The leader of the herd of sand lions, was the 10 ft tall sand lion who was thicker than an elephant.

The sand lion was solely focused on Zhao Luo after he displayed his swords one spin slash which he had used to kill his four minions.

In anger, the leader of the beasts pointed at Zhao Luo with his sharp and big claws.

"ROOOOAR, roar, and roaaaar."

The leader of the sand lions released some ground-shattering cries from his mouth as if he was trying to tell his minions something.

Roughly translated by various means, the roar went something like this,

"That guy is too strong for you all, so let me handle him, and you guys can take care of the other two."

As he said that, the remaining 11 sand lions went towards Si Chen and Rose.

Zhao Luo, Si Chen, and Rose were looking at the beasts and their weird communication. 

'Guess he has chosen me, heh.'

Zhao Luo thought when the beast pointed at him with his claws.

The trio had already killed 13 of these sand lions till now and now only 12 were left, the leader included.

The sand lions with their leader were moving towards Zhao Luo who was now standing in front of Si Chen and Rose.

The leader of the hoard stopped in front of Zhao Luo.

While Si Chen and Rose moved away together.

The leader looked up and down and smirked with his beastly face as he gazed at Zhao Luo with his beastly eyes.

Zhao Luo had his brows furrowed because of the expression on this ugly beast in front of him.

Zhao Luo pointed towards the dead bodies of the four sand lions that he had killed a little while ago and then moved his thumb across his throat sending a deadly message to the beast.

'You are dead, beast. I am going to kill you just like them.'

While Zhao Luo was exchanging taunts with the leader of the sand lions, Rose and Si Chen had already engaged with the other sand lions.

"Clang"

"Clang"

The slashes from the sand lion claws kept on coming one after the other.

While Si Chen and Rose kept on defending against them, it was still getting hard for them.

To be on defense against so many opponents where even a single mistake would be dangerous and life harming, it was proving to be a lot of pressure on both of them.

"Let's try to focus on one of them first. If we can get them one at a time and hopefully reduce their number while defending, it will be easy."

Si Chen told Rose. 

It was a good way to lessen their burden seeing as how dire their situation was.

If they could kill one of the sand lions first then it would mean that the attacks coming towards them would decrease by two.

And if they continued reducing the sand lions number this way, then they would eventually win.

"Okay."

Said Rose in response to Si Chen's idea.

"Clang"

Si Chen defended against an attack from one of the sand lions that was circling them.

"Let's focus on the fat one at your right side."

He had already chosen the first target to kill.

A fat sand lion was attacking from the right side of Rose.

Both Si Chen and Rose hacked at it together while defending from the attacks of other sand lions.

"Clang, Clang, Slash."

The fat sand lion was slashed in half and fell towards the ground.

'Hah, one down.'

Si Chen thought. He thought that it would be easy now and let down his guard.

The death of one of their companions made the other sand lions more aggressive.

They all attacked violently and focused on Si Chen. 

The sand lions in front of Rose also tried to go for Si Chen.

Si Chen and Rose were fighting back to back, protecting each other from the circling sand lions.

Rose tried to defend against the attacks from the sand lions in front of her that were aiming towards Si Chen but still, one of the lion claws passed her and went towards Si Chen who was already busy defending himself from the other sand lions.

"Ahhhh"

Si Chen screamed as a huge claw mark was left on his bleeding back.

But he still didn't let go of his sword.

The lion sacrificed itself to land a hit.

Rose had already killed it.

So 2 of the 11 sand lions were already down.

There were only 9 left. But Si Chen wasn't in a good condition as a hit had landed on him and his back was bleeding badly as a result of that attack.

"Will you -"

"Don't worry about me, this is nothing."

Rose worried about Si Chen so she was gonna ask him if he could still fight but Si Chen interrupted her before she could even complete her question.

Rose and Si Chen turned towards the sand lions and the momentary paused had ended. 

The barrages of attacks from the sand lions continued. 

While defending Rose had gotten an idea.

"Bear yourself."

Rose said to Si Chen.

"Clang"

After defending one of the attacks coming towards her, she hacked her sword down on the sand with her full power.

This caused the sand to rise making a little sand cloud with Si Chen and Rose at its center. This blocked the vision of the sand lions in front of them as it left them baffled.

This gave Rose and Si Chen a chance to kill the sand lions without them defending their attacks.

So both Si Chen and Rose moved their swords with their full force.

Each time their sword passed through a sand lion's body, the body of that sand lion would fell as pieces.

"SLASH"

'Thud'

'Thud'

'Thud'

"Slash"

'Thud'

'Thud'

When the suspended sand settled, among the 9 left from before, only 4 of these beasts were left.

Rose had killed 3 of these sand lions with a slash whereas Si Chen had taken down 2.

Now they both were left with 2 sand lions each.

This all happened in under a minute.

When the sand flew because of the attack from Rose, it acted as the ignition of the fight of Zhao Luo and the leader of the sand lions.

The leader slashed with his right claw towards Zhao Luo's face.

Zhao Luo bent his body backward and barely escaped from the sharp claw.

'Ssshhhhhh'

'Woah, that was so fast.'

Zhao Luo thought as he heard the sound made by the passing claw of the leader.

As Zhao Luo regained his form he was going to be hit by the left claw.

He brought his sword in the way of the attack.

'Clang'

The sword in Zhao Luo's hand and the left claw of the leader of sand lions collided and sparks flew everywhere.

Both were displaying their force as they kept on using power to push the other back.

"Roar"

The leader roared as he pumped his beastly legs downwards to push Zhao Luo back.

Zhao Luo could feel the weight of this sand lion and the power behind his large structure.

It was like a piece of meat weighing a ton was stuck to his sword and he couldn't let his sword go down.

Zhao Luo had his hand trembling because of the sand lion's power.

But this trembling stopped in a second as mysterious energy seeped in his arms and his body felt strong energy coursing through his body. 

He was feeling an unmeasurable amount of power from his body.

He felt like he could even throw this sand lion in the air like a ball.

Zhao Luo focused on his wrist and saw the tattoo of Heaven's Tomb shining.

"It's the heaven's tomb, again"

He knew that the power he was feeling was supplied to him by the book.

"Roar?"

The sand lion was confused as his body was being pushed back along with his left claw.

He was confused as this human who was half his size was not only matching him in power but also pushing him back.

"ROOOOAR"

The sand lion was annoyed as he landed an attack from his right claw on the sword too. 

But even that wasn't enough to push Zhao Luo back.

While the power contest was going on between Zhao Luo and The leader of the sand lions, Si Chen and Rose had already killed all of the 11 sand lions that had attacked them.

"Huff"

They both looked tired especially Si Chen who had taken a blow.

He was barely standing.

Rose and Si Chen directed their attention towards Zhao Luos' fight.

The power in the body of Zhao Luo passed on to his sword.

But because of the sharp claws of the sand lion, the sword was under pressure from both sides.

As it couldn't handle the pressure, cracks started to appear on it. And while Zhao Luo was still pushing his sword toward the body of the sand lion as he was going to bring it down the sword broke into pieces.

"Shit."

Zhao Luo cursed.

This caused the momentum to shift suddenly leaving Zhao Luo in a bad situation.

The sand lion brought both of his claws down on Zhao Luo intending to finish him on the spot.

"Zhao Luo."

Rose screamed.

"My Sword."

Si Chen shouted.