I was expecting the first thing I would see upon arriving in the Rift World to be a blue sky or a massive forest of some sort. Maybe, if luck was on my side, I would even end up in a country with people.
Instead, immediately after hearing the system's greeting, I found myself blind and choking, my mouth and lungs filling with hot, suffocating air.
More than that, I couldn't see anything. Normally, darkness was not a problem for me, but for some reason it made me anxious.
It was not like I was blind. I knew I could see, but I could not perceive anything, like something had entered my eyes.
If it were not for the hypersensitivity I had due to my mana control, I would have been completely disoriented.
With its help, I could at least tell what position my body was in. I was lying down on something soft yet rough, and the hot sensation I had been feeling since earlier seemed to come from the sun.
My body was buried in scorching sand, and only half of my face was not underneath the ground.
Swearing under my breath, I forced myself to stay calm and clawed my way upward. Each movement was heavy and sluggish, as if the sand itself was trying to drag me down and swallow me whole.
After a few long, desperate seconds, my entire head finally broke free.
I sucked in a deep, hoarse breath.
'Breathe. Breathe. Breathe, damn it.'
The air burned my lungs, dry and hot, but I welcomed it anyway. After drawing in enough oxygen to calm myself, I slowly pushed my upper body out of the sand, and my eyes finally shot open.
My irises burned, the edges of my eyes itching like I had washed them with pepper.
Although the pain was a bit much, it was not to the extent where I would go blind, so I began searching my surroundings.
What greeted me was an endless expanse of golden white dunes stretching in every direction. Above them loomed a vast sky, dominated by a large red sun that suffocated the earth below.
I blinked several times as a cold dread settled in my chest.
'This is… a desert?'
No. It couldn't be.
I had researched everything about the Rift World, and not once had I heard about a desert existing in it, and there was no way anyone would miss something this large.
Just as panic began to take hold, a distant sound reached my ears, a low, rumbling vibration, barely audible but unmistakable.
I turned.
Far away, the crest of a massive dune shifted unnaturally, as though something beneath it was moving.
'Wait… if it's that far away… how can I see it so clearly?'
Cold sweat broke out across my skin. Even for me, seeing something that far away was too much.
The shape stirred again until it pushed out only its head, and it was enormous.
By my estimate, whatever it was stretched at least five meters high. It was moving fast, the sand parting around it as it approached, its silhouette growing larger with every heartbeat.
'Shit…!'
Spinning around, I searched for anything, anything at all, that could save me.
I was strong, yes, but that thing was even stronger. I did not even need to read its level to know that Equalization would not do shit to it.
As my gaze frantically scanned around, it landed on a white mass jutting out from the sand a short distance away.
Without thinking, I threw myself forward, sprinting across the dunes as fast as my legs could carry me. Sand burned against my feet, slowing me down, but I pushed through it anyway.
"This isn't enough, damn it."
My stamina began draining fast, and the massive shadow beneath the sand was closing the distance far faster than I could run.
Somehow, a small part of my mind remained rational even in the grip of raw, primal fear, refusing to fully succumb to panic.
Even if it came close, I could rewind back in time. That was what I told myself, at least. Deep down, though, I knew that when faced with overwhelming power, all preparation became useless.
I took a deep breath, the sand burning my throat. Fog escaped my lips as mana wrapped around my body like an outer skin, my speed doubling instantly.
Just seconds before the thing beneath the sand reached me, I leapt onto the white mass and scrambled upward. I rolled across its rough surface, scraping my skin against its jagged edges. I was not done yet. I began running deeper into it, only then realizing it was the skull of a massive creature.
As I climbed higher along the skull, I finally reached a spot deep and high enough that I would not be eaten in a second.
Barely a moment later, the ground beneath me trembled violently as the colossal creature slammed into it.
From where I stood, holding loose bones for stability, I watched sand explode upward. Soon after, a monstrous maw burst forth, lined with rows upon rows of massive teeth, each one as long as my entire body.
My eyes widened in horror as I realized the skull might not be strong enough to protect me.
"Why is this fucker even trying to eat me? I'm way too small to be worth the effort. I know I'm great and all, but I don't taste that good, I swear!"
Before the creature could strike, however, the desert itself seemed to rebel.
The sand twisted violently, swirling like a tornado before sucking the monster deep into its embrace.
I stared in shock as the ground finally settled, silence returning as if nothing had happened at all.
My legs gave out, and I collapsed onto the bone, a heavy sigh escaping my lips.
"Damn, I could have seriously died just now."
Somehow, I was not so happy about my option, picking surprise as my main emotion. It was a double-edged sword, and it seemed only one side was reaching me.
---
A few minutes passed before I was convinced that nothing else was coming to kill me, at least not immediately. Once my breathing steadied, I finally took the time to examine my surroundings.
The place I was inside was undoubtedly the skull of a monster, and from its size, it was safe to say it had been far larger than the creature that tried to attack me.
And it was dead.
If such a monstrosity could be killed, what else existed inside this desert?
Sitting down in the center of the platform, I tried to recall everything I knew about rift environments.
None of them matched this place.
Not the temperature. Not the geography. Not even the parts of Blondy's map I had caught a glimpse of.
It was like… I wasn't taken to an entirely different Rift World.