"Now you see what I was talking about?" I asked with a smirk as I began walking towards the exit, still in a combat-ready state in case of any hidden traps, hidden bosses, or whatever.

Luckily, I didn't encounter any of these things and uneventfully reached the door, walking through only to stop once outside the chamber, sighing while shaking my head.

"What is it now?" Briar asked from behind as she made her way towards me. "Come and see for yourself," I replied with a shrug while looking at the desert in front of me.

"I wonder how that shit-eating clown is doing all of this," I murmured to no one in particular with a frown on my face as I turned around, sighing again as the wooden gate disappeared behind us.

"Some sort of advanced technology, no doubt," Briar remarked with a shrug, still smirking as she checked the surroundings. "Probably hard light projectors," she added as she turned to look at me.

"Hard light projectors?" I repeated, raising an eyebrow in confusion. "Yup, they're devices that transform light into a solid-state, capable of bearing weight and performing a variety of tasks," she replied, pausing for a second to think about something.

"Technically, if you use enough solid light projectors and sufficiently capable AI cores...," she added, trailing at the end of her sentence, seemingly calculating something.

"You can simulate an entire city of hard light," she stated with a nod. "But it's only possible on paper, as doing that would cost more than building an entire city," she concluded while shaking her head.

"Well, it looks like the game master didn't spare any expenses, at least," I dryly remarked as I also began checking the surroundings, feeling genuine bemusement at how far the game master would go for the game's sake.

"What does the bastard even get out of doing this?" I asked as I materialized Bloodsport in front of me.

[Blood Sport: A construct of hard light in the shape of a baseball bat (Currently hosting the orb of Discord) with the power to absorb your victims' blood to grow stronger and unlock new abilities in time. (The blood of victims with special powers or bloodline has a low chance of triggering unique abilities)]

'Does this mean that Bloodsport will dissipate if I leave the hard light projectors' range?' I frowned, not pleased by the conclusion this line of thought was leading me.

[Normally, that would be the case, but that is not the case for Bloodsport] The system's robotic voice reverberated in my head. 'And why is that, exactly?' I wondered as I began walking around to make myself look busy.

[Bloodsprt is Discord's current host, so it will receive enough energy to sustain itself from Discord] The system's voice replied, going quiet after doing so.

'That makes sense, I guess.' I shook my head. "Let's get moving," I remarked as I turned to look at Briar, jumping into the air and materializing Snowwhite into a pair of wings.

..

"I've never seen a creature more deserving of the sentence kill it with fire than this one!" Briar exclaimed with a scowl on her face as she looked down on a giant worm creature, roughly four meters tall with a circular mouth full of jagged teeth, wriggling in the sand.

I merely chuckled at her remark as I continued to fly forwards, as I didn't find such monsters surprising considering the cliched nature of the game's stages so far.

A ruined city full of undead, a forest filled with goblins, a temple full of traps, and what's a fantasy desert without disgusting worm monsters wriggling in the sand everywhere? But I digress.

There were also other stereotypical desert monsters, lizard-like creatures with sand-colored scales, oversized rodents, and giant snakes. Luckily though, we didn't encounter any flying monsters, but it's probably only a matter of time.

"Look ahead. There seems to be something there," I remarked while gesturing forward towards a vague shape in the horizon. "What is it?" Briar asked while putting her hand above her eyes to protect them from the sun while squinting them.

"It's too far to discern from here. Let's puck up the pace," I replied with a shrug as I increased my speed, causing Briar to do the same as she followed behind me.

"Looks like an oasis," Briar said with a smile while looking at the vague shape as it became clear in front of us, revealing a big lake with several palm trees surrounding it.

"More like a trap," I sardonically commented from the side, immediately noticing the lack of traces near this so-called oasis, which led me to conclude that it most likely is a trap.

In a desert like this one, water is a precious resource, and living creatures would naturally gravitate towards any water source, especially the said source was as big as this one.

So this so-called oasis is most likely home to something intimidating enough to scare away other desert creatures, or it could contain something equally dangerous.

"More or less, but we need to secure it either way," Briar remarked with a shrug of her shoulders while pointing upwards. "Yeah. We need some rest," I replied with a sigh as I turned to look up, noticing the sky darken.

"So, why do you think the oasis is as abandoned as it is?" Briar asked as we began to hover above the oasis, trying to gain as much information as possible before descending.

"A predator of some sort, poisonous flora, toxic water, who knows?" I replied with a sigh, shaking my head as I began to descend towards the oasis.

"Well, the air isn't poisonous, at least," I remarked as I channeled energy into my eyes and the surrounding area, finding nothing particularly weird about the atmosphere.

"Well, isn't that reassuring," Briar remarked in amusement as she followed suit, landing beside me while scanning the area with her eyes, causing me to shrug.

"There are no monsters within sight as well," I added as I turned to look at the big lake in the middle of the oasis. "Withing sight, huh?" Briar commented as she too turned to look at the lake with a smirk on her face.

The water in the lake began bubbling at that exact moment, stirring violently as the shadow of an enormous figure began approaching its surface.

"It looks we'll be finding out why desert creatures stay away from this oasis sooner rather than later," Briar said with an eager tone, promptly transforming her arms to blades.

"Definitely looks like it," I commented with a shrug, materializing both Bloodsport and Snowwhite gun form in my hand as an enormous serpentine head, slightly taller than myself, emerged from the water.

The creature immediately noticed us and turned to look at us with its yellow reptilian eyes, seemingly evaluating us. I did the same, focusing on the monster in front of me in an attempt to read its status screen, only to sigh after not getting any feedback from the system.

Still, I didn't need the system to tell me this thing was most likely even more dangerous than the minotaur by merely looking at the size of its head and metallic sheen on its black scaly face.

"Humanssss," the monster hissed while sending us a sharp glare. "Why dares dissturb my ressst?" the reptilian asked, alternating its gaze between Briar and myself.

'Just fucking great, another talking monstrosity.' My eyes began to twitch in annoyance as I looked at the monster, trying to think of an answer to its question.

'Why is it even hissing? Can this situation get any more cliched?' I shook my head as I looked the monster in the eye. "We're just passing by," I replied with a neutral tone, already preparing myself to fight.

"Then quickly leave!" the monster remarked, not even bothering to elaborate while looking at us with its cold, yellow eyes. "Afraid we can't do that," I replied, calmly shrugging my shoulders, and the monster kept glaring at me, seemingly aware that I had more to say.

"My partner and I need to rest," I explained while pointing towards Briar, who looked to be very impatient. "And you seem to have a really nice place here," I added with a smirk.

"So why don't you do your good deed of the day and share your space with us, hm?" I asked with a beaming smile, spreading my arms apart.

"And if I don't?" the serpent asked, squinting its eyes at me and hissing lightly at the end of its sentence. "Then we're going to have a problem, a big one," I replied, my smirk becoming more pronounced as I heard Briar eagerly cracking her fingers.

"I could definitely go for a new handbag or a new pair of leather shoes," Briar commented from the side while looking at the giant serpent as if it was a fish on a cutting board.