It gave a little, sand sifting down through the edges. He gritted his teeth, gave it one more solid push, and it creaked open. A rush of hot air and grit met him as he climbed through and pulled himself out into the desert.
The sky was clear and radiant, same as always. Dunes stretched out in every direction.
Like nothing had changed.
He stood there, eyes narrowing as he scanned the horizon. Something shifted in the air—a faint distortion that he barely sensed. He turned sharply.
Eve was gliding down a dune in his direction, the sand barely disturbed.
He could see it now—air bending around her, soft pulls guiding her down like she weighed nothing.
So it wasn’t ghost-girl freaky powers.
It was just Magika. Precise, powerful and controlled. She’d been using it the whole damn time.
She came to a stop in front of him, silent like ever.
Her expression was calm, but her eyes told a different story—there was something there. Frustration, maybe. There was more, but it was hard to read.
Hope didn’t want tense talk right now.
“That invisible wall stuff… what was it?” he asked.
“That…” she said, glancing upward. “That was them. Blocking me from entering.”
Her tone shifted with that last bit—tight, narrowed eyes, jaw a little clenched.
Them? The ones running this sick thing? They’d blocked her? Why?
Hope didn’t press.
“I see… well, I’m… glad you weren’t there.”
Eve’s gaze met his again and gave a soft nod.
She didn’t ask what happened. Didn’t stare. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t look scared or grossed out—or worse, feel sorry for him.
And that… that meant more than she probably realized.
What happened down there—that was going to stay with him. Probably forever. He knew it. Something in him had shifted, and he wasn’t sure if it’d shift back. But that was it… he couldn’t change the past. He had to live with it.
But as he was lost in thought, a voice sounded clear in the air, from a direction he couldn’t place. A voice… that he knew well.
“March to the red. One survives. One claims the power.”
Hope’s eyes widened as sharp beams of red started shooting into the sky. One, two, three…
He slowly turned, looking back—and saw dozens more. Some so far, he could barely see them.
The world… was full of them.
What the…
His gut twisted as he clenched his jaw.
These… these fucking bastards!
He felt powerless. He knew—there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it.
Just like now, dozens of arenas—just like the one he’d just crawled out of—were being summoned. Each of those red beams… each one meant Crawler blood would soak this world.
Why… why the hell were they doing this?
Hope closed his eyes. His heart felt heavy. He didn’t speak—just stood there, letting the wind and sand be all that existed.
Seconds passed with him completely still.
And then… he ran.
Not toward any red beam. Just forward. North, or whatever direction he’d been following so far. He didn’t care. He just wanted to get out. Out of this damned desert at least.
As he ran, he noticed the difference. His body was stronger. His breathing smoother. Every stride carried more distance, more weight. Running felt easier, faster, more natural.
And still—it all felt like a fucking curse. A wretched, cursed power built on blood.
Sandmaws spawned ahead. He saw them, ignored them. The ones to the side, he passed without a glance. The ones in front—he dodged them too. They seemed slower than before. Barely a threat and he wasn’t in the mood.
So he ran. Across dune after dune, endless and repeating, until the beams behind him began to fade.
That meant… it was starting.
He shut it out. Shut everything out. Just focused on his steps. The way the sand shifted under his feet. The heat on his skin. The sweat. The blood on his arms. The dried stains on his chest.
The blood of—of…
“FUUUCKKK!”
He clenched his teeth and screamed it into the sky. Loud. Raw. Cracked.
A Sandmaw burst out of the sand ahead, unlucky as hell.
Hope didn’t think. Didn’t shift. Didn’t find a weak point.
He just roared and charged it head-on, both hands on the spear.
He stomped the sand hard and drove the tip forward, letting the full weight of his body crash through the strike. The beast shrieked as the edge punched into its side. Blood sprayed, thick and hot, a rotten stench exploding in his face—but he didn’t care.
He kept going. Drove the spear deep. And deeper until the wretched thing stopped moving.
