Infinite Realm

"What now?"

With an exasperated expression, Sato separated himself from the wolves and returned to safety.

With the commotion being so large, even the Phantasmal Rock-wolves had their attention drawn away from the fight and hesitated chasing after Sato.

"What the hell is happening?" Xue Yan was confounded at the new development.

"I don't know but it's definitely not a good thing. Let's get to somewhere safe first." 

Sato dragged her by the hand as he ran past her. Xue Yan didn't repel him but ran alongside Sato as the two slipped away from the site. The Phantasmal Rock-wolves didn't remain behind either, as they all took their paws and fled the scene.

After they had gone past a few metres, Sato let go of Xue Yan as he sheathed his sword back and led the way.

"Sato! Behind us!" 

Overhearing Xue Yan's call, Sato peeped behind and saw a dust-storm rushing down the mountain towards them. To be exact, it wasn't targeted at them but more like they happened to be within its range. The dust-storm, if measured, would no doubt reach a height of 15 metres. From the angle it approached, the dust-storm actually blocked the light from the red sun, casting a shadow upon the earth.

With eyes wide like saucers, Sato didn't dare falter in his footsteps as he increased his speed.

"Run and don't look back!" Sato told Xue Yan.

Sato couldn't imagine what had cursed such a massive dust-cloud but he didn't want to find out anytime soon. His current priority was making sure that both Xue Yan and himself could outrun the dust-storm or get somewhere safe and wait it out. With the pressure from the mountain, this proved to be difficult. Fortunately for them, they hadn't go so high up the mountain yet so the pressure was still bearable.

"We need to find a safe zone. Look out for any."Sato informed Xue Yan.

Xue Yan didn't reply as she was concentrated on escaping, nonetheless, she heard Sato's words.

Not more than 30 seconds later, Sato noticed that the dust-storm, which was previously 200 metres or so behind them, had actually caught up and was only a hundred metres or so away.

"Damn it." Sato cursed as he could feel the hand of death closing in on him.

'Death here means failure. There's no way I can die so soon and not like this.Not even at the hands of a tough beast but a storm? No way!' 

Sato was unwilling but there was nothing he could do about it.The first section was mostly clear open sand fields with a few medium and large boulders scattered all over. Unless they ran up the mountain or back to the ground(sea-level), there was no place to hide from the dust-storm. However, going up the mountain wasn't a plan since the dust-storm was coming from there. As for heading down, that was exactly what Sato and Xue Yan weer doing however, even though they hadn't gone so dep into the mountain, they had still gone a sizeable distance in. 

In summary, before they could most likely reach the ground, the dust-storm would have devoured them.

Sato's face contorted as he realised this. It was as if the heavens were forcing them to die and fail this trial.

"Sato, over there!" Xue Yan yelled as he used her staff and pointed at a certain direction.

Tracing the staff till the end, Sato saw that Xue Yan was pointing at a a cliff by the side of the mountain. The face of the cliff actually housed a cave that if one didn't pay attention to it, they could walk past it without realising so. While the first section was an open space, there were still irregularities in ground height and so, a few cliffs and steep walls existed. 

The reason Sato didn't find this place on his way up was simply because he didn't take this path up. During their retreat, Sato didn't have enough time to retrace their steps and simply chose a random direction and headed down.

"Move." 

Sato changed direction towards the cavern. With the way things were now, the cave seemed to be the only safe zone for the duo and unless they found another -which the chances of that happening was very low- or they reached the ground before the dust-storm annihilated them. However, Sato doubted they could achieve that so he went with the current best option; to take shelter. Doing so would not only minimise their losses[1].

As he closed in on the cave's mouth, Sato didn't bother going in smoothly and simply jumped into the cave. Xue Yan did the same too since the dust-storm was just a couple of metres away. Once inside, she rolled herself deeper in just like Sato did.

*Whoosh*

*Bang* *Bang* *Boom*

Just 8 seconds after they had gone in, the dust-storm passed by their previous position, eclipsing the entrance of the cave while creating a wreck. 

Seeing this, Sato's eyes displayed a sliver of fear as he retreated further into the cave. The reason for his reaction wasn't just his fear of the dust-storm's strength and intensity but also the fact that he had actually underestimated its speed. Initially, it wasn't so fast and was just at the speed enough for them to barely outrun it but now, it seemed to have suddenly accelerated as if it desperately wanted them dead. 

"That was close." Xue Yan sighed as she laid on the floor, trying to catch her breath.

Sato didn't make any comment but instead took out a light-stick from his bag and light it. He then used the light produced to inspect their surroundings. With the rampage the dust-storm was caused, the entrance of the cave was blocked and they had to find another exit point. Luckily for the duo, the cave was actually bigger than they thought. There was a passage that lead deeper in but as for what laid in there, they didn't know.

"We have to find a way out. Spending too much time here would hamper our progress." Sato said.

Xue Yan didn't reply him with words but simply stood up.

"Let's go."