Chapter 7.5 - The Desert

  Slowly, the forest around me changed its face.

  The giant trees that had once clawed at the sky now began to shrink. The rotting green foliage gave way to bare black branches, rigid and withered like the fingers of a corpse pointing upward.

  The temperature spiked drastically. All moisture evaporated in an instant, leaving behind a bone-dry air that stung the inside of my nose.

  I stepped across the boundary.

  Crunch.

  The ground beneath my feet was a parched crust.

  The wind here carried no life. Instead, it bore fine particles of sand that clung instantly to my skin, which was still damp with cold sweat.

  The landscape before me had completely changed. The humid forest from before was gone.

  Now, as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but a desolate expanse. Pale yellow and ashen gray. The wind here carried no moisture—only dust and the scent of the past.

  I trudged forward, dragging my spear behind me.

  In the distance, stone ruins jutted out from the sand like the bones of a giant left unburied. Their arrangement formed the outlines of streets and the foundations of houses.

  A village...

  The soil here felt loose, yielding beneath my boots. Shallow pits marked the landscape here and there. There were no rusted weapons, no signs of war. Only unnatural piles of bones.

  I surveyed my surroundings.

  Plague? Famine?

  Perhaps the sick were gathered here, slaughtered, and then buried in a mass grave so the healthy could escape. But that lingering pain and betrayal must have seeped into the earth; this place had ultimately turned into a dungeon, saturated with negative energy.

  Crack.

  A dry sound shattered the silence.

  A skeletal hand thrust out from the sand. Then, a head with an unhinged jaw.

  One by one, they rose.

  They weren't soldiers. They were farmers, mothers, children. Zombies and skeletons draped in the tattered remains of their clothes. Their eyes were hollow, yet their mouths let out starving groans. The energy surrounding them felt pitiful, not terrifying.

  They charged at me. Their movements were dragging, erratic.

  I didn't draw my weapon. It wasn't worth dulling my steel on these fragile bones.

  Thud.

  A bare fist smashed into a skull. It shattered into chalky dust.

  I kicked away a skeleton that tried to grab my leg, sending its rotting body flying. They kept coming, driven only by a hollow instinct.

  But this commotion attracted the true predators.

  The ground trembled once more. This time, the tremors felt wet and ravenous.

  Sshhk!

  Giant centipedes and sandworms erupted from the surface. They weren't aiming for me, but for the corpses. Bones crunched between insectoid jaws. A banquet for the desert's decomposers.

  One massive centipede, boasting a gleaming black carapace, noticed my presence. Its mandibles clicked together.

  I grabbed the spear from my back. I took my stance.

  Whoosh!

  The spear sailed swiftly through the air.

  Clang!

  The sharp sound of clashing metal. The spear deflected off the centipede's hard carapace and tumbled across the sand, coming to a halt a few meters away from the monster.

  The centipede lunged. I sidestepped, drawing my katana in the same fluid motion.

  Slash!

  Several of its legs were severed. Green fluid spurted from the stumps. A sharp, putrid stench permeated the air.

  However, I had neglected my footing. The sand beneath me abruptly gave way. Gravity dragged me down into a swirling sinkhole.

  The gaping maw of a giant sandworm lay waiting at the bottom of the pit. Its rows of teeth churned.

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  Darkness. An acidic stench. Slimy walls of flesh pressed in on me from all directions.

  I had been eaten.

  Suffocating. The oxygen was thinning. The crushing pressure of the worm's stomach walls threatened to pulverize me.

  "Tch."

  I didn't panic. Annoyance heavily outweighed my fear.

  I wrested free my katana, which was wedged between my body and the stomach wall, and began sawing into the thick flesh.

  Slash... Slash!

  The wall of flesh tore open. Blinding sunlight flooded back in. I crawled out of the self-made exit, my entire body caked in digestive slime. The worm writhed in its death throes upon the sandy surface.

  I stood up, shaking the repulsive slime from my clothes. My breathing was heavy.

