The desert dawn broke slow and cruel.
A searing light spilled across the cracked skin of the world, filtering through jagged sandstone cliffs like liquid fire. The air shimmered with early heat, and the wind came dry and sharpless a breeze, more a blade brushing the skin.
Erevan stirred beneath the thin shadow of a rock outcrop. His eyelids peeled open, red and swollen. The sun's light stabbed into his skull like knives. He groaned softly.
Every muscle in his body protested. His joints ached. The wound on his side pulsed a rhythmic throb of dried blood and raw pain beneath a crude cloth wrap Kael had tied around him during the night.
His mouth was parched. His tongue felt like it had turned to cracked leather.
Where am I?
The thought surfaced before memory. His mind fought through the fog comet, darkness, the whispering system in his head, and that blood-drenched fight with a sand-dwelling nightmare.
This wasn't a dream.
This was something worse.
Erevan pushed himself upright with a ragged breath, sand clinging to his skin, hair, lips. He looked around, heart sinking at the vast, merciless sprawl of the desert before him. Dunes like frozen waves rolled endlessly toward the jagged horizon, shifting in hues of gold and death.
Beside him, Kael was already awake crouched near the fire's ashes, his hands busy with a whetstone. Metal rasped with steady rhythm as he drew the stone along the curved edge of his blade. Sparks jumped with each stroke.
He hadn't said good morning.
The desert didn't do pleasantries.
Without looking up, Kael spoke. His voice was calm, matter-of-fact.
"You're lucky."
Erevan coughed, voice hoarse. "Why?"
"Most don't make it past their first night out here."
Kael tested the edge of his blade with a thumb and nodded.
"The desert doesn't forgive weakness."
Erevan's throat burned as he tried to swallow. Sweat traced slow, sticky lines down his neck. "Then I'll have to be strong."
Kael finally looked at him.
His eyes were dark and sharp, shaped by years in the sand. He gave a faint snort.
"They all say that. Doesn't mean a thing 'til the sand tests you."
Erevan's jaw tightened. He didn't respond. What could he say? That he used to be a scholar? A street rat? A nobody from another world?
No one here would care.
And then again the voice.
[System Update: New Objective – Hunt and defeat 5 Sand Fiends in the surrounding dunes.]
[Reward: Experience Points + Blood Essence Boost.]
Erevan flinched at the sudden message echoing in his skull.
"Can't even think without it buzzing in my head," he muttered.
Kael shot him a glance.
"You keep mumbling to yourself. That a city thing?"
Erevan hesitated. "Something like that."
He didn't know how to explain it the Codex, the interface, the constant sense that he was being observed by something older than the desert itself. It wasn't natural. None of it was. And yet, it was inside him now. Part of him.
He flexed his fingers. The warmth beneath his skin returned faint but growing. A pulse of power. A whisper of blood.
Kael rose and sheathed his blade.
"Come. I'll show you where the beasts hunt. You'll need speed and ruthlessness."
They moved out, boots crunching over rock and shifting sand. The sun blazed above like a flaming god, watching. Judging.
Kael led them down winding paths into a canyon choked with heat and silence. The sandstone walls seemed to lean inward, like the land itself wanted to trap them.
"The Sand Fiends," Kael said, his voice low and measured, "aren't animals. They're survivors. Smarter than you'd expect. Territorial. Cruel. They don't just kill they hunt. Learn fast, or you won't live long."
Erevan nodded, sweat beading on his brow. Every breath he took burned.
He wanted to ask a dozen questions What happened to me? How does the system work? How do you kill something like a goddamn sand dragon? but his instincts told him now wasn't the time.
Then, it happened.
A strange heat flared in his chest.
His eyes widened.
[Bloodsense Activated: Lifeform Detected – 3 Sand Fiends, 60 meters northeast.]
"Kael," Erevan rasped, freezing in place. "They're close. Three of them. That way."
Kael's expression flickered not surprise, but recognition.
"Your instincts are good. Trust them."
They crouched behind a rocky ledge as the dunes ahead rippled unnaturally like something alive was swimming beneath them.
Then… they rose.
Three Sand Fiends burst from the sand, scales catching the sunlight like shattered mirrors. Their jaws unhinged with hissed roars, and sulfuric saliva dripped from rows of needle-like teeth.
Kael's voice came sharp and low.
"They'll circle us. Stay fluid. Don't hesitate. If you do"
He gestured to the shredded bones littering the edge of the canyon.
"that's you."
The creatures snarled, scattering across the sand in a pincer pattern.
Erevan gritted his teeth.
No time to think. Just move.
One leapt.
He dove to the side, tumbling across the burning sand as claws shredded the space he'd just occupied.
Instinct screamed. Power surged.
His hand snapped upward, and a vein of crimson light flared from his palm.
[Skill: Veinbind Activated.]
A tendril of blood lashed out, wrapping one fiend's leg. It shrieked and fell, limbs flailing.
Kael moved like death given form slicing into a second fiend with a blur of motion. His blade severed spine from head.
Erevan turned, catching the third beast charging him.
His body moved before his thoughts could.
A burning wave erupted from his chest raw blood energy and slammed into the fiend like a battering ram. It skidded back, dazed.
Veinbind surged again this time more violently, twin tendrils wrapping the beast's limbs, yanking it to the ground.
Erevan ran forward and slashed once, twice until the thing stopped moving.
Silence fell.
Panting, bloodied, Erevan stood trembling under the sun's cruel light.
Kael watched him for a long moment before speaking.
"Good," he said. "Messy. But good."
Then
[XP Gained: +100]
[Level Up! Level 2]
[Stat Points: +2 | Skill Points: +1]
[Blood Essence Restored: 25%]
Erevan looked down at his shaking hands. The blood on them was already fading, absorbed by the Codex.
Power throbbed beneath his skin. His pulse felt stronger. Clearer.
But in the silence, doubt returned.
He looked to Kael.
"…What is this place?"
Kael's face turned toward the rising wind. His voice was quiet.
"A graveyard. A crucible. Depends on who you ask."
He looked back at Erevan. "But one thing's certain… if you don't keep moving, it becomes your tomb."