The dunes stretched endlessly.
Lucas walked with slow, deliberate steps. His breath came in shallow pulls, his legs stiff, each muscle aching from too many nights without sleep, without food, without warmth.
His skin was cracked and dry. His mouth still tasted like rust.
The jagged piece of stone he carried hung heavy in his hand, fingers curled tightly around it. His only weapon. A fucking rock.
The sky hadn't changed.
It never changed.
The black moon still watched him from above, indifferent and cold.
For a moment, everything was still.
Too still.
He paused.
There—beneath the wind.
A tremor.
Subtle. Barely noticeable. But it was there.
The sand shifted beneath his feet. He turned slowly, narrowing his eyes toward the path he'd come from.
Nothing.
Just dunes and shadow.
Lucas stepped forward again.
Crunch. Crunch.
Another tremor.
Stronger.
He stopped. Held his breath.
The ground vibrated beneath him—more clearly now. Rhythmic. Heavy.
Like something massive was moving just under the surface.
'No. No fucking way.'
He spun around.
And there it was.
Emerging from the top of a dune, like some ancient demon from the pit of hell, the scorpion rose. Its armored body gleamed under the moonlight, black and purple, like obsidian cracked with glowing veins. Its tail curled high, pulsing faintly with venom.
Three meters long. Maybe more.
Its many legs stabbed into the sand, each step sending tremors forward like miniature earthquakes. Its pincers clicked once. Then again.
Then it hissed.
A low, dry rasp that made the air feel colder.
Lucas stared.
'Of course.'
He took a slow step back.
Then another.
The beast raised its tail a little higher, as if recognizing him.
As if remembering.
The very same fucker from before.
The one he'd escaped.
The one that wasn't done with him.
Lucas's eyes scanned the surroundings.
Nothing.
No ruins. No cover.
No escape.
He clenched the stone tighter in his fist.
'No running this time.'
The wind touched his skin like a whisper of death.
Lucas stood still.
The scorpion descended the dune with slow, deliberate steps, its legs stabbing into the sand with a rhythm that echoed through his chest.
Step.
Step.
Step.
The sand hissed with each movement, as if the desert itself recoiled from the beast.
Lucas exhaled.
A sharp, cold breath.
He looked down at the rock in his hand—jagged, palm-sized, with one edge sharp enough to cut if swung hard enough.
'This is so fucking stupid.'
But he didn't move.
Didn't run.
The last time he ran, he barely made it out alive. This time, there was nothing to run to.
So he squared his stance.
His bare feet sank slightly into the sand. His knees bent. His left arm raised in front of him, the other gripping the stone like it was the only thing tethering him to life.
The scorpion stopped.
Ten meters away.
Its tail coiled like a serpent, dripping venom that hissed as it hit the sand. Its pincers spread wide—flexing, hungry.
It didn't charge.
It didn't need to.
It knew exactly what it was facing.
Lucas.
Just a boy.
Naked. Bleeding. Starving.
Armed with a rock.
And yet… something burned behind his eyes.
Not fear.
Something sharper.
Something colder.
Rage.
The creature stepped forward.
Lucas took a step, too.
His lips curled into a snarl.
"Come on, you ugly piece of shit," he muttered. "Let's fucking dance."
The scorpion lunged first.
It moved faster than it had any right to.
A blur of black and purple, a storm of claws and chitin. The ground shuddered beneath it as it surged forward, tail raised like a blade ready to fall.
Lucas dodged left—barely.
The stinger slammed into the sand behind him with a sound like stone hitting stone, throwing dirt into the air. A second later, one of the pincers snapped shut where his leg had just been.
Too close.
He threw himself to the side, rolled, came up gasping.
The scorpion twisted toward him.
Its eyes glowed faintly. Alien. Focused.
Lucas didn't give it time.
He ran straight at it.
The beast reared slightly, surprised—and that was all he needed.
Lucas jumped, brought the rock down hard toward the nearest eye.
Missed.
The stone scraped off its carapace, sending sparks but doing nothing.
The creature hissed, spun, and caught him with a backhanded blow from a pincer.
Lucas hit the sand like a ragdoll.
Pain exploded in his ribs. Air left his lungs. He curled up, coughing, gasping, blinking through tears.
'Get up.'
The scorpion didn't wait.
It came again, stinger first, aiming for his chest.
He rolled—screaming from the pain in his side—and the stinger missed by inches, plunging deep into the ground.
Lucas didn't think.
He moved on instinct.
Grabbed a handful of sand and threw it into the creature's eyes.
It reeled back, shrieking—just for a second.
Lucas surged up, jumped onto one of its legs, climbed along the joint like a madman, and raised the rock again.
He slammed it down—
Once.
Twice.
Three times—
Until he heard a crunch and felt the resistance give way.
The beast screamed.
He drove the stone deeper into the ruined socket, his knuckles raw, face splattered with hot, black blood.
"FUCK YOU!" he roared.
The tail rose again, fast this time.
Lucas threw himself off the creature's body as the stinger crashed down behind him.
He rolled, landed hard, crawled backward in the sand, panting like an animal.