  My eyes swept across the battlefield. The centipede whose legs I had severed earlier was writhing helplessly not too far away. And lying nearby was the object I was looking for.

  My spear.

  I strolled over and plucked it from the sand where it had fallen. The tip remained razor-sharp, unbent despite striking that hardened carapace.

  "Still usable."

  Brushing the sand off the shaft, I made my way toward the carcasses of the monsters.

  My knife carved into them, extracting the life crystals from the bodies of both the centipede and the sandworm.

  Two fist-sized crystals, glowing faintly with a cloudy hue.

  I closed my grip around them.

  Draw.

  A cooling sensation flowed from my palms, creeping up my arms before cascading through the rest of my body. The lingering fatigue from the poison and the skirmish gradually ebbed away. Tense muscles relaxed. Minor cuts sealed shut.

  Within seconds, the light within the crystals died out. Their color shifted to a dull transparency. Empty glass. Trash.

  I tossed the drained crystals into the sand.

  Thud.

  As a generalist who prioritized efficiency, lugging around a sack of empty glass stones would be sheer foolishness. It was nothing but dead weight. Back in the city, the true market value lay not in these depleted energy husks, but in the physical materials themselves.

  I glanced at the centipede’s carapace and the sandworm’s hide. Hard, heat-resistant.

  Too large to carry.

  I turned and walked away. Leaving the carcasses, and the ghosts of the past, behind in the ruins.

  The sun here offered no light. It was a judge.

  Its heat pierced the skin, searing away what little moisture remained. My lips were chapped.

  In the distance, a shadow shifted. Massive. Pitch-black.

  A giant scorpion. Its carapace gleamed, reflecting the harsh sunlight, while a purple crystal pulsed rhythmically upon its back. It was heading straight for me.

  "Perfect," I muttered. My voice was raspy.

  I sat up. Pulled out a cigarette. Lit it.

  "Haa..."

  Before the smoke could even dissipate, the sand beneath me trembled once more. Another worm.

  This time, I didn't give it the chance to swallow me whole. My blade swung the moment its head breached the surface. Severed in a single strike.

  But the distraction had left me open.

  CLACK!

  The scorpion's pincer clamped around my waist.

  The pressure was immense. My ribs groaned under the strain. I was hoisted into the air, staring dead into the creature’s compound eyes.

  Its maw gaped open.

  My right hand, which was still free, thrust my spear with every ounce of strength I had left. The tip drove straight into its open mouth, pierced through its brain, and burst out the back of its shell.

  THUD.

  The creature collapsed. The grip of its pincer went slack. I snapped its joint to pry myself loose.

  I dropped onto the sand.

  I was starving.

  My knife was useless against its carapace; it was far too hard. So, I used the tip of my spear like a crowbar, wedging it into the seams between its natural armor plating and prying them apart.

  Pale, white flesh was exposed.

  No fire. No seasoning.

  I ate it raw. It tasted metallic, slimy, and faintly sweet. Disgusting to an ordinary human. But to this body, it was nothing more than fuel.

  I swallowed chunk after chunk, feeling the vitality slowly seep back into my muscles.

  Next, I pried the crystal from the beast.

  Clink!

  A Scorpion Crystal.

  It was the size of my fist, a deep purple hue that looked as if it held coagulated blood. Unlike the dull crystals scavenged from the worms or centipedes, this thing was... heavy.

  The moment my fingers wrapped around it, I didn't feel the usual soothing chill.

  "Agh..."

  It felt like gripping a live coal.

  The energy housed within was dense, viscous. This wasn't like drinking water; this was boiling honey being forced through narrow veins.

  I wouldn't be able to absorb it on the move.

  I leaned back against the scorpion's carcass.

  My heart pounded erratically.

  One second. The blistering heat crawled from my arm to my chest.

  One minute. My vision blurred. The desert seemed to spin around me.

  This was energy fever. My body was being forcefully evolved to utilize the influx of power, simply because I had no capacity to store it.

