fast as I could before jumping at one of them. Again, I tried to cut through, and again, there was the jarring impact of steel clanging against something just as tough, so that the Sand Demon I attacked sent me flying with a punch that threw me far elsewhere, separating me from the katana again.

“Maia,” I cried out. “The Sand Demons are too tough.”

“Yes. But they cannot kill you, remember?”

“How do I kill them?”

“Attack them with what you have.”

Never had I gotten an answer so useless. My katana couldn't cut through them, so what chance did I have with a covering so hard that it broke through stone.

Again, they gathered and stood around me, all three raising their hands. I started to feel air move around me, and before I knew anything, I was in the midst of a whirlwind, the sand moving about me.

I could still see with the aid of my night vision, the hateful forms of the Sand Demons, and how all three stood at perfectly divided angles of a circle to me. The nine red glows that were their eyes were visible through the rough circles of spinning sand, and it was when the sand started to cover me that I realised what they intended to do.

They planned to bury me alive!

And because I couldn't die, I would only continue to remain under the sand, living, and a torment. I would never even make it past Level 1, but would remain eternally stuck under the desert sands without ever getting to the Sword of Pella.

Under me, the wind dug the sands, and the deeper my body went.

It would take the memory of an old fable to save me then, one in which a donkey had fallen into a well and the owner intended to kill the donkey by filling the well with sand. With each shove of sand, the donkey shook it off, so that the sand poured into the well and reached a level high enough to save it.

With a jerk, I realised what Maia meant.

Shaking the sand off me stopped me from getting buried, and slowly, I set my body in a position that allowed me to make a desperate run to save myself.

When I found my chance, my feet helped me propel myself so that I ran forward as fast as I could, past the space between two of the three Sand Demons. The wind had very nearly carried me, and even threw me off balance, but I soon found my feet and continued to run.

Only Maia's guidance could help me now. I hoped she would.

“Maia… help me find my bag.” I yelled.

Nothing brought me more relief than the sight of the System Dashboard appearing before me. I tapped the *Map and Minimap* section, and there, marked by a small X, not far from me was my bag.

The Sand Demons were coming after me, almost as fast as I ran, but I was well ahead. I finally reached the small X on the map, and crashed down into the sand, holding the bag close to myself. I would have cried for joy if I had the chance to, but the Sand Demons were closing in.

My hands took out the water bottle from the bag, pulled the cover out, and threw a generous amount of water on the nearest Sand Demon to come close. As I hoped, the creature yowled and fell on the sand near me, a part of it cut off.

The other two tried to attack, and it took me quick thinking and even more daring. I poured the water in my hand, and stuck it into the chest of the Sand Demon that bore down upon me.

My heart gladdened when the glow in its eyes dimmed, and the yowl became a low groan. My wet, metallic fingers dug even deeper, so that I felt the stone heart of the Sand Demon, and curling my hand around it, I pulled it out from the creature as it let out the loudest yowl it had made since I first came into contact with them.

The rest of the Sand Demon's body turned back into sand and joined the rest of the desert, while the other two demons turned their eyes upon me. At once, I started to wonder if I had made my whole predicament worse, that by killing one of them and taking his heart, I only made everything worse than before.