[Somewhere in the Desert — Midday]
The desert burned, not with the warmth of sunlight nor with the quiet brutality of summer heat. It burned like punishment.
An endless wasteland of black-gold sand stretched beneath a merciless sky, the dunes rising and falling like the backs of sleeping beasts. The sun hung overhead like a blade forged from white fire, scorching the earth until the air itself seemed to ripple and distort. Nothing lived here without permission.
Nothing breathed here without fear, and at the center of that cursed desert, blood had soaked into the sand.
Dark red and fresh. The bodies of black serpents were strewn across the dune like broken offerings, some kneeling, some collapsed, some still conscious enough to whimper through shattered ribs and split mouths.
Their black armor had been torn open in jagged places, scales cracked, flesh hanging in ribbons where punishment had already begun.