The scorpion staggered, shrieking, now half-blind.
Wounded.
Angry.
More dangerous than ever.
The world blurred.
Lucas lay on the sand, chest heaving, ears ringing. His arms felt like lead, the stone in his hand slick with blood—his or the creature's, he couldn't tell.
The scorpion twisted, bleeding from the ruined eye, letting out a high-pitched chittering screech that clawed at his skull.
It was coming.
He tried to move—couldn't.
His body had limits, and he'd hit them. Hard.
And yet—something in his chest burned.
A pulse. Not a heartbeat.
Thump.
He gasped. His eyes widened.
The warmth in his sternum spread, crawling through his ribs like embers in dry wood. His fingers tingled. The world slowed. He felt… light. Cold. Awake.
'What the—'
The scorpion reared, tail raised high, body arched for the final strike.
Lucas didn't think.
He stood.
One moment he was broken on the ground—
The next, he was moving.
Faster.
Sharper.
His vision honed in on the creature's face. The missing eye. The pulsing gaps in its armored joints. Openings.
The pulse in his chest exploded outward—not visible, not heard. But felt.
His body reacted before his brain could form the thought.
He sprinted toward the beast, slid beneath its raised pincer, leapt onto one of its legs, and climbed with wild, desperate momentum.
The creature screamed, twisted, tail swinging blindly—but too slow.
Lucas reached the base of the stinger.
Grabbed the rock in both hands.
And drove it into the soft tissue beneath the joint with every ounce of fury left in his soul.
CRACK.
The monster convulsed.
The tail snapped sideways.
Lucas was thrown off, slammed into the sand with brutal force.
But the scorpion didn't follow.
It writhed.
Twisted.
Then collapsed.
Its legs twitched once.
Twice.
Then stilled.
Silence.
Only the wind whispered now.
Lucas lay on his back, staring at the unmoving tail of the beast. Its body sprawled lifeless across the sand, half-sunken, still twitching with residual nerves.
He didn't feel victorious.
He felt broken.
His right arm was numb, the fingers refusing to close. His ribs burned with every breath—something was cracked. Maybe more than one. His knees shook with every movement. His whole body pulsed with dull, deep pain that sank down to the bone.
Blood—his own—trickled down his side, soaking the sand beneath him.
The shard of stone he'd used lay a few feet away, chipped and stained black. His only weapon. Spent.
Lucas dragged himself up with a grunt, biting down on a groan that nearly turned into a scream. He clutched his ribs, breathing through clenched teeth.
"Fuck," he muttered.
Each breath was a knife.
He limped toward the scorpion's body, more to prove to himself that it was dead than for any real reason.
It didn't move.
Its eye socket still oozed. Its tail was severed, twitching spasmodically in the dirt.
He stared down at it.
'That should've killed me.'
And it almost had.
If that… thing inside him hadn't answered—
No. He didn't want to think about that right now.
His hand trembled. The blood on his chest had dried into dark flakes. His skin was cut, bruised, torn in places. One leg dragged slightly when he moved.
The price of survival.
He looked back toward the horizon.
The tower was still there.
Still far.
Still waiting.
He looked down at himself.
No armor.
No allies.
No class.
Just pain.
Just blood.
But he was alive.
And somehow, that was more than enough.
Just as Lucas turned away from the corpse, a sharp chime echoed inside his skull.
A translucent screen flickered into existence in front of him, glowing faintly in the dark.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
You have slain: Scourge Broodmother – Deathfang of the Wastes
Reward Granted:
[Item Acquired: Deathfang Carapace – Light Armor - Common Rank]
[Analyzing Soul Core…]
[ERROR.]
[Soul Signature: Unrecognized.]
[Class assignment failed.]
[Attempting reconnection…]
[Attempting reconnection…]
The screen glitched violently, symbols distorting before vanishing completely.
Lucas blinked. Then looked down at his hands.
'That was... new.'
He hadn't expected anything. Monsters didn't always drop items—most didn't. It was random. Luck-based. Like the world flipped a coin every time you killed something.
And somehow, the coin had landed on his side.
He saw it—a jagged piece of the scorpion's black exoskeleton, half-buried in the sand. He reached for it cautiously, fingers brushing its surface.
It was warm.
The armor shifted in his grip—flexible despite its size. As he pulled it toward his chest, it seemed to fold in on itself, wrapping around his torso like liquid metal.
Deathfang Carapace – Light Armor.
It fit perfectly.
Lucas let out a short, ragged laugh.
'Hell yeah. First kill, first drop. Maybe the system doesn't totally hate me after all.'
The moment passed quickly.
He crouched by the corpse again, searching for the Soul Core—the crystallized essence of the monster's power. He knew what to look for. The newsfeeds and data dumps he'd read made that part clear.
But he had no tools. No blade. Just fingers and a rock.
It wasn't enough.
The core was in there, but he couldn't reach it.
He clenched his jaw and stood.
'Next time.'
His ribs ached. His body throbbed with every step.
But he had a direction.
The rare structure still loomed in the distance—cold, sharp, waiting.
He tightened the strap of his new armor, adjusted the weight on his shoulders, and started walking again.