CHAPTER 38 — CHASING SAND
The wind never rested in the Red Desert.
It prowled across the dunes like a starving animal, scraping dry sand across the earth in whispering tides. The desert was not truly red, not in the way blood was red. Its color was older than that—rust, dust, and the powdered remains of mountains ground into nothing by time. When the wind lifted the sand, the sky itself seemed to bleed.
Nark walked through it as though the storm were nothing.
Her cloak drifted behind her, snapping softly in the desert wind while the sand slid across the ground like shallow water. Beside her, Sera shielded her face with her arm as another gust swept over them.
"To survive the Wister War," Nark said calmly, "is actually very simple. Most people die because they overcomplicate it."
Sera snorted, her voice muffled behind her sleeve.
"Yeah, you already told me." She kicked a small stone that vanished beneath the dunes. "Get a Mana Drive and get enough points. That's it, right?"
"That's it," Nark replied.
She stepped over the half-buried corpse of a player whose armor had long since rusted into brittle fragments. Only the ribs remained visible now, sticking up from the sand like the broken teeth of some buried monster.
"But you're still missing the second part," Nark added. "You need at least two hundred points to be reasonably safe."
Sera glanced around the desert again.
Dry wind.
Dead land.
Scattered bodies.
"Honestly?" she said. "That doesn't seem that hard."
Nark raised an eyebrow.
"Really?"
Sera shrugged casually.
"I mean… I've already seen at least twenty bodies out here."
Nark gave a small, humorless laugh.
"Well," she said, "yikes."
Sera frowned.
"What?"
"I didn't expect you to sound so desensitized to death already."
She gestured lazily to the desert around them.
"But yes. Twenty bodies equals roughly two hundred points." She paused. "Though technically you've already got seventy points, so you only need about a hundred and thirty more."
Sera cracked her knuckles.
"Then let's get to work."
Nark stopped walking.
"And there lies the problem."
Sera looked over.
"The Red Desert is empty," Nark continued. "Players avoid it. Too dangerous. Too unpredictable."
She pointed toward the distant dunes.
"So our options are limited."
"Meaning?" Sera asked.
"Meaning our only reliable source of points…" Nark said, "…are the mana madness victims."
Sera grimaced.
"Oh."
"Unless," Nark added dryly, "you'd prefer to wander the desert like an idiot hoping to stumble across some poor fool to murder."
"Yeah no," Sera said quickly. "I'm good."
Nark nodded.
"Then that means roughly one hundred and thirty points." She tapped her finger thoughtfully against her arm. "So about twenty-six Rivens."
Sera blinked.
"Rivens?"
"You'll see."
Nark suddenly stopped walking.
Then she closed her eyes.
The desert wind shifted.
At first it was subtle—a slight tremor beneath the sand, like the breath of the world itself. Then the air around Nark began to glow.
Cerulean flames of ether flickered to life around her body.
They moved like living fire, swirling in gentle spirals that slowly widened into a storm. The sand at her feet began to lift, twisting upward into thin spiraling columns.
Sera watched in fascination.
Then the desert exploded.
A man burst out of the sand.
He looked like a corpse dredged up from the bottom of the sea.
His skull was split open down the center, the crack glowing with a strange flame that did not burn like fire. It was the same color as ether—an unnatural blue-white light that leaked from his broken head like a wound in reality itself.
His armor had rotted away.
His flesh hung dry and shredded.
And his eyes burned a deep, feral red.
He lunged straight at Nark.
Not with a weapon.
With his teeth.
Nark moved faster than the wind.
Her leg snapped upward in a brutal kick that crashed directly into his stomach.
The impact tore straight through him.
His body folded in half as her foot burst out through his back, scattering blackened organs across the sand.
The corpse hit the ground.
But the desert had already begun to move again.
The dunes erupted.
One after another.
Dozens of shapes clawed their way out of the sand like things rising from a grave.
Then hundreds.
They were barely human anymore.
Some had bones protruding through their skin like jagged armor. Others burned with that same strange ether-flame leaking from their mouths and eyes. A few had limbs twisted into unnatural shapes, stretched by power their bodies had never been meant to hold.
They screamed as they charged.
Not like humans.
Like beasts.
Sera exhaled slowly.
"Alright," she muttered. "Guess we're doing this."
Ether ignited in her palm.
A sphere of pale blue fire erupted from her hand and burst outward in a violent shockwave. Frost-like ether spread across the charging horde, freezing many of the Rivens mid-step.
Nark moved through them like a blade through silk.
Her fists became flashes of blue light.
One Riven's skull shattered under a single punch.
Another was torn apart by a sweeping kick that snapped its spine like dry wood.
