First Light of a New Age

Chapter 189: Riley's Takeover

Word Count: 11,500

It's shorter than the last few chapters, so you can read slowly through the details and comment much as you can.

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Second Civilization Zone, Earth Region, Africa, Egypt.

4th Year of the New Age, Thursday, 2nd Week, 10th Month of the Father.

In the heated landscape of what used to be northern Egypt, though "Egypt" had ceased to exist the moment the New World's mana had swallowed the region whole ever since Earth had been dragged into the New World during "Humanity's Dark Days", when the rest of Earth was transported to the New World.

The country had fallen in weeks as its native wildlife mutated almost overnight into massive magical beasts that rampaged across the region, wiping out nearly every soldier and civilian before anyone knew what was happening.

What survived now was an endless stretch of scorched dunes and ruins of countless cities, all washed under a sky that looked pale and distant, as if the horizon itself had been bleached by catastrophe.

Right now, Tavish and Mason were walking across the sand like they had been walking for days, though it had barely been two hours, while leaving a straight messy trail of enormous dead creatures from crocodilian mutants with armored scales, beetles the size of armored cars, and a handful of things with too many limbs and not enough reason to exist, were scattered behind them.

The two had killed them all while constantly arguing and complaining the entire time, leaving a path of destruction that looked more like the aftermath of a small war.

"You know," Mason said, kicking the corpse of a beast roughly the size of an SUV, "This country was already a mess before we got transported to this world, filled with terrorist extremist and drug cartels that turn this whole nation into a necro-state. Mana just finished the job."

Tavish snorted. "Feels like we're walking inside a graveyard where even the ghosts're starving to death."

As they pushed forward, Mason shoved aside a rusted tank sticking out of the sand with its armored raked open by claw marks wider than a bus. The gashes ran clean from turret to treads, peeling steel like it was wet cardboard.

"Look at this," Mason said, slapping the shredded steel armor. "Some monster used a tank as a scratching post. Figures. Any country up in the southern hemisphere from our world always gets the worst punishment."

Tavish nodded grimly. "Yeah. But we gotta keep moving. We're here because we all know the lore that this place is tied to that Evil God's mythology. If his cult snatched the girl and Maximo, then maybe this is the place they'd crawl to."

That was when Belinski chose this moment to erupt from beneath the sand, shooting out of the ground like a geyser. In his elemental form he resembled a moving sculpture carved from compacted sand as his body shifted and grinded with each movement. His sand skin allowed him to traverse beneath the desert at terrifying speed, crossing kilometers in moments.

He rose to his full height and dusted the sand off his shoulders. "I checked the entire region," he reported bluntly. "I found no shelters, tunnels or any disturbance throughout the whole country. Nothing underground anywhere in the country. The cult wasn't here."

Tavish groaned and dragged both hands down his face. "Great. Perfect. Egypt is a giant sandbox, and Maximo and the kid aren't anywhere inside it."

Mason kicked the tank again in frustration for emphasis. "So we wasted an entire damn day for nothing?"