Why did the giant sand worm have +50 karma? On its weekends off did it raise money for cancer charities or something? What happened to non-applicable? The big bold N/A that was attached to the sludgecrawler's status? Every monster I had faced thus far either had negative karma or none at all.

  Without the passive bonus damage from Karma's Gaze was this task even possible?

  I stood dumbfounded, sweating underneath my heavy winter coat as the hulking creature's outline emerged through the sheet of sand, revealing its terrifying form over a football field of distance away. Pale sun-bleached spikes covered the worm's bottom half. They flexed and screeched over the limestone tiles, thrusting the creature straight at us.

  "Splint his leg," I said as I slid out of my winter coat, leaving me dressed in a few loose strips of clothing stained with orc sweat that I had rigged in the tundra.

  I slung the cloth sack carrying my belongings over my shoulder and turned toward the wall of weapon racks, which offered a vast selection of weaponry. I grabbed a sheathed sword, and a circular one-handed shield. Khaled snatched a spear from the rack and snapped it in half while Nyx retrieved a roll of bandages from her supplies.

  "Don't touch me. Bastard, you were going to cut out my tongue."

  "I said sorry." Khaled knelt over and removed Whitcomb's armored leggings, then applied the makeshift splint.

  Whitcomb's pained cries were drowned out by the awful screeching that grew louder as the Sandswallow Worm wriggled across the platform at sixty miles an hour. The assassin couldn't believe his eyes. "What the fuck is that?"

  "By Galdir's decree, we must kill it," Nyx said, voice monotone.

  "You saw his orders in the sky?" Khaled asked.

  She nodded, braids swaying against the back of her neck.

  The screeching came to a sudden halt, along with the gigantic creature. The worm stopped dead center in the platform, about 90 yards away, like it was awaiting our first attack. A hundred unblinking eyes gleamed along the top half of its enormous body, which hovered high in the air while its massive undercarriage coiled across the platform beneath it.

  "I don't believe you," Whitcomb said. "Look, it's stopped! Maybe we can ignore it. What if we wait it out? Maybe we'll be returned."

  "No, it must be done.”

  Nyx watched me closely as she secured a spear and a sword from the weapon rack, likely questioning my intentions. Her trepidation was warranted considering how close they were to seeing my true self's unfiltered ugliness.

  The creature's spiked tongue flicked out of its mouth and flailed toward the sky reminding me of those dumb, inflatable tube men that car dealerships used to draw attention to their lots. Saliva flung off its nasty appendage, raining softball sized globs of spittle in our direction like it was taunting us.

  With the splint applied, Whitcomb accepted his comrade's hand, helping him to his feet. He may have been injured, but he was still level eight. Khaled was in better condition, and level nine, the same level as .

  We exchanged glances, coming to an unspoken, mutual understanding. Together we stood a chance. Alone we would perish.

  Maybe if the monstrous worm wasn't a charitable, church going invertebrate, the passive damage from Karma's Gaze would've been enough for me to consider killing the Soul Viper trio and tackling the giant solo. Truthfully, I still considered it, knowing they could move against me during the battle if the opportunity presented itself.

  The giant sand worm coiled in the center of the arena in anticipation, like it was forbidden from crossing an invisible line. I rolled my head back and cracked my neck, trying to forget the part of the legend where Nyx said the realm's greatest warriors never returned. Suddenly, my throat felt parched.

  Nyx passed out health potions, which Khaled and Whitcomb sucked down before it dawned on me they were drinking the very pots they'd stolen from me earlier in the night.

  Ballsy.

  Nyx acknowledged their thievery with a cheeky nod in my direction before she fell back into stone cold killer mode, looking ahead toward the beast. In that exact moment, I felt a pang of regret, seeing a glimpse of her personality, knowing she wouldn't be making it out alive.

  Whitcomb and Khaled opted for a spear and shield while Nyx added a sheathed dagger at her side.

  "Get ready, it's my opener,” I commanded.

  Shadow Weave

  Taking control of the ample shadow courtesy of the sandworm's gigantic figure, I molded the darkness into a long sharp edge and ran it up the creature's exposed underside.

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  The shadow flashed up its belly, but the creature remained swaying in the air. No blood. No damage. Just a shadow puppet dancing across its flesh.

  "What ploy is this?" Nyx asked.

  I ignored the assassin, dropped my shield at my feet and used both hands to draw a pointed spike beneath the creature's body. I rammed the shadow upward only for it to superimpose itself on the creature, causing no harm.

  I cancelled the ineffective cast before it drained anymore stamina.

  Well, shit...

  I lowered my hands at my side, completely blind-sided by the realization that my entire sub specialization was completely worthless against any opponent with positive karma—a glaring oversight on my behalf.

  Too many how's and why's shuffled through my brain, fueling the discord between numerous dissenting voices within. The veil cracked, the mask slipping.

  I burst out into a deranged laughter. The utter absurdity of the system's unspoken laws and how they neatly aligned with countless variables to screw me over in ruthless precision was the straw that broke the camel's back. I doubled over, finding it hard to breath, sides hurting, tears welled in the corner of my eyes.

  Soul Viper's scrappy trio stood perplexed, nerves rattled. Thankfully, the giant worm waited until I finished and wiped the snot off on my arm. I jumped up and down, shaking my body out like a boxer before the first bell.

