The monsters charging at Damien, Jenna, and the grey monk were heavy in number, at least thirty, tearing across the dunes like a pack of starved predators. But unlike the desert-born creatures from the tent village, these things weren't native to the sands. They didn't move like anything that belonged here.
They were hounds in silhouette, low to the ground, long-limbed, running on all fours, but everything about them was wrong. Their bodies were gaunt and hairless, coated in cracked, ash-gray skin stretched too tight over protruding bones. Ribs showed through like scaffolding. Spines jutted out in jagged ridges, ending in twitching, barbed tails that swept the sand behind them.
Each creature wore a head wrapped in stitched black leather, as if someone had covered their skulls with butcher's aprons. Where eyes should have been, there were only rows of rusted metal vents. Their jaws split vertically when they opened, tearing the leather from the inside to reveal teeth like glass daggers and tongues dripping with black smoke instead of saliva.
Luckily for Damien, the monsters were still a ways off, far enough that he had options.
His gaze flicked between Jenna and the grey monk, thoughts racing behind his cold expression.
'I could leave them.'
The monk didn't strike him as the type to abandon someone, especially not someone screaming like Jenna. He'd stay, try to help, and probably die.
'And while he's doing that… I get a head start.'
Jenna let out a desperate cry.
"Help me! Please, I don't want to die!"
She clawed at the dirt around her legs, skinny arms flailing as she tried to free herself from the clutching ground. Pathetic.
Her voice didn't tug at Damien's heartstrings. It made him want to run faster.
Every word scraped down his spine like nails on glass. The shrill, panicked pitch only made her sound more like prey.
He shifted his attention to the monk. For the first time, something broke through that stoic mask—panic. His green eyes were wide, and his jaw was clenched tight. The monk looked ready to bolt forward, but was frozen by uncertainty.
The hounds were getting closer. Their grotesque bodies galloped across the sand in horrifying rhythm. Individually, they didn't seem massive, but thirty of them? That was a flood of death.
Damien exhaled slowly and raised the water bottle to his lips.
The first swallow was bliss, the next, greedier. Cool liquid rolled down his throat like silk, quieting the fire in his mouth and sharpening his thoughts.
He kept drinking.
"Hey!" Jenna shrieked, voice sharp as broken glass. "Don't drink all the water, you douche!"
He didn't even glance her way.
His thoughts churned.
'If I run, I'll survive for now. But this desert isn't empty. There'll be more of them. More traps. More monsters. And when they come… who will watch my back? A virtuless devil like myself stands no chance.'
He looked at Jenna again. She dangled from the branch overhead, trying to pull herself out from the ground. Her face was twisted with fear, eyes locked on the approaching storm of flesh and claws.
'If this were Earth, I'd already be gone.Leave the weak to the wolves. Save my own skin. That's the smart move, the winning move.Hell, watching Jenna die might even bring me a little joy.'
But even as the thought passed, something else stirred beneath it.
Not guilt. Not pity.
Just... calculation.
He analyzed the distance, the terrain, and the time it would take for the hounds to close the gap. His mind, sharpened by years of scheming under pressure, saw the openings—the angles.
'Lucky for them, I see a way out.If I play this right, none of us will die. I may not have the monk's creepy foresight, but one thing's certain, those hounds won't stand a fucking chance.'
Crunch.
Crunch.
Damien and the grey monk devoured two massive yellow fruits, each the size of a human head. As they bit into the tender flesh, the change was immediate and visible. Damien watched as the sunburnt red faded from his skin, returning to its usual pale white. The monk's complexion, once flushed and cracked, settled back to a calm, earthy brown.
Something about him had shifted, not relief or fear, but stillness, as if the monk had already accepted the outcome, win or lose. Damien couldn't tell if it was courage or something stranger, something less human.
Damien exhaled slowly. The fog in his mind lifted. His muscles loosened. The ache in his joints, the stiffness from days of starvation and sleepless nights, vanished like it had never been there. Even his throat felt smooth again, the cracked skin of his lips rehydrated.
Not only that, but he felt the wound on his leg close and disappear like it had never existed.
'This stuff is unreal,' he thought, flexing his fingers. 'I feel better than before landing here, like my body's been rewound.'
He turned to Jenna.
She stood at the garden's edge, still stuck, clutching two more fruits by their brown stems. Blood ran from a gash in her left arm, matting her skin in streaks. Her expression was tight, panicked, teeth gritted against the pain.
"Alright, toss them now, stick," Damien said, his tone sharp.
Breathless, Jenna muttered, "I'm not a stick," and lobbed them toward him.
Due to her shackle activation, her magic power had become weaker, requiring more work for the same result, which made her tired.
He caught both with ease, careful to grip only the stems. The blood-slick fruit bodies glistened in the sun.
He turned to the monk, who had already slipped back into his usual eerie composure. Damien could see it in the man's stance—the monk believed in the plan.
"Your virtue doesn't have any offensive tricks, does it?" Damien asked, keeping his eyes on the horizon.
The monk closed his eyes for a moment and gave a slow, silent shake of the head.
Figures.
But then, the monk extended his right hand.
A soft yellow glow flared to life, and from it, a weapon began to take shape. A silver spear materialized in his grip, its shaft polished and gleaming, the blade at its end razor-sharp and glinting like moonlight on steel.
Together, they turned to face the oncoming swarm. The sound of claws ripping through sand grew louder with each second, and the air around them roared as if the desert was screaming.
Then, without a word, they launched forward, straight toward the hounds.