  Cold sweat mingled with the dust on my skin. My breaths came in ragged gasps, sounding like a man drowning on dry land.

  This agony... it was proof of my evolution.

  I lost track of how many hours I spent blacked out or delirious in the grip of that fever. The sun shifted from its peak high above down toward the west.

  When I finally opened my eyes, the crystal in my hand had turned into empty, hollow glass. It crumbled to dust the moment I squeezed it.

  The pain had vanished, replaced by a terrifying surge of power. My muscles felt dense, as if steel wires had just been woven beneath my skin.

  "Haa..."

  I clenched my fist. Strong. Unbelievably strong.

  Then, my gaze fell upon the creature's carapace and pincers.

  But dragging hundreds of kilograms across loose sand was suicide, even with my newfound strength. The friction alone would drain my stamina dry long before I reached the border.

  My eyes shifted to the carcass of the desert worm I had cleaved earlier. Its skin.

  The worm’s slime had dried into a slick, waxy coating. Perfect.

  I skinned the worm—a gruesome task that cost me another hour. A foul, metallic stench filled the air, but I didn't care. I laid the worm's skin out flat like a tarp, then piled the scorpion's carapace onto it.

  I had no rope.

  Returning to the scorpion’s remains, I ripped out the tough intestines and tendons from its mangled body. I tied them into dead knots, bundling the pile together into one massive package.

  A sled made of flesh.

  I tested the pull. The worm's skin glided smoothly over the sand.

  The trail left behind me looked like the flattened path of a giant serpent.

  Time lost its meaning in this desert. Maybe a day had passed. Maybe a week.

  My water was gone.

  Then, I caught the scent. The smell of moisture.

  Ahead of me lay an oasis. Its waters were crystal clear, bordered by a few lone date palms.

  An oasis formed from the lingering hopes of thousands who had died of thirst in these sands. Their condensed energy and emotions had manifested this paradise in the middle of the wasteland.

  I threw myself into the water.

  Not to swim, but to survive. The worm slime coating my clothes had begun to react with the sun's heat, producing a corrosive, itching vapor.

  I scrubbed my skin with wet sand, sloughing off the dried blood and monster viscera. My clothes were ruined—the fabric worn thin and riddled with acid burns—but at least they were no longer searing my flesh.

  I refilled my waterskin and cracked open a coconut.

  As I drank, I looked toward the eastern horizon.

  In the distance, a faint gleam caught the sunlight. A golden spire.

  The City of the Sun's Son.

  Without a compass or a map, that spire was my only landmark.

  "Still a long way to go," I whispered.

  I leaned back against the base of a tree. Closed my eyes for a moment.

  Finally, a clear destination.

  The fortress towered above, piercing the sky.

  Endless, solid stone walls stretched across the horizon, a barrier dividing the death of the desert from the life within.

  The City of the Sun's Son.

  I approached on foot, dragging my spoils behind me.

  The gate guards stopped me. Their armor gleamed; their spears were pristine. A stark contrast to me, covered in dried blood, slime, and desert dust.

  Even though I had washed up, there was no completely hiding the lingering traces of battle.

  "Show your identification," the guard demanded hesitantly. His eyes were glued to the massive haul trailing behind me.

  "I'm from a remote village," I replied flatly. "I came to change my fate."

  A classic excuse, but one that always worked for outsiders like me.

  The guard stared at me. There was fear in his eyes. But there was also a profound respect—one born of primal survival instincts upon seeing a man walk out of the desert of death all alone.

  "How did you... get all this?"

  I patted the spear on my back and the katana at my waist.

  "I'm a hunter."

  A brief silence fell between us.

  "Very well," the guard finally said. "You'll need to have an ID issued. And pay the toll."

  "I don't have any coin. But I do have this." I gestured to the mound of monster parts behind me. "Can it be sold?"

  "I-it can. Come with me, I'll show you where."

  The heavy gates opened. I stepped through.

  Leaving behind the silent desert, I walked into the noisy realm of humanity.