  "The opener?" Nyx asked, trying and failing to stifle the concern in her voice.

  "I changed my mind. You go first, I'll follow-up."

  Nyx wiped the sweat from her brow and took a cautious step forward. Khaled backed her, while Whitcomb watched, unmoving.

  The behemoth didn't lurch in their direction during their initial movements, lending confidence to their approach, though the worm definitely noticed. Dotted pupils flickered in its unblinking gaze, analyzing their approach, its body immobile.

  It was either unconcerned by three mere ants or baiting them, suggesting a higher level of intelligence. I wasn't sure which prospect was more terrifying. The worm's lower half coiled in the center of the platform, its head hovering ten stories up in the air.

  As the assassins closed in, Nyx flicked something at the ground and a thick grey smoke bloomed. The assassins fanned out. Nyx dashed straight for the worm while Khaled flanked to the left and Whitcomb to the right.

  Finally, the worm turned and swept its tongue through the top of the rising smoke. A second later, Nyx emerged from the plume, dodging the tongue, running through thin air as if it were a staircase. She thrust her spear into its rough flesh along its midpoint, and kicked off the weapon's shaft, using it to gain even more air past its spikes, meeting the creature’s glistening eye-covered top half.

  The assassin spun with her short sword in-hand, eviscerating a column of eyeballs. A guttural shriek exploded from the beast's maw. My heart pounded in my chest as I watched the monster raise itself two stories higher, and lash its tongue straight toward the assassin.

  I mouthed the word 'dodge.'

  Too late.

  The level 12 Sandswallow Worm's tongue slapped into Nyx's body in mid-air. Spiked tips caved her face in and burst out through the back of her head, neck, and spine like a pincushion. The worm reeled its tongue back into its gaping mouth, taking Nyx's lifeless body with it.

  I shot across the platform like a bullet, but as I met the smoke a massive explosion rocked the lower half of the worm's coiled body. Chunks of limestone and scales rained down as a shock-wave of heat rippled across my skin. A crown of flames whipped up across the beast's lower half, causing its erected form to collapse.

  Dagger Step.

  I teleported out of the way as the beast's eyeball laden top-half plummeted like a felled tree. The Sandswallow Worm crashed across the ground, rocking the entire arena. Taking advantage of their setup, I triggered Dagger Step's second charge, putting myself on the worm's lower back as it snaked across the arena.

  I stood on hardened flesh between the interspersed grid of spikes the monster used as thrusters. Sandy wind whipped against my face, like I was on the top of a speeding train, which turned out to be more like a roller coaster as the creature re-postured the upper half of its body into the air. As gravity abruptly shifted beneath my feet, I dropped my shield and held onto a rounded spike.

  It rose up, barreling toward the end of the arena, slowly turning its enormous form back toward the two remaining assassins. I jammed my short sword overhead into its flesh, using it to scale the worm's back.

  I quickly reached the end of its spiked lower-half, met with a nasty wall of glistening eyes marking the middle of its body. Hundreds of jet black pupils acknowledged my existence and seconds later, the worm flung its massive tongue over its head.

  The anaconda sized appendage hurtled down toward me. Raising my short-sword suddenly felt silly, like I was trying to deflect a piano falling from a third story window with a pocket knife. Instead, I stabbed into one of its many eyeballs, and tried replicating Nyx's trick by jumping and kicking off my blade's hilt. However, as my foot pressed against the hilt, the blade sliced upward and the sword fell out, leaving me with a severe lack of momentum.

  The Sandswallow Worm's rancid smelling tongue crashed into me. The tip of its spikes jabbed into my flesh, and bounced off my bones, sending me spiraling toward the ground.

  I braced for impact and slammed into the floor, cracking limestone tiles with my frame. Laying with my back on the ground, air knocked from my lungs, and bleeding all over, I assumed I also had suffered immense brain damage because I saw Nyx standing on the edge of the monster's head, staring down at me.

  You're dead. I saw you die.

  Two silver colored balls twinkled in between her fingers, then she flicked them into the worm's mouth. I pushed myself to my feet and wiped the blood dripping into my eyes, watching in amazement as Nyx jumped down, running her blade through the creature's side. The monster viciously thrashed in the air, smoky clouds streaming up from its throat.

  Another blast of smoke erupted in the center of the arena. I spotted Whitcomb and Khaled's statuses rushing through the smoke, fleeing in my direction away from the enraged beast.

  The arena shook again as the worm flung itself against the ground. It violently whipped its body across the platform, smoke pouring from its mouth. Nyx vanished like a ghost.

  Pissed off, and covered in putrid saliva, I scrambled over to a weapon rack lined with javelins and began rapid-fire launching them at the giant worm. The beast turned its toothy maw to the side and unleashed a torrential stream of bile, spitting up the active smoke bombs.

  I threw the last javelin, finding the attacks about as effective as shooting a grizzly bear with spitballs. Nyx re-appeared, completely unharmed, leading Soul Viper's retreat past the worm's ass, to the other side of the platform. Clearly, whatever I saw had been a convincing illusion.

  The Sandswallow Worm's tower of eyes locked onto me, and the beast blasted off the ground, straight toward me.

  "I’m really starting to hate it here.”