Chapter 200: Hugely Different Clearance Rewards
Ben and the Highbreed trudged forward, their boots sinking into the endless sea of yellow sand.
The blistering heat warped the horizon, leaving nothing but rolling dunes in every direction. Not a single soul was in sight. The only silver lining in this desolate wasteland was that they still had a vague sense of direction.
After marching for what felt like an eternity, a silhouette finally broke the monotony of the desert landscape.
"There's someone over there! Come on, let's go check it out!"
Ben's face lit up. He broke into an excited sprint toward the figure, kicking up clouds of dust. The Highbreed, however, barely reacted. His massive frame continued its slow, methodical, and utterly exhausted march.
As the distance closed, Ben finally got a clear look at the stranger. It was a Mummy. More specifically, it was a Mummy he recognized perfectly—Klein's personal nanny, housekeeper, and cook: Xiaobai!
"Hey, Xiaobai! What are you doing all the way out here?"
Seeing a familiar face—even one wrapped entirely in ancient bandages—brought an immediate wave of relief to Ben.
Xiaobai didn't speak. Instead, the Mummy reached behind its back and pulled out a wooden sign, holding it up for Ben to read:
[I am just an emotionless NPC.]
"Uh... alright," Ben muttered, scratching the back of his head. "So, what exactly are we supposed to do?"
Xiaobai smoothly flipped the sign away and produced another one:
[Slide down from there.]
With a flick of his bandaged wrists, the Mummy tossed two polished wooden boards onto the sand, then pointed a wrapped finger toward the towering, steep sand dune looming right behind them.
"Heh heh, is that it? Just a little sand dune?"
The Highbreed scoffed, his innate arrogance flaring up. He confidently snatched one of the wooden boards from the ground, stomped his way to the crest of the dune, and peered over the edge.
Below lay a massive, sunken sand pit. The surface of the sand wasn't still; it rippled and churned in wide, unnatural circles. Judging by the sheer scale of those shifting waves, whatever was moving beneath the surface was absolutely massive.
The Highbreed swallowed hard, suddenly realizing his previous boast might have been a bit premature. He turned back to the Mummy, his tone noticeably stiffer. "Can we... go around it?"
Xiaobai simply crossed his arms over his chest, unyielding.
Holding his own wooden board, Ben trudged up to the top of the dune and looked down into the churning pit. He gulped, a bead of sweat rolling down his temple. "Cousin wouldn't actually try to kill me... right?"
Before the words even left his mouth, the sand below erupted.
A colossal creature breached the surface, soaring into the air. It was a Devourer Worm—a horrifying, segmented monstrosity nearly ten meters thick, its total length impossible to gauge. Rows of grinding teeth spiraled down its gaping maw. The sheer scale of the beast left both Ben and the Highbreed frozen in shock.
A second later, the surrounding sand exploded. More than a dozen other giant worms, none smaller than the first, launched themselves out of the pit, thrashing wildly in the air before diving back into the depths.
"This entire place is a nest of Devourer Worms?!" Ben shrieked. "Cousin, you really are trying to kill me!"
Both Ben and the Highbreed shared a mutual, desperate urge to curse Klein's name to the heavens.
But panic quickly gave way to a flash of inspiration. Ben slapped the dial of his Omnitrix. A brilliant green flash illuminated the desert.
"Jetray!"
The red, manta-like alien hovered above the sand, a smug grin on his face. "Hehehe, I'll just fly right over!"
Jetray flapped his wings, catching the thermal drafts to ascend. But the moment his feet left the ground, a volley of thick, glowing bandages shot through the air, wrapping tightly around his ankles. Xiaobai yanked his arms backward, slamming Jetray face-first into the dune.
The Mummy held up another wooden sign, the text practically glaring at them:
[Cannot fly!]
A green light flashed again, forcibly reverting Jetray back into Ben. He spat out a mouthful of sand, rubbing his bruised nose.
