"This place is so… empty… that it's kind of creepy…"
With the big meat stick on his shoulder, Zephyr walked in a straight line for several hours without stopping, but to his surprise, he didn't come across a single creature no matter how far he walked!
Aside from that first monster snake, Zephyr didn't even see a single bug in the entire area, let alone a monster!
There were no stones and boulders; it was all just ash and grey sand everywhere as far as eyes could see.
"Aside from this ominous greyish ash covering the entire desert-like area, it's all eerily empty…"
"It's as if this place is 'Sea of Ash'! There is nothing but smoke and ash! And it's really giving me the creeps…"
The path forward was silent, lonely, dark, and eerily empty; it was as if in this entire place there was nowhere to hide at all.
And the most frustrating of it all was the fact that as time passed Zephyr started to feel oddly anxious for some reason.
With each passing minute, he could feel more and more 'anxiety' and 'dread' fill his heart for some reason that he couldn't even understand.
'Something is definitely wrong…'
By now Zephyr had already confirmed that he was not stuck in some kind of space-time loop or anything at all, as he had been marking the ground with numbers after completing approximately one kilometer of distance each time.
As this place is dead silent and there is no fast wind movement, the numbers marked on the ground will not get erased so easily.
If space-time were looping, Zephyr would have already noticed it, but to his dismay, he was not looping inside the same place and was, in fact, really stuck in a very vast desert of ash!
Although the knowledge that he was stuck in a massive desert was indeed very heartbreaking, it wasn't the main source of his dread.
For some mysterious reason, the more time passed, the more anxious he felt, and that feeling was originating from the sky!
'The hint given by the system warned me of 'Heavy Rainfall'… is some kind of acid rain going to happen soon?'
'But with my physique I should be able to withstand something like that easily; then why am I feeling so anxious?'
In the live streams that Zephyr saw before, there was indeed one unlucky fellow who ended up getting teleported to a place where it literally rained acid all day long nonstop!
The poor fellow died before he could even take a few steps forward!
'Although I can tank acid rain with my physique… I still don't want to take any reckless risks, so it would be better to find some kind of shelter…'
'The main challenge, though, is that I can't find anything that can be considered as shelter…'
There were no caves, trees, or boulders that could be used as shelter from rain in this massive desert.
Just when Zephyr was feeling more and more uncertain, he suddenly noticed something shining far into the distance!
It was as if a giant mirror were placed far away; something was reflecting brightly from the distance.
"How can there be a mirror out here in this barren, desert-like place? It can't be that there is a building there with an intact window?"
Although the physique upgrade had improved his eyesight, in this dark, smoke-filled place, it was reality difficult to see anything clearly from so far away.
The shiny object was likely more than 2-3 kilometers away from him, and if not for his enhanced vision, he could have easily missed it!
Zephyr stopped for a second as the dilemma of whether he should approach that unknown object or not appeared in his mind, but it didn't take long for him to decide that he should go in that mysterious object's direction!
"I have already walked for several hours non-stop, and I couldn't find anything at all; this might be my only chance to find a clue to my current situation…"
The risk was high; that mysterious object could very well be a shiny, reflective body of a powerful monster that was using light as a way to bait its prey.
Or it could even be some kind of bizarre phenomenon beyond human comprehension that could bring harm to him in various ways, but Zephyr had no better options than to try to investigate it.
If he didn't go to investigate it, he would keep wandering aimlessly in this 'Abominable Sea of Ash' and might not even reach anywhere for days!
'I should trust my 'Indestructible Body' and behave like a proper tank! There is no place for cowardice in the heart of an unbreakable Tank!'
Just like how the lives of the party depend on the protection and fearlessness of the 'Main Tank' player, Zephyr's survival relied on his meat-shield-like body!
He had to believe in his own tankiness and take the risk for a better chance at survival!
'The word retreat does not exist in the dictionary of a truly invincible tank!! We must press the frontline forward with grit and determination!'
After motivating himself with a lot of cringy words, Zephyr changed his direction and headed straight towards the shiny object in the distance.
As Zephyr got closer and closer to that shiny object, it became clear to him that his worries were pointless.
That shiny object wasn't a monster luring its prey in a trap or any bizarre cosmic phenomena at all; it was actually a massive spearhead the size of a three-story building!!
The spearhead was missing the entirety of the spear, and only that massive, half-broken spearhead was left intact.
The spearhead's pointed tip was buried halfway in the ground at a 30-degree angle, and to Zephyr's shock, the spearhead was made of silver!
"No wonder this thing was reflecting light so much even in this darkness and smoke; silver is one of the most reflective metals out there after all..."
As Zephyr approached the spearhead, he realized that because the spearhead was tilted at a 30-degree angle, there was a place to hide under it and avoid any acid rain!
Even if the acid rain happened, it would fall on the spearhead and slide away; it would be safe to stay below it!