Only after the body slumped did Hope let go.
He stood there, breathing heavy through gritted teeth, chest rising and falling, arms trembling—not from effort, but from something deeper lodged behind his ribs. The blood on his hands wasn’t the same as before, thicker and darker, but the smell still clung. The feel of it still stuck.
He looked down at the head of the spear as he pulled it free. It was smeared thick with blood, and in the mix of red and metal, he caught his broken, blurry reflection in the sunlight’s glint.
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He saw his face.
The eyes staring back weren’t wild. They weren’t panicked. They were just… flat. Still. Something raw inside, locked so deep it couldn’t even crawl to the surface anymore.
He let it settle. Let it sting.
A deep breath came and went. Then another. Long, slow. He forced the thoughts down, shoved the pressure back into that place he’d made for it. A space inside he never named, never visited, but always knew was there. He shoved it in and sealed it.
Then… he kept moving.
He didn’t dodge the Sandmaws anymore. If they came at him, he killed them fast—quiet and clean. A thrust, a sidestep, a finish. One after the other.
When the headache completely faded, he started practicing with Magika again. Letting the wind flow around him. He didn’t bother trying the other types.
He used it to push his body forward with every step, trying to mimic the way Eve glided. He used it to make his thrusts snap faster. He used it to stir clouds of sand around him like smoke screens.
And several hours later, he stopped.
Something in the endless stretch of sand had finally changed.
Up ahead, in the distance—green.
Grass, trees with strange bulb-like things hanging off the sides. And in the center of it all… water.
“An oasis,” Eve said as she stopped, her gaze locked in the same direction.
“That’s the name of it?”
“Yes. In deserts, sometimes groundwater rises close to the surface and creates a patch of life. They’re rare. Usually form where the rock below holds water, or where an underground river comes close to the top.”
“Odd. The desert I was in before had nothing like this.”
Hope was thirstier than he liked to admit. His tongue felt dry, throat tight. A wash wouldn’t hurt either.
He stepped towards the oasis—then stopped.
The sand. It shifted.
He didn’t think—he jumped.
Where he was, the desert exploded.
A spray of sand burst skyward as something massive tore through the surface with a deafening screech. Hope rolled and rose in one motion, his eyes locking on the monster that had just emerged.
SandCrawler [Elite]
Level 32
It was nearly twice as wide as the Sandmaws. Same basic shape—long, armored worm—but this one had a tougher, ridged exoskeleton with protruding spikes along its back like crude jagged blades.
Now the question was… how long was it? How fast?
The beast twisted sharply and—
“SCREEE!!”
A brutal, vibrating shriek tore through the air as it opened its maw, a jagged ring of cracked, grinding teeth glistening inside. The stench hit right after—like meat left rotting in the sun for days.
Hope winced at the ringing in his ears but forced himself forward. He knew these things were much easier to deal with while above ground. He just had to figure out what made this one different besides the freakish size and that nasty scream.
The first strike came fast—a wide, arcing slam of its upper body. Faster than the usual Sandmaws, but not wildly so. The mass behind the motion, though… that was the real threat.
The swing passed, and even from a near miss, the air pressure blasted across Hope’s body, kicking up a wave of dust and nearly knocking him off-balance.
But he didn’t give ground. He pressed forward, launched a thrust straight toward a seam in the plating—an exposed patch near the upper joint.
The spear struck—but the creature surged up at the last second. The point skidded off the hardened shell with a metallic clank.
“Dammit,” Hope hissed, recoiling from the jolt in his wrists.
The SandCrawler didn’t wait. Its jaw snapped forward in a brutal lunge, the mandibles slamming shut where he’d been a second before.
Hope’s boots bit into the sand as he twisted out of the path and circled wide. He couldn’t see how much of its body was still underground. That was a problem—no way to tell what angle it could strike from next.
So he kept moving. Kept watching.