She moved faster than the eye could follow—each strike precise, brutal, efficient.
Meanwhile Sera's ether attacks exploded through the battlefield like artillery.
Beams of condensed energy ripped through clusters of Rivens, blasting them apart in bursts of light and bone.
Even as they fought, Nark spoke calmly.
"I assume," she said while ripping the head off a lunging monster, "that from our earlier conversation you understand why these things exist."
Sera blasted three Rivens apart with a single sweeping beam.
"Yeah," she said. "Too much power too fast."
Another Riven leapt toward her.
She grabbed its face and slammed it into the ground before finishing it with a blast of ether.
"Overload your body with mana," she continued, "and eventually your system collapses."
Nark nodded.
"Spell shock."
Sera fired another beam into the crowd.
"And after that," she added, "you either explode into burning meat…"
A Riven grabbed her from behind.
Its claws dug into her shoulders.
Before it could bite her, Nark appeared beside it like a ghost.
Her hand flashed.
The creature's arm fell off before its brain could even process what had happened.
"…or," Sera finished calmly, "you erase reality."
The battlefield fell quiet for a moment.
The remaining Rivens hesitated.
Then they attacked again.
Nark sighed.
"The worst part," she said as she summoned a spear of condensed ether into her hand, "is the sound they make."
As if on cue, the creatures began shrieking.
High-pitched.
Broken.
Animalistic.
Their howls echoed across the desert like the cries of starving wolves.
"It's sad," Sera admitted, blasting another group apart.
"They were human once."
Nark drove the ether spear through three Rivens in a single thrust.
"Greed," she said coldly.
She ripped the spear free.
"Overdosing on Nirvra to inflate your power is one of the most disgusting habits in the system."
Another Riven collapsed under her heel.
"When the mind breaks," she continued, "the body follows."
She gestured toward the monsters around them.
"And this… is what's left."
Sera wiped sand from her cheek.
"So these things are called…?"
"Rivens."
"That's a cool name," Sera said.
"It's easier than calling them victims," Nark replied.
She suddenly raised both hands.
"I think that's enough."
Her ether erupted outward in a wave.
The battlefield froze.
Dozens of Rivens were locked in place, trapped in crystalline ether restraints.
Sera blinked.
"Wow."
She looked around the frozen monsters.
"That control is insane."
Nark shrugged.
"Your power isn't bad either."
She gestured toward the immobilized horde.
"Finish them."
"Really?"
"I've already exceeded my point requirement."
Sera grinned.
"Don't mind if I do."
She inhaled slowly.
Then she jumped.
Her body flipped backward through the air in a graceful arc.
At the peak of the flip, she hurled a sphere of condensed ether downward.
It struck the frozen Rivens.
And detonated.
Light swallowed the desert.
When the dust cleared, the battlefield was empty.
Nothing remained but drifting sand.
Sera landed lightly on her feet.
"Well," she said, brushing her hands together. "That was satisfying."
The two continued walking.
The Red Desert stretched endlessly toward the distant shoreline.
After several minutes, they both spoke at the same time.
"Duck," Sera said.
"Status," Nark said.
Their small floating companions chimed.
1800 POINTS.
FUNCTIONAL MANA DRIVE CONFIRMED.
SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: HIGH.
Sera grinned.
"Nice."
But her smile slowly faded.
She looked ahead.
"…uh."
Nark followed her gaze.
The sand ahead of them was moving.
Not like wind.
Like something beneath it.
"Do you see that," Sera said slowly, "or am I going insane?"
Nark's expression darkened.
"Stop."
Sera froze instantly.
The sand continued to shift.
Small ripples.
Slow.
Circular.
Nark's voice dropped to a whisper.
"It better not be…"
The sand suddenly went still.
The wind died.
The desert fell silent.
Then the ground behind them exploded.
A massive column of red sand erupted into the sky.
Something enormous burst from the earth.
It was not a Riven.
It was worse.
A predator.
A creature native to the Red Desert.
A Dreadwrym.
The colossal serpent tore through the sky with a roar that shook the dunes.
Its body was longer than a warship.
Two massive tails lashed behind it while ragged wings spread wide enough to blot out the sun.
Its scales were the color of burned iron.
Its jaws could swallow a horse whole.
And its shadow swallowed the desert beneath it.
Sera stared up in horror.
"…oh."
Nark's face went pale.
"…shit."
The Dreadwrym crashed back into the sand.
Then it began swimming through the desert like a shark through water.
The ground beneath them rippled violently.
"RUN," Nark shouted.
They ran.
Behind them the sand exploded again.
The monster surged through the dunes, diving and resurfacing in monstrous arcs as it hunted them across the burning wasteland.