Adlet did not realize when he truly entered the Sand Graveyard.
There was no border to cross.
No marker.
No warning.
Only the gradual disappearance of everything familiar.
At first, he told himself nothing had changed. The Horus Desert had already been harsh—dry air, relentless heat, long stretches of emptiness between settlements. He had adapted to that. Learned its rhythms. Learned where vigilance mattered and where it could briefly rest.
This place did not follow rhythms.
The ground beneath his feet lost its firmness one step at a time. What had once been compact soil slowly gave way to loose sand that shifted treacherously, stealing stability with every movement. Each step demanded more effort than the last, though the change was subtle enough that he didn't notice immediately.
Dunes rose ahead—vast, uneven masses piled upon one another like frozen waves mid-collapse. They weren't sculpted gently by wind, but stacked brutally, as though the land itself had been shattered and left to rot in place.
There was almost no vegetation.
No stubborn shrubs clinging to life.
No isolated trees bending beneath the wind.
No patches of color to rest the eyes upon.
Only sand.
Endless sand.
During the day, it burned pale and blinding, reflecting heat back at him until the air itself shimmered. At night, beneath the cold glow of the Stars, it turned lifeless and cruel, draining warmth just as mercilessly as it stole strength during the day.
Adlet adjusted the cloth around his neck for the third time in as many minutes. His lips were already dry. His tongue felt thick in his mouth.
The air felt wrong.
Not suffocating—but oppressive. Dense. Each breath scraped faintly at his throat, stealing moisture without offering relief. Even his green Aura felt dulled here, as if the land itself resisted reinforcement.
There were no landmarks.
No rock formations to orient himself. No ridges or silhouettes to break the horizon. The dunes shifted constantly under the wind, subtly reshaping themselves until even his sense of direction began to erode.
If the Horus Desert tested endurance…
The Sand Graveyard tested sanity.
He kept moving.
Because stopping meant thinking.
And thinking led to questions he didn't want to answer.
This was his first mission since entering the top ten. Turning back was not an option.
The Fortress Elephant .
Rank 4.
Last reported near the central region.
That was all.
No precise location. No patrol reports. No survivors to narrow the search.
He walked.
Hours passed.
Then more.
Time lost its shape beneath the unchanging sky. What looked close took hours to reach. What seemed distant never grew nearer. His waterskins grew lighter. His legs burned—not from exertion, but from constant imbalance.
He stopped occasionally, scanning the horizon.
Nothing.
Only sand.
At first, he treated it like any other mission. Conserving energy. Managing Aura. Tracking his own pace. He counted steps. Estimated distance.
Then the dunes shifted.
Not dramatically. Just enough.
The path he thought he'd taken vanished behind him, erased by wind and gravity alike. His footprints disappeared within minutes. When he turned back to confirm his bearing, the horizon offered no reassurance.
He adjusted course.
Then adjusted again.
Another day passed.
Sleep offered no relief. The ground never truly cooled, and the wind carried fine grains of sand that crept into his clothes, his pack, his hair. He woke stiff, dehydrated, already exhausted before moving again.
This was new.
Not danger.
Not fear.
Something slower.
A quiet erosion of certainty.
Adlet had faced Apexes stronger than himself. He had bled. Been thrown. Broken and risen again.
But never like this.
Never without an opponent.
Never without something to fight back against.
Here, there was nothing to strike. Nothing to overcome. Only the slow realization that the desert did not care whether he succeeded or failed.
By the third day, he stopped checking the horizon as often.
By the fourth, he stopped counting steps.
His thoughts drifted despite his efforts to anchor them. Memories surfaced uninvited—Eos. The forest. The river near his childhood clearing. Pami's voice, distant now.
He shook his head violently, forcing focus back into his limbs.
Stay moving.
Movement was the only proof he still existed.
The desert offered no confirmation. No feedback. No acknowledgment.
It simply endured.
By the fifth day, doubt sharpened.
Am I lost?
Did it move already?
Was it ever here at all?
He clenched his jaw and walked.
Each dune felt like climbing the same wall again and again. Cresting one brought no relief—only the sight of countless others beyond, identical and unmoving.
He rationed water carefully now. Short sips. No waste. His Aura remained low, used only to steady his balance or sharpen his senses when exhaustion threatened to dull them too far.
For the first time since leaving Eos, Adlet felt something close to despair.
Not panic.
Not fear.
But the slow, creeping dread of a struggle with no clear end.
The Sand Graveyard did not attack him.
It waited.
On the sixth day, hallucination crossed his mind for the first time.
A ripple on the horizon.
A distortion that lingered too long.
He stopped.
Stared.
Nothing changed.
He laughed quietly—a short, brittle sound swallowed instantly by the wind.
"Get it together," he muttered.
His voice sounded wrong in the open emptiness.
He resumed walking.
Then—something felt off.
Not a sound.
Not a tremor.
A sensation.
The hairs along his arms prickled. His instincts—honed through countless battles—tightened suddenly, sharp and insistent.
He narrowed his eyes, trying to focus past the heat haze, past the dull ache pulsing behind his temples.
Far ahead—at the very edge of his vision—
Something moved.
Adlet stopped.
The shape wavered, distorted by distance and exhaustion. A dune, perhaps. Or the illusion of one. The desert played tricks on the senses—he knew that. Heat, thirst, fatigue… all of it blurred reality.
He waited.
Nothing happened.
A breath he hadn't realized he was holding escaped him.
Get a grip.
He reached up, rubbed his eyes hard until the world swam, then forced them open again.
The horizon remained unchanged.
Endless dunes. Still. Silent.
For a moment, he wondered how long he had been standing there. Seconds? Minutes?
Then—
The dune shifted.
Not all at once. Not violently.
Just… wrong.
A slow distortion. A rise that didn't belong to the wind. A settling that felt deliberate, yet uncertain—like watching something through water.
Adlet's heart stuttered.
No.
He shook his head sharply.
That's not real.
The Sand Graveyard had been wearing him down for days. Hunger. Heat. Isolation. He'd heard stories of Protectors who lost themselves out here—who followed mirages until their legs gave out, chasing shapes that never existed.
This had to be one of them.
His breath came shallow now. His pulse thudded loud enough to drown out the wind.
He stared anyway.
The shape shifted again.
Barely.
As if the desert itself were breathing.
Too slow to be a trick of the eye.
Too heavy to be imagined.
A chill crept beneath his skin—cold and unwelcome in the heat.
Relief brushed dangerously close to dread.
After days of nothing—after silence so complete it had begun to gnaw at him—
The desert had offered an answer.
Whether it was real…
Or simply the last illusion before collapse…
Adlet couldn't tell.
And that uncertainty unsettled him more than he cared to admit.
Not fear — not yet.
Something quieter. Something heavier.
The kind of doubt that crept in when the body had been pushed too far and the mind began to question what it was allowed to trust.
He forced his breathing to steady.
Hallucination or not…
He couldn't afford to look away.
If the desert was testing him, then this was part of it.
His lips tightened — not into a smile, but into a thin line of resolve.
Whatever that movement had been…
He would face it.