"Alright, alright! I'll slide, okay?!"
Ben grabbed his wooden board, positioned it at the edge of the steep drop, and prepared to launch himself.
"Absolutely not! You are not actually going to slide down there, are you?!" The Highbreed stared at Ben, utterly appalled by the sheer recklessness of the decision.
"Don't worry about it. Cousin can't possibly want me dead." Ben sounded surprisingly confident. He knew Klein's twisted sense of humor better than anyone. Death was off the table, but being mercilessly pranked was an absolute certainty. He had only tried to fly over to avoid whatever humiliating trap Klein had set up.
But thinking about it now, standing at the edge, paralyzed by fear—wasn't that already part of the prank? If Klein wanted to mess with him, the sand pit itself was probably perfectly safe. It was just a psychological game.
With that logic locked in, Ben placed one foot firmly on the board, kicked off the edge with the other, and plummeted down the sheer face of the dune.
"Woohoo!"
The wind whipped past his ears as his speed multiplied. The Highbreed watched from the top, his muscles tense, expecting the boy to be swallowed whole the moment he hit the pit.
Ben hit the flat surface of the churning sand.
One second passed. Two seconds. A full minute.
Nothing happened. The Devourer Worms continued to breach and dive in the distance, completely ignoring the boy gliding right over their territory.
The Highbreed let out a long, ragged breath. It finally dawned on him that Klein must have used some bizarre method to restrict the Devourer Worms' aggression. The pit was a safe zone.
Ben effortlessly carved his way to the opposite side of the pit. Seeing this, the Highbreed gritted his teeth, hopped onto his board, and awkwardly slid down, eventually joining Ben on solid ground.
Upon arriving, Ben shot the towering alien a smug, triumphant look. "How about that? Told you I wasn't lying. You clearly just don't understand my Cousin's twisted mind well enough yet."
The Highbreed remained stubbornly silent. He refused to give the boy the satisfaction, only letting out a heavy, disdainful "hmph" after a long pause.
Right on cue, the air shimmered. Klein materialized before them, fully dressed in a stereotypical Hollywood director's outfit—complete with a beret and a megaphone. Ship sat obediently by his feet, wagging its metallic tail.
"Congratulations on passing the first stage," Klein announced, clapping slowly. "Now, it's time for the rewards."
He stepped forward and grabbed Ben's wrist. "Ben's reward is... one random alien hero DNA unlock!"
Klein casually twisted the dial on Ben's Omnitrix a few times. The device chimed, flashing with a blinding, vibrant light as new genetic code integrated into the active playlist.
"Awesome!" Ben cheered, eagerly tapping the faceplate to check his new options.
Watching this, the Highbreed straightened his posture. Though his immense pride forbade him from openly begging for a prize, a subtle, expectant gleam flickered in his eyes. He cleared his throat—a heavy, rumbling cough—to remind the 'director' of his presence.
"Ah, that's right. And you."
Klein turned to the Highbreed, a mischievous, thoroughly wicked smile curling his lips. "The Highbreed's reward is... one bottle of mineral water!"
A plastic water bottle materialized in the air and dropped into the dirt.
"Could you possibly be any more biased?!" The Highbreed finally snapped, his composure breaking. "Why does he receive such an incredibly useful enhancement, while all I get is a pathetic bottle of mineral water?!"
"Oh? You're not happy about it?" Klein raised a single, challenging eyebrow. "Fine then. Half a bottle of mineral water."
The water level inside the plastic bottle instantly drained by fifty percent.
"Why did it decrease?!" The Highbreed roared, realizing he was being completely played.
"You know what? Fine. I won't give you anything at all. Is that good enough for you? So many demands from the talent these days." Klein waved his hand dismissively, and the bottle vanished entirely.
The Highbreed let out a furious, beyond understanding grumble. Defeated and humiliated, he stomped over to a distant corner of the sand, squatted down, and began drawing angry circles in the dirt while muttering curses aimed entirely at Klein.