He recognized two forms of attack: the side-body sweep and the wide-mouth charge. And he couldn’t forget the shriek—or the spikes. But… was that all?
After observing it for a while, Hope started sending probing thrusts here and there. Quick engagements. He’d retreat after each, keeping the weight on his toes, never committing too much.
The worm rose again after the first two, but the third hit—not too deep, but enough. The spear’s tip came back with a drop of blood.
Hope narrowed his eyes.
The beast was already more than twice his height above ground, towering, but not invincible.
He darted forward again, this time with a feint. The first thrust was just bait—the creature twisted in response. That was the opening.
Hope pivoted, pressed his new, fancy boots deep into the sand, and gathered force from below. Then, using all that momentum, he slashed the head of the spear across the worm’s exposed flesh.
A wide cut. Clean and sharp.
Blood arced through the air.
But then—his senses screamed.
He called on the Air Magika to assist his disengagement just as another—
“SCREEE!!”
Fuck!
Hope cursed as his skull rattled. Another side body sweep came crashing in. He caught it with the shaft, but the impact was brutal. The force sent him flying, tumbling across the sand, scraping skin and leaving his arms shaking from the blow.
He gritted his teeth and pushed back to his feet and… the creature was gone.
His whole body froze for a half second—until the sand beneath his boots shifted.
He leapt back, but not as far this time—he calculated.
He turned mid-air and roared as he drove the spear down, just as the beast burst out again, mouth wide open, aiming to eat him alive.
Hope’s spear hit first.
The point punched into the creature’s side as it emerged, and Hope dragged it along the rising body in a long, tearing motion—gripping the shaft with everything he had, every tendon, every muscle burning.
A gout of blood sprayed upward as the metal carved deep.
But then—spike.
A jagged edge from the beast’s exoskeleton tore past his chest. He twisted, just barely avoiding being cut fatally, but not enough to escape clean.
A shallow cut opened across his ribs, warm blood trailing down.
He landed in a roll, gritting his teeth, chest burning.
The creature twisted, clearly in pain. Hope knew what was coming.
He was about to push back—but then a crazy idea struck him. He didn’t have time to think it through. Worst case… worst case, he’d survive anyway.
Instead of retreating, he pressed forward, spear gripped tight. The creature turned to face him fully, and its maw opened wide.
Hope channeled all he could, forcing the Air Magika into motion behind him, pushing a strong gust ahead like a battering ram.
“SCREEEE!!”
The shriek came—louder, closer—but Hope pushed harder, roaring through clenched teeth as his head throbbed from the strain. The wind surged, and the sound still hit him, but not like before. It was dulled, fractured, pushed just far enough aside.
He stepped in, letting the wind carry him, the movement fluid, automatic—something he’d drilled into his body a hundred times before. A perfect thrust, driven not just by his legs or arms or will, but by all of it.
The head of the spear punched deep.
He roared as he forced it in further, impaling over half the shaft into the beast’s exposed underside before the recoil hit. The creature jerked back violently, and the sheer force flung him off his grip and sent him tumbling across the sand.
Everything spun. The impact stole the air from his lungs, left his ribs aching and hands numb. He crashed hard and rolled, sand in his mouth and blood on his chest.
But the shrieks were weaker now.
Hope pushed himself up. Breathing hard. Watching.
The giant worm writhed in place, shaking, twitching—then sagged. One last shudder. Then it dropped to the sand with a thunderous crash.
He walked toward it, slow, steady. Blood from the wound still steamed on the shaft as he wrapped his fingers around the grip and pulled—once, twice—until it slid free from the corpse.
Level 32 ? 33
Feat Achieved:
- Elite Killer
?? Elite Killer (G)
You brought down an Elite-ranked threat without assistance.
? +50 Physis permanently.
? +10 Magia permanently.
But just as Hope stood over the kill, the massive creature suddenly vanished into thin air—
And in its place, something dropped onto the sand.
A coin?