Versatile Mage: Get the Desert Emperor clone at the start

Chapter 154 The Devastated Sands, The Nailed Wolf King
The Sandworm Monarch lies dormant deep within the sand year-round, like a living heart of the desert, each pulse causing the sand and gravel within a radius of several miles to tremble.

Its primary ability is to control sandworms and possess them.

Those tiny sandworms, as thin as hair, burrow into their prey's seven orifices, wander between nerves and blood vessels, and eventually take hold of its brain.

The possessed creature will not die immediately.

Instead, it will fall into a semi-conscious state and gradually be eroded by sandworms.

Their pupils will gradually turn into a cloudy yellow like sand grains, and over time, they will slowly become puppets extended by the sandworm monarch.

After these creatures die, their inner power is devoured by the sandworms that possess them, and their bodies are completely taken over.

Therefore, the Sandworm Monarch's ability lies in its unpredictability; its individual combat strength is inferior to that of monarch-level demons who have enhanced themselves.
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The next day, as dawn broke, Qin Xiaonan prepared to investigate the matter of the Sandworm Monarch.

Mu Nujiao stayed home chatting with Qin's mother. Although her mother knew that her son Qin Xiaonan had broken through to the high-level mage realm, she still reminded him, "Be careful."

"Understood, don't worry."

Leaving Bocheng Anjie, Qin Xiaonan headed straight for the sandy area where the Sandworm Monarch had turned into sand.

Before leaving Bo City for the Demon Capital, he had been here once. At that time, there were a large number of puppet demons controlled by sand worms, led by Winged Wolves. There were many wolf beasts patrolling the sand, all with grayish-white eyes.

There were also flocks of sand crows and red kites circling in the sky above the sand sea, their wings flapping and scattering fine sand.

And now.
Qin Xiaonan squatted down, grabbed a handful of sand and rubbed it between her fingers, the sand grains began to reveal their earthy brown color.

“The desertification is receding,” he murmured to himself.

As they continued forward, groups of human mages came into view.

They searched the sand carefully like treasure hunters.

Several monks were chatting.

"It's a pity we received the news too late, otherwise we could definitely have found something even better."

"There's nothing left here now; all the valuable materials have been looted."

"Yes, who would have thought that these demons would start fighting each other, and fight so fiercely?"

Qin Xiaonan slowly approached.

Just then, an old mage with a weathered face suddenly approached and asked, "Are you here to 'collect scraps' too?"

Qin Xiaonan said, "I heard there are some bargains to be found here, so I came to check it out."

"Too late! Too late!" The old monk slapped his thigh, spitting as he spoke. "If we had come three days ago, there would still be plenty of good stuff here!"

Qin Xiaonan then followed up by asking, "Do you know exactly what happened here?"

The old mage said, "It must be a battle between the demon tribes of the Southern Ridge and the sandworms here. Good heavens, the ground is shaking like an earthquake! Even the protective barrier of Bo City is buzzing."

"They've fought before, haven't they?"

"How can that be the same? Usually it's just minor skirmishes, but this time it's different." He suddenly shivered, his voice unconsciously lowering. "That night, in my sixty-plus years of life, I've never felt such a terrifying aura. A monarch-level demon was fighting to the death; the aftershocks alone turned the sand dunes within a hundred miles upside down."

"And guess what? Three days later, someone mustered up the courage to come and see for themselves. The entire sand dune was as quiet as a graveyard. All the sand golems had turned into real corpses, and the sand worm king's lair had been blasted into a crater a hundred meters in diameter."

"Now you know why you're late, right?"

"The first group to arrive collected quite a bit of material, even materials at the commander level. Now," he kicked at the sand at his feet, "we're lucky if we can find any scraps."

After listening to the old monk's account, Qin Xiaonan frowned, her gaze sweeping heavily over the ravaged sands. "Something's not right," Qin Xiaonan muttered to herself.

He closed his eyes, feeling the sun disk imprint that Azir had left on the Sandworm Lord—the faint connection was like a candle flickering in the wind, yet it still stubbornly persisted.

This indicates that the sandworm monarch is indeed still alive, but in an extremely weak state.

He stood up and looked toward the rolling mountains to the south.

It's normal for the demon tribes of Nanling and the Sandworm Monarch to fight each other, but why would they suddenly launch a large-scale attack? Moreover, judging from the traces of the battlefield, this is clearly a fight to the death.

Filled with questions, Qin Xiaonan continued her journey towards the Nanling Mountains.

The desertification gradually receded, replaced by scorched earth and cracked rock layers.

Suddenly, he stopped abruptly.

On a distant cliff, a massive golden spear pierces the rock face, gleaming brilliantly in the sunlight.

The spear is made entirely of flowing sand, yet retains a solid form, and its shaft is covered with ancient runes—this is the weapon of the sand soldiers that Azir bestowed upon the Sandworm Lord.

Qin Xiaonan strode forward and discovered a shocking bloodstain on the rock wall below the spear tip.

The bloodstains had dried and turned black, and more importantly, there were a lot of silvery-white wolf fur scattered around, each hair curled up as if scorched by high temperatures.

"This is... the female wolf king's fur?" Qin Xiaonan picked up a wolf hair.

Only a monarch-level demon can make the Sandworm Monarch unleash this move.

Among the monarch-level wolf beasts he knew of in the Southern Ridge, there was only one: the Queen Wolf.

He stared at the sand spear, and the scene gradually pieced together in his mind: sand soldiers wielding spears, with thunderous force, pinned the female wolf queen to the cliff face. Judging from the scorched fur around her, the female wolf queen had released a certain amount of defensive energy before her death.
However, after being killed by the sand soldiers, it must have been dismembered and taken away, as monarch-level demons are full of valuable materials.

However, the queen wolf, a monarch-level wolf, is too large, and this place is very close to the Southern Ridge.

Those people probably just disposed of the female wolf's body quickly and then left.

Meanwhile, scattered on the ground were fragments of bone and internal organs, covered with jagged teeth marks.

These must be traces left by low-level demons that have eaten them.

After those people left, some demons in the Southern Ridge followed the scent of blood and came to feast on the leftovers.

Once upon a time, the female wolf queen who ruled the wolf pack of Nanling has now been reduced to having her remains devoured by these low-level demons.

This is the cruel law of the demon world—survival of the fittest, the winner takes all.

After seeing all this, Qin Xiaonan did not go back immediately, but chose to go deeper and decided to go to Nanling to see the situation.

His intuition told him that there must be a bigger conspiracy behind the disappearance of these sandworms.

“I have to go there myself,” he said softly.

With a thought, a pair of crystalline winged magical artifacts suddenly unfolded behind her—

"Whoosh—" With the infusion of magic, Qin Xiaonan lightly touched the ground with her feet and shot into the sky like an arrow.

The wind whistled past my ears, and the sand below shrank rapidly.

(End of this chapter)