The rest of the night passed smoothly.
Vale and Eskar prepared the food in quiet coordination, their movements practiced after days of repetition. Nearby, Drago sat with his legs crossed, his cane resting against his shoulder. His eyes were closed, his posture straight and unmoving, as if he were locked in deep meditation, or perhaps something even deeper. Vale couldn't tell, and that uncertainty lingered in the back of his mind.
As the fire crackled softly and the desert wind whispered across the dunes, Vale's thoughts drifted once more to his missing friends.
Again, the same questions returned.
Where were they now? Had they reached Irea already, or were they lost somewhere else entirely? Somewhere as harsh as this desert… or worse? The thought tightened his chest. He had no way of knowing. No signs. No reassurance.
He wasn't there with them.
That was what hurt the most.
He couldn't fight beside them. Couldn't protect them. Couldn't even imagine what they might be facing. Wherever they were, they were just as lost as he was, perhaps even more so.
Eventually, exhaustion won.
Darkness swallowed Vale as sleep claimed him, pulling him into a deep, dreamless void. Yet even as his body rested, his resolve hardened. He would find answers. He would learn whether his friends were safe. And he would uncover the truth about Drago, about how this strange old man knew so much about the desert, the monarchs, and things that should have been legends.
With those questions burning quietly within him, their journey continued.
Two weeks passed.
Each day followed the same merciless rhythm.
Wake.
Walk.
Kill a scorpion.
Walk again.
Sleep.
Again and again, the desert tested them, but repetition bred familiarity. The scorpions that had once inspired fear had become predictable. Their patterns, their habits, their weaknesses, Vale and Eskar had learned them all. Thick carapace, overwhelming force, but poor adaptability.
Power meant nothing without precision.
By the end of the second week, Vale stood atop a dune, the wind tugging at his clothes. He closed his eyes and took one final steady breath, centering himself.
"Alright," he muttered.
Then he ran.
He crested the dune at full speed, spear clenched tightly in his hand, and launched himself over the edge. As he descended, the ground below rushed up to meet him,
Two scorpions.
They turned toward him simultaneously, chitin scraping against sand as they surged forward.
Vale landed hard, planting his feet just as the beasts charged. Before he could advance, something slammed into one of the scorpions from the side.
Eskar.
He struck like a battering ram, grabbing the creature by its massive claw and wrenching it sideways, locking it in place. Vale adjusted instantly. His stance shifted, muscles coiling as he hurled his bone spear with perfect form.
The spear tore through the air.
It struck the second scorpion square in the skull.
The creature died instantly, its momentum carrying it forward before it collapsed lifelessly into the sand.
Vale didn't look back.
Eskar was already moving.
He brought his blade down in a clean, decisive arc, slicing through the ligaments of the trapped scorpion's claw. The limb fell away in a single flawless strike. The beast recoiled, shrieking in agony, stumbling backward as azure blood splashed across the sand.
Vale stayed where he was.
He trusted Eskar.
After two weeks of constant combat, they had learned the scorpions inside and out. As long as Eskar kept his footing, the outcome was already decided.
The scorpion lashed out in blind fury. Its stinger rose high before slamming downward.
Eskar twisted aside.
The stinger struck nothing but sand.
In the same motion, Eskar brought his blade up and severed the stinger at its base. The scorpion shrieked again, flailing wildly as it struck out with its remaining claw, but it was too slow.
Eskar stepped past it in one smooth movement, turned, and drove his blade straight through the creature's skull.
The body collapsed instantly.
Silence returned.
Vale exhaled and clapped once as he approached. "Nicely done," he said with a small grin.
Drago was already walking toward them.
Vale braced himself, expecting criticism, some remark about wasted motion or inefficiency. But as the old man reached them, no words came. He merely studied the corpses, their thick carapace intact save for the precise, fatal strikes.
Armor that could stop bullets meant nothing if one knew where to hit.
Precision, Vale had learned, was a greater weapon than raw strength.
For the first time, Drago smiled.
It was faint. Brief. But unmistakable.
"Well done," he said slowly.
Vale froze.
He turned to Eskar, eyes wide, silently asking if he'd imagined it. Eskar looked just as stunned.
Vale let out a weak chuckle. "Were we that impressive?"
Eskar didn't answer. He was already tearing one of the scorpion's limbs free, peeling off a section of carapace and using it to clean the azure blood from his blade.
