[Welcome Home, Asteria.]
Asteria stood frozen for a split second as the familial whispers of the Spell echoed in the silence of her mind.
'Home. The Spell thinks the Dream Realm is my home?'
When she opened her eyes, she was no longer in the sterile, cramped confines of the medical pod. She was standing in the center of a vast, barren plane of blindingly white sand. The heat was instantaneous, pressing against her skin like a physical weight.
"Is this a desert? Are you kidding me?" she huffed, shielding her eyes.
But as she adjusted, she realized her senses had fundamentally shifted. The connection to the Spell was no longer a distant buzz; it was a map etched into her very soul. Instinctively, she could feel the geometry of this world. She knew where a Citadel was. A beacon etched into her soul. There was two of them within a "close vicinity," however close that actually was.
To the North, the closest point of stability. To the Southwest, a presence so terrifying it made the air feel heavy. She looked toward the horizon and saw it – a colossal spire cloaked in darkness, a monument so vast it seemed to pierce the sky itself.
'Nope. Not going that way!' she decided instantly. A grim smile touched her lips, only to turn into a flash of mortification as she looked down.
"So that's why it's needlessly warm on my skin... and why Nephis gave me an armor Memory..."
She was completely exposed. The "Outskirts Rat" had been dropped into the dream realm with nothing but her soul. Gritting her teeth against the embarrassment, she hurriedly summoned the [Lightkeeper's Guard]. White sparks swirled around her, coalescing into the cool, protective layers of the armor. The relief was immediate; the enchantments kicked in, regulating her temperature and shielding her from the blistering sun.
'It's perfect. Thank you, Nephis. I'll try not to die so I can actually pay you back,' Asteria mused.
She summoned her [Obsidian Blade] next. The dark, glass-like weapon materialized in her hand, its weight familiar and comforting. "At least I've got some protection now," she murmured, scanning the horizon.
North was the goal. No food, no water, and an endless sea of white sand. It was going to be a very long day.
For the next hour, Asteria maintained a steady pace. The desert seemed abandoned, a pristine wasteland where the only sound was the crunch of her boots. That was until she saw the first signs of life – or what was left of it.
Protruding from a massive dune were five strangely shaped metal pillars, each easily a dozen meters tall. They were polished to a mirror finish, reflecting the sun with an intensity that forced her to squint. They didn't look like parts of a building; they looked like the skeletal remains of something.
"What is that?" Asteria wondered, slowing her pace.
Then, the world vibrated.
"W-woah—"
The sand beneath her feet turned into a turbulent ocean. A deep, guttural rumble shook the dunes, sending cascades of white powder sliding down the slopes. Something massive was displaced beneath the surface, surging toward the light.
SPLASH.
The sand didn't just move; it erupted. The sound was like a tidal wave hitting a cliffside. Asteria leaped back, her heart hammering against her ribs, her blade raised in a defensive arc.
The creature that broke the surface was definitely a nightmare creature. It was a segmented, pale worm, easily six meters long. Its body was a mass of rhythmic muscle, and where a head should have been, there was only a gaping, circular maw lined with concentric rings of shape, jet-black teeth.
'It doesn't have eyes,' Asteria quickly noticed. 'does it feel the vibrations in the sand?'
Asteria dug her heels into the shifting sand, her eyes narrowing. She didn't just see the worm; she felt the pulse of its essence – a hungry, mindless throb of corruption.
The creature let out a wet, screeching hiss, its body coiling like a spring before slamming into the sand to lunge at her.
"One worm," Asteria hissed, her grip tightening on the hilt of her blade. "I can do one worm. Just don't let there be a second."
The worm arched its back, the sand falling away from its pale hide as it prepared to strike. Asteria realized then that the "metal pillars" she had seen earlier weren't buildings at all. They were the discarded husks of even larger versions of this thing.
She wasn't in a desert. She was in a feeding ground.
The worm didn't give her time to contemplate the local architecture. It lunged, its massive body whipping through the air with a speed that belied its size.
Asteria dove to the side, the scorching white sand kicking up into her face as the creature's maw slammed into the spot she had occupied a second before. The impact sounded like a car crash, muffled by the dunes.
'It's blind, but it's definitely not slow,' Asteria thought, scrambling to her feet. She gripped the hilt of her blade until her knuckles turned white.
The worm didn't miss a beat. It sensed the vibrations of her movement and swept its tail – a massive, muscular club of pale flesh – in a wide arc. Asteria jumped, the tail whistling beneath her boots, and as she descended, she drove her blade downward.
CLANG.
The dark glass skidded off the creature's hide. Asteria's eyes widened. "The skin is reinforced? Since when do worms have armour?"
The worm wasn't just meat; its hide was infused with the minerals and metallic debris it had been devouring beneath the sands.
