It was impossible, it really was especially for utsuro. Of the others were fast enough, they could teach the ship before the gorgons got to them but the sand mountain which utsuro stood had become infested with gorgons. There was no way to get down in one piece. The only option was to keep climbing up but utsuro didn't climb. If he continued to climb up, it would only make it much more difficult to get down from the sand mountain. He had to act now but what could he do? He had expected the ministers to pick them up from the sand heaps because of the height advantage, it would have been impossible for the gorgons to reach the ship, but the darned basterds did the exact opposite of what utsuro had anticipated.
Hundreds of thousands of gorgons were after utsuro, completely covering half of the sand mountain as they climbed. The gorgons spread across the desert, painting it black as they moved. There was only one area of free of these abominations and that was the even terrain the ship hovered above.
Utsuro willed shadow soul to morph into a weapon and tired shadow soul sluggishly transformed into it's usual pitch black sword made of pure aura and attached itself to utsuro's hand. Utsuro had two choices, either to fight them and die a painful but honourable death or to run and still die only, it would be a painful and peasant death.
Utsuro chose the first and raised his sword towards the charging army of gorgons. At this time, the others were also charging towards armies of their own but their's wasn't half as much as utsuro's. Just a few tens, maybe a few hundreds. If they were smart, they could survive with just two or three life threatening sounds.
One of the seven survivors... Well they weren't survivors yet. She stood upon her sand heap with an unusual calmness in her eyred she was the only person there whose opponents were almost as many as utsuro's. As the gorgons got close, red, crimson flames engulfed her burning anything and everything that got too close.
In my opinion, it was similar to eye of the cross... An ultimate defense mechanism. The fire spread from gorgon to gorgon, setting the top of the sand cliff on fire. Then out of those flames, she soared high in the sky as red crimson flaming wings ignited and materialised burning strong and hot. Every feather on those wings were made of red, crimson flames the wings didn't touch her instead, they stood as separate entities.
The girl then flapped those wings towards the army below and a blazing inferno rushed towards them, engulfing the gorgons in the burning embrace of her flames.
"Looks like we have a talented batch this time around" The commander said "mark her". Immediately he said this, an individual not wearing a uniform but a white, long coat pulled up the girl's profile on the enormous screen inside the ship and put a green mark on the top right corner of her picture. The girl flew towards the ship flying at a safe distance above the other awakened and gorgons. One could tell she was still getting used to this very helpful power of hers as she was extremely slow, just a bit faster than a jogging human and she had little to no balance at all as she almost fell into to hoarde below her several times.
Below her, a chubby boy manipulated the sand to wrap around and create a much, much bigger version of his hand. He then raised those hands and smashed them violently on the ground scattering the sand that encased his hands but also killing a considerably large amount of gorgons.
At this point, the desert was a mess as potholes could be seen everywhere and the dust spread a long distance.
Utsuro, on the other hand was struggling with his own army as he didn't have any explosive skills like the rest and had to rely solely on his physical abilities and soul shadow. He was tired and he wasn't the only one. The sword shadow soul formed had lost it's formed intimidating presence.
Unlike before, when it's aura was thick, condensed and concentrated in one place with only small amounts of aura leaking out, now, the aura was scattered, feint and everywhere.
[Shadow soul's eyelids feel heavy, it's vision blurs as it struggles to stay sober]
Even the system knew that shadow soul was at it's breaking point.
At that point, the girl flame girl was spotted slowly flying far below utsuro"Ooh come on buddy just one more thing. I need you to crash on the ground on the left side of the girl. You have to do this with all your might"
Shadow soul then squeaked several times and the runes translated [shadow soul asks what are you going to do] "I'm gonna hitch a ride" Utsuro replied. Then, an opportunist gorgon decided to take advantage of utsuro's sudden pause and attacked.
Shadow soul then detached from utsuro's hand reverting to it's orb like form and blasted a hole through the poor, innocent..... Okay maybe not so innocent creature. Shadow soul which was already fading, mustered all it's remaining strength drawing It's scattered aura and circling utsuro at insane speed clearing the radius of incoming gorgons.
Shadow soul then soared high in the sky and struck towards the desert ground like lightning passing the girl's left side, barely missing her by an inch. The impact blew dust and dead gorgons everywhere,even blowing the girl away towards utsuro's side, putting her off balance and estingushing her flames. She tried to regain balance and ignite her flames again but failed a good number of times.
Finally, she regained balance for a slight moment and quickly ignited her flaming wings and soared into the sky again.
Utsuro at this point, barely avoided being caught by a gorgon and jumped off the sand mountain, falling towards the girl. He then fell on the girl, got a grip on the girl's leg, and almost fell down. The gorgons being creatures with zero intelligence, jumped after utsuro, falling like rain
Thanks to the uninvited extra weight, the girl almost completely lost balance again
"What are you doing? Do you want to get me kil--"
"Turn left! Turn left! " Utsuro yelled and vut her off mid sentence.
The girl then understood as a shadow looked over she and utsuro. It was the gorgons.
They were so many, both of them couldn't see the sky. The girl immediately glided sideways towards the left barely escaping being pummeled.
The thousands of gorgons landed hard on the the ground falling like rain as the died upon impact with the ground.
The girl lost balance again because of the sudden turn and she and utsuro began to fall down towards the direction of the ship.
By this time, the others had gotten to the ship with severe wounds.
Utsuro and the girl landed hard on the ground and luckily, directly below the ship where the others were, knocking them unconscious.
"Sir, none of them have died so far. Should we wait a bit longer? " A guardian reported to the commander "no. bring them up"the commander replied.
"I beg your pardon? " The soldier said puzzled
"I said bring them up. If we wait longer they will all die so bring them up" By this time, millions of gorgons were closing in on the eight of them from all directions.
Then from the ship, a beam of light struck down towards the eight of them. It was like lighting. Fast, fierce and precise. And then the next second the eight of them were gone.
The sun had already begun to rise. The ship then flew at lighting speed flying into the sunrise as the gorgons retreated into the desert sand.