"Hey! What are you doing squatting over there?!" Klein barked through his megaphone. "I haven't called cut! You two, keep running!"
At his command, Ship leaped into the air, its liquid-metal body shifting and expanding until it transformed into a massive, high-tech plasma cannon. The weapon landed with a heavy thud, its glowing muzzle—which was significantly larger than the Highbreed's head—aiming directly at the squatting alien.
The Highbreed stared down the barrel. He fell completely silent.
Klein, you absolute monster!
Without another word of complaint, the Highbreed shot up and started sprinting across the desert. Ben laughed, quickly jogging to catch up.
The two ran toward the horizon, chasing the setting sun until the sky bruised into shades of deep purple and twilight.
Watching the last slivers of daylight fade, the temperature began to plummet. The two finally slowed their pace, deciding it was time to find a secure place to rest for the night.
Just as they stopped to catch their breath...
Rumble... rumble...
The ground beneath their boots began to vibrate violently.
"Are the Devourer Worms coming back?!" Ben yelled, nervously scanning the shaking sand around his feet.
"Worse," the Highbreed growled, his eyes locked on the dunes ahead.
"No way! What could possibly be worse?!"
Ben followed his gaze. Cresting over the dunes was a dense, writhing black tide. Millions of small, heavily armored bugs were swarming toward them, their mandibles clicking in a terrifying, unified wave.
"Desert Poison Lice?!"
"What kind of name is that?!" Ben shouted, backing up. "Why does the name of this little bug sound so ridiculously chuunibyou?!"
Even in the face of a deadly swarm, Ben—who had been deeply influenced by Klein's constant trolling since childhood—couldn't stop himself from complaining about the naming conventions.
Before they could retreat, the front line of the swarm reached them. A large pile of the Desert Poison Lice leaped from the sand, latching onto Ben's clothes and the Highbreed's armor, their tiny jaws biting down hard.
"Get off!" Ben slapped the Omnitrix dial.
A brilliant green flash tore through the twilight, and Swampfire stood in his place!
Swampfire and the Highbreed frantically swatted at their bodies, crushing the biting insects that had managed to crawl up their legs.
Igniting the methane gas in his palms, Swampfire began hurling massive fireballs at the writhing black carpet on the ground. Explosions rocked the desert, incinerating hundreds of bugs in seconds. "Don't worry, they'll be cleaned up in two or three moves!"
But the Highbreed was entirely preoccupied, violently stomping and swatting the endless stream of insects crawling up his massive frame.
Swampfire threw another volley of fire, but the black tide simply swallowed the scorched earth, replacing the dead with thousands more. "Did I say two or three moves? I meant, it might take quite a while."
Realizing this was a losing battle of attrition, Swampfire scanned their surroundings. He spotted a towering, jagged boulder protruding from a nearby dune. He sprinted toward it, scrambling up the steep incline to reach the high ground.
Looking down at the sea of bugs, Swampfire cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "Highbreed! Get up here, quickly!"
Hearing the call, the Highbreed hesitated for two or three seconds, his pride warring with his survival instincts. But another painful bite to his leg made the decision for him. He charged through the swarm and scrambled up the rocky incline.
As soon as the Highbreed was close, Swampfire ignited both his hands, generating a massive, concentrated fireball, and hurled it directly at the base of a massive rock formation perched precariously above them.
The fireball detonated on impact. The boulder shattered into a thousand pieces, destabilizing the entire slope. A massive avalanche of yellow sand and crushed rock roared downward, sweeping over the dune like a tidal wave, burying the swarm of bugs instantly.
But the sheer force of the cascading yellow sand caught the Highbreed's legs, dragging his heavy frame toward the edge. He slipped, his massive body tipping backward into the deadly flow.
Just as he fell, Swampfire's vine-wrapped hand shot out, clamping around the Highbreed's wrist in an iron grip.
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