Their movements were beginning to echo each other's. A dance of rage and rhythm. After every kill, Ethan harvested carefully, extracted the beast core and kept in his satchel
[×2 TARTARUS BEASTS DEFEATED]
[+20EXP GAINED]
[CURRENT EXP: 388/400]
He kept his pool around 35/35, knowing if things escalated, he'd need it. As dusk approached, the sky turned red and the air cooled slightly. But danger didn't fade—it evolved.
---
By nightfall, the real predators awakened.
They camped briefly in the shadow of a rock formation, too exposed to fully rest. No fire. No sounds. Ethan knelt in the sand, his eyes fixed on the darkness. Velina sat beside him, clutching her blade, breathing shallow. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"
He nodded. "The real challenge starts now."
Suddenly, Sand exploded. Three black figures burst from the ground, Scorpions. Huge. Armored. Silent. Carapaces thick as plated steel. Pincers like iron jaws. Stingers twitching with purple venom that dripped onto the sand and sizzled.
Ethan and Velina were already on their feet.
"Three of them," she growled.
"Harder than anything before," Ethan muttered. "Kill one, and we'll see."
The first came crashing down like a falling stone. Ethan dodged, but the impact shook the sand and threw him sideways. Another rushed Velina, snapping at her legs. She flipped backward, barely avoiding the tail strike that pierced the rock behind her like butter. Ethan landed hard, rolled, and came up with blood trickling from his lip. His blade was still in hand.
A scorpion charged.
He sidestepped, drove his sword into the side of its face and the blade barely pierced the armor.
"They're tougher!"
Velina gritted her teeth. "Too tough."
Two more closed in. Velina parried desperately, but her footing slipped on loose sand.
The scorpion's pincer caught her arm, yanked her to the side.
Another raised its tail for a death strike.
And Ethan knew.
He couldn't hold back.
He clenched his fist.
WRATH surged.
[ABYSSAL LUNGE ACTIVATED]
[WRATH EXPENDED: -8 | COOLDOWN : 8s]
[WRATH REMAINING: 27/35]
He blurred forward. Faster than the eye.
His body became a spear of shadow and flame as he slammed into the scorpion's side.
The force of the impact tore through its armored joint, driving it into the rock with a shattering crunch. The creature shrieked as black blood sprayed out. The other scorpions turned their gaze.
Velina, panting and bleeding, looked at him. "What was that..."
"Nothing...I saved the debt," Ethan said flatly. "Not you."
She nodded once. No pride. Just survival. More beasts advanced.
The real battle had begun
[×2 TARTARUS BEASTS DEFEATED]
[+20EXP GAINED]
[LEVEL UP!: LVL4>LVL5]
[CURRENT EXP: 8/500]
----
In a hall, a panel of light magic glowing. Three knights sat, watching, scanning, observing, all the moves of the aspirants knights present in the Drazan Expanse.
"Did you see that" A knight said, he wasn't believing what he just saw
"Yes my friend, I did... What was that... Is it a kind of sword style...we have to monitor him closer"
Ethan was watched, he was in their colimeter now.
-----
The twin moons bled silver over the endless dunes.
Ethan's boots crunched over shifting sand as he and Velina pressed forward. The winds had quieted slightly, replaced by the occasional echo of distant cries, beasts, or perhaps dying aspirants. The desert never told you which. The stars shimmered high above, indifferent to their struggle.
They had already fought through five different desert beasts since the last rest point. Class I, mostly. Flame Snakes. Sand Reavers. A thick-shelled borer worm that had tried to swallow Velina whole before Ethan drove his sword through its palate. But nothing too serious. Not yet.
Each fight bled more energy from them, but they moved in perfect rhythm now, two predators in sync. Ethan would draw a beast's attention, strike from the side. Velina would flank, twist, counter, and follow up. Their movements were born of necessity and rage, sharpened by heat and hunger.
Ethan's satchel had four more shards. But his real stash, the ones he'd hidden in his Inventory, pulsed faintly beneath the surface of his mind.
[WRATH: 35/35]
[SKILL — ALL READY]
But the WRATH was boiling inside him, aching to be unleashed. Still, he waited. The system felt... aware. Watching. And he couldn't afford too much attention yet.
Velina exhaled sharply. "We're making good distance," she said. "If we maintain this pace, maybe we'll see the beacon tower by tomorrow."
Ethan didn't answer. His eyes were scanning the horizon, not with hope, but with suspicion.
"Something's off," he murmured. "Too quiet."
Velina stopped walking and raised her sword. "I was about to say the same."
Their boots shifted in the sand.
Then the ground rumbled beneath them. The first sign was the silence. Even the wind seemed to vanish, as if the desert itself were holding its breath.
Then, the explosion of sand. Ten eruptions. Simultaneous. Perfectly timed. Ten monstrous creatures surged up from beneath the dunes, surrounding Ethan and Velina in a half-circle of death.
[WRATH CHARGE DETECTED]
[CLASS II TARTARUS Beasts – ×10]
[NAME: DESERT SCORDANA]
Scorpion-like Tartarus Beasts. Class II. But these were nothing like the ones they'd fought. Their aura, it was different
The the size of a warhorse.
Carapaces jet black with faint glowing ridges, like molten lines beneath obsidian armor.
Their pincers moved with unnatural speed, twitching like blades. Their tails shimmered with thick venom dripping from barbed stingers long enough to impale a knight clean through.
Velina staggered back. "Saints…"
Ethan's jaw clenched. "It's an ambush. Coordinated."
The beasts clicked in unison, tails rising like death scythes. Then they attacked all at once.
---
It was a massacre, or should've been.
Velina ducked the first strike, rolling beneath a pincer and slashing wildly at the soft joint. Her blade bounced off, barely scratching the surface.
"Too thick!" she gasped.
Ethan blocked a crushing pincer and was sent flying into the sand, shoulder screaming in pain. He rolled to his feet in time to parry a second strike — barely. Another tail lashed past his face, cutting into his cheek like a whip.
They were surrounded.
Every movement was a dodge, a block, a desperate counter. But not a single blow pierced through. Ethan slashed one across the eye, no damage. He ducked a stinger, it impaled the sand next to his boot, hissing. Velina screamed as one beast slammed her into a dune. She rolled, gasping, and stabbed up — but the sword was caught between pincers and flung away.
Ethan grabbed her arm and pulled her up just before a tail crushed the space she'd fallen in.
"Move!"