Drago's smile vanished instantly.
"You were…" he paused, "…barely passable."
Vale snorted softly, shaking his head as he walked toward his own kill. He gripped the spear lodged in the scorpion's skull and ripped it free in one sharp motion.
Azure blood dripped slowly from the tip.
Using a shard of black carapace torn from the scorpion's lifeless body, Vale carefully scraped the azure blood from his spear. The liquid came away in thick streaks, leaving the pale bone surface clean once more. When he was satisfied, he slid the weapon back into its holster.
The holster itself was a crude thing, handmade, improvised from scavenged muscle fibers and the softer layers of scorpion carapace. Clumsy in design, unevenly stitched, and uncomfortable against his side, yet functional. Strangely enough, the materials required to make it had been far harder to find than Vale had expected. Most of the scorpions' bodies were too brittle or too rigid to shape properly, forcing him to experiment again and again until something workable emerged.
He exhaled quietly and turned toward Drago.
"So," Vale asked, brushing sand from his gloves, "how long before we reach the temple?"
Drago slowed his stride and regarded the horizon for a moment, calculating. "We were fortunate," he said at last. "We made better time than I expected. At this pace… a couple more days."
Vale's shoulders loosened almost immediately. A small, genuine smile crossed his face before he caught himself and let out a restrained sigh. A couple of days. That was close. Close enough to matter.
They continued walking.
Not long after, Vale felt the sand beneath his boots begin to tremble.
His expression softened instinctively. The guardian, he thought. A weak smile tugged at his lips. The desert guardian had become an odd comfort over the past weeks—silent, massive, strangely gentle. In some way, it reminded him of his old companions: Ember, August, Illu, Hurricane. They weren't with him anymore, scattered by fate and circumstance, and the guardian's presence filled a small, aching void.
But this vibration felt… wrong.
Before Vale could react, the ground gave way beneath him.
His smile vanished as the sand collapsed in on itself, forming a yawning gap. He barely had time to register Eskar beside him, eyes wide, body twisting mid-step, before the desert swallowed Vale whole.
He fell.
The rush of air roared in his ears as sand cascaded down around him. The fall lasted only a few seconds, but it was long enough for a single, sharp thought to form in his mind.
'What?'
He hit the ground hard, but upright.
Vale bent his knees instinctively, absorbing the impact, boots skidding slightly on stone. He straightened immediately, blade half-drawn, eyes darting across the darkness in search of movement.
Nothing.
No immediate predators. No rushing claws. No shrieks.
He looked up.
Far above, light spilled down from the opening, silhouettes forming at the edge. Eskar and Drago peered over, their figures distorted by distance and drifting sand.
Vale resisted the urge to shout. Sound traveled strangely underground, and the last thing he wanted was to wake whatever slept below.
Eskar raised his hands and signed quickly, ''Wait. Stay there. We'll find a way to get you out.''
Vale nodded once.
He estimated the distance. Roughly thirty meters straight up. Too far to climb without equipment. Too far to jump.
He took in his surroundings more carefully.
The space he stood in was cavernous, the walls formed of packed sand reinforced by veins of darker stone. Four separate tunnels branched outward from the chamber, each disappearing into shadow. The area was large enough to house something big.
That absence unsettled him more than noise ever could.
Vale lowered his stance, gripping his blade tightly. His eyes moved slowly, deliberately, scanning every crevice, every ripple in the sand. His breathing steadied.
Then he closed his eyes.
The world went dark, but clearer.
He felt vibrations through the ground, subtle shifts in air pressure, the faint scrape of something moving too fast to hear.
In an instant, he twisted and stepped aside.
Two massive mandibles burst from the sand where he had been standing, snapping shut with a hollow clack. Vale rolled across the ground as the creature surged past him, its segmented body tearing free from the sand.
He came up smoothly, eyes locking onto the beast.
A centipede.
At least a meter tall, its body stretching more than a dozen meters long. Its chitin gleamed dully in the dim light, legs moving in a hypnotic, rippling pattern. The mandibles clicked once, testing the air, before the creature turned fully toward him.
Vale adjusted his footing, shoulders relaxing as his focus sharpened. Fear receded, replaced by something colder, steadier.
He leveled his blade and met the creature's gaze.
"Come," he said quietly.