The momentary daze didn't last long, but it was enough time for Derek to grab the unwieldy mace and, with what little remained of his dwindling energy and essence, slam it against the creature's grotesque, tooth-filled face.
His main goal wasn't to hurt it, but simply to ensure that the mace made contact. Not that he could do much damage even if he wanted to anyway.
Regardless, if there was anything he had learned in the past few days, it was that the mace was far more useful as an informant than a weapon, at least in his hands.
"Oh, my dead! It's the sand lurkers! And this one just had to be an Awakened Nadir. Sorry, kid, but your chances of survival just dropped below ten percent."
"Wow, thanks for the encouragement!" Derek yelled, managing to stun the creature once again. The mind of the creature was pathetically exposed to him, like an open book, even though it recovered quickly.
It seems that was how vast the gape of power between the lucid and the Nadir was, despite the fact that the creature's rank was much higher, this also came with the caveat that his essence was so low, but the time for these thoughts was later.
The creature flailed to the side. Derek was able to make out its full length: the thing was over ten meters long! In the next moment, it was digging back into the sand, likely confused as to why it kept losing its appetite for its prey.
"Hey, what do you know, it's gone!" Derek chimed happily.
"No, it's not, you fool! It probably went to bring some backup!" the mace yelled.
Derek paled. Soon enough, the ground began to vibrate violently.
"Hey, you've lived for centuries; don't you have, like, some crazy enchantment that can cause large-scale devastation?" Derek inquired desperately.
"Of course, I do," the mace replied.
Derek heaved a sigh of relief. But the mace wasn't finished.
"The thing is, you're not nearly powerful enough to use it."
"Curse you!!!"
Derek bolted, trying to run as far as his limp legs and sore feet could carry him, but he knew he wouldn't get far. He had to think of something before...
Chunks of rock and rubble exploded in every direction.
Derek cursed loudly as he was pelted from all sides, but thankfully, his armor deflected most of the impacts.
He was reminded of his encounter with the bone shrapnel a few days prior. It seemed the afterlife was a hell of death and flying debris. Derek was starting to hate it here.
Five different sand worms erupted from the ground at the same time, surrounding him on all sides. But Derek didn't fret at the barrage of debris that rang against his armor. He suddenly felt a pang of gratitude for dragging this heavy, metal shell all this way. Its inner padding also reduced the force of the impacts. But Derek wasn't paying attention to any of that; his eyes narrowed, his mind focused. Whatever happened in the next few seconds would determine whether he lived or died, and he had just one leverage over these creatures: he was going to capitalize on it.
Through the dust, he could almost feel the minds of the creatures: their skulls, their brains, straight into their consciousness, their awareness, the non-physical aspect of it, and their bloodlust, fury, and pain blossomed like roses in spring.
Derek delved further this time, into the roots of the flower of lust. There, he found invisible, metaphorical arrows, all directed toward him. He didn't try to diminish the bloodlust this time; he'd learned that that was too difficult to maintain.
Instead, he turned those arrows toward each other. The process felt almost natural; he controlled their lustful will as easily as he would his own mind.
Immediately, they turned against each other, a writhing knot of carnage and shredding teeth erupting in the dust. Derek kept running, his lungs burning, knowing that he couldn't waste the opportunity, even with his exhausted and near death state. Never looking back, Derek could hear the sickening sounds of tearing flesh and grinding bones made his stomach churn. There was no way in hell he could have hoped to fight them and actually win... not even individually.
Derek's feet finally gave out. They simply refused to carry him any farther, and he collapsed face-first into the sand. He didn't know how far he'd run, but it wasn't nearly enough, the creature's corpses were just still in the distance, he couldn't really tell if they were dead or alive since they were quite far away. He still couldn't believe he'd survived and neither could his skeptical mace.
"Hey, I've wandered these lands for thousands of years. Never have I seen a Convert defeat one Awakened, let alone five. What kind of liar are you?"
"I told you, I didn't defeat them! I just made them defeat each other while you kept nagging and pulling me back with your dead-ass weight," Derek yelled, his chest heaving. He'd forgotten his helmet in his panicked sprint, and now he had to go back, but that was going to be later, he had to rest and everything else would have to wait.
Walking alongside a being whose concept of danger had been skewed by centuries of rolling with overpowered individuals sure had its side effects.
"Hey, Mace, what did you call this route again? Safe? Yes, it's very safe." Derek scoffed in sarcasm.
"Oh, you're sure the one to complain. The other alternative was the domain of a rogue sentient human that whisks away your soul just through eye contact!"
Derek's eyes widened, his gaze snapping to the still forms in the distance. Oh, maybe this really is what "safe" means in this place.