The creature reared back, its circular maw expanding until it was wide enough to swallow her whole. Asteria focused. She let the world around her blur, leaning into that burgeoning sense of the "flow" Nephis had hammered into her. She didn't look at the teeth; she looked at the way the segments of the worm's body moved. If she didn't, she'd die.
There. Between the third and fourth segments, where the body curved to strike, the hide stretched thin.
The worm struck, a straight, locomotive-like thrust. Instead of dodging away, Asteria stepped in.
She moved inside the reach of the massive head, feeling the rush of hot, stagnant air as the maw passed inches from her shoulder. With a guttural cry, she pivoted and drove the [Obsidian Blade] into the gap between the segments.
This time, the glass didn't bounce. It sank deep.
The creature let out a high-pitched, vibrating shriek that made Asteria's teeth ache. Purple-black blood sprayed across her [Lightkeeper's Guard], the armor's [Cleanliness] enchantment sizzling as it fought to repel the filth.
The worm thrashed violently, trying to shake her off. Asteria held onto the hilt with both hands, using her body weight to rip the wound wider as she was tossed through the air. She twisted the blade, feeling it grate against something hard – a central nerve or a vital organ.
With one final, desperate surge of strength, she pulled the blade upward, carving a jagged path through the creature's side before being thrown clear.
She hit the sand and rolled, coming up in a crouch. The worm stood tall for a moment, its body quivering in a grotesque dance of death, before it collapsed. It hit the dune with a final, heavy thud, the white sand slowly beginning to bury it.
[You have slain an Awakened Monster: Sand-Eater.]
Asteria stood there, her chest heaving, the adrenaline slowly draining away to leave her trembling. She looked at the massive corpse, then at her shaking hands.
"I... I did it," she whispered. "My first one." She continued after a moment, "Please tell me I don't have to do that again, that was so, so gross..."
***
After carving out the worm's meat – a task performed through heavy breaths and gags at the stench of the cooling corpse – Asteria finally found her prize: two glowing Soul Shards.
Placing a shard in her palm, she attempted to absorb the essence as she'd been taught in the Academy's lectures. She waited for the familiar pull of power.
"Nothing? Why can't I absorb essence from shards?"
'Soul Shards... Soul Shards... ' She opened her runes, her eyes scanning the familiar, shimmering text.
[...Dream Core: Dormant]
[Spell Fragments: 0/1000]
'You're kidding. Is it because I don't have a standard Soul Core? Does this "Dream Core" not recognize refined essence?'
Frustrated, she tucked the shards away and looked at the raw meat. She needed fire. She didn't have a Memory to produce flames, and the desert offered nothing but white sand and scorching heat. Then, she looked back at the towering metal pillars behind her.
'Flint and steel. I just need to hope the hide of that thing is flammable.'
Taking her [Obsidian Blade], she carved jagged strips of metal from the pillars, the screech of glass on steel echoing through the dunes. She scavenged the sand until she found a dense, black stone to act as her flint.
"Gotcha," she whispered, clutching the stone.
She piled some of the worm's dried underbelly hide to act as tinder. Then, she struck the metal against the stone with everything she had.
CLASH. CRACK. SIZZLE.
"Oh, thank the Spell," she breathed as a spark finally caught. She carefully blew on the tiny amber glow until it bloomed into a small, flickering fire. Skewering the meat on a strip of metal, she held it over the flames.
Minutes later, the scent changed from repulsive to almost edible. The meat developed a dark crust, and the fat began to sizzle. Taking a cautious bite, Asteria found it chewy and bland – she would have killed for a pinch of salt – but it wasn't inedible.
As she swallowed the first mouthful, the Spell whispered in her ear, its voice cold and intimate.
[Your Dream has become stronger.]
"What?!" Asteria nearly choked. "I can get fragments from devouring monster meat? That's... convenient, but absolutely disgusting."
She checked her runes again, her heart racing.
[Dream Core: Dormant]
[Spell Fragments: 3/1000]
'An Awakened monster... it was a rank above me and had two cores,' she mused, staring at the meat with a mixture of horror and fascination. 'If I have to eat my way to power, I'm going to need a lot more than just one worm.'
After finishing her meal and cooking the remaining strips of meat to preserve them, Asteria packed her meager supplies. She couldn't afford to linger; the smell of the fire and the cooling carcass were beacons she didn't want to defend.
She turned her gaze back to the North, where the horizon shimmered with heat and the promise of a Citadel.
Although she didn't get any more fragments from what she ate, it didn't matter. Her legs felt stronger now, the freshly devoured essence humming beneath her skin, but her mind was set on one goal: finding a defensible position.
'I am not sleeping out in the open,' she decided, her grip tightening on her blade.
With the white sun beginning its slow descent, painting the dunes in long, predatory shadows, Asteria set off. She wouldn't stop until she found stone, a wall, or the gates of the Citadel itself – anything that put a barrier between her and the endless, shifting teeth of the desert.