The heat was oppressive.
Dry, breathless, and sharp-edged — the kind of heat that didn't just cling to skin, but crawled beneath it.
It was a completely different world compared to the forest or mountainous regions they'd been in before.
Every step kicked up fine flakes of stone, whispering softly as they fell back to the cracked ground.
Riven wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, eyes scanning the dead horizon.
Still nothing.
No movement.
No wind.
No monsters.
And that was the problem.
He exchanged a glance with Yue Lin as they moved in silence, the chain between them faint and slack but ever-present. Her hand rested on her dagger, steps slow and deliberate as her gaze roamed the landscape ahead.
They'd been moving like this for the a while now — inching toward the slab with practiced caution, ready for something — anything — to leap out from beneath the stone or drop from the sky.
But nothing came.
No beasts.
No ambush.
Not even a noise.
Riven muttered under his breath. "I don't like this."
Yue Lin didn't say anything, but her grip on the hilt tightened.
They kept walking.
Closer now.
The slab stood just ahead — maybe twenty meters away — half-sunken into the orange-flaked earth, a dark silhouette against a colorless sky. It looked just like the marker from before. Same stone. Same height. Same smooth face and weathered edges. Covered in dust.
They slowed to a stop a few paces away.
The air was so dry now that even their breathing felt too loud.
Riven hesitated a moment longer. Then stepped forward.
His hand extended.
It's my turn now.
His fingers brushed against the thick layer of dust on the slab's surface.
He swept it aside with a slow motion, revealing the smooth stone beneath.
Nothing.
No inscription. No glowing letters. Not even a sign of being processed.
Just… stone.
"…Seriously?" Riven said, blinking.
Yue Lin moved closer, peering at the clean surface. "Is it broken?"
"I don't think these things can break—"
And then the ground gave out.
No warning. No tremor.
Just silence—
Then a sharp crack.
And the world fell away.
They dropped fast — not far, maybe two or three meters — but it wasn't the distance that mattered.
It was the landing.
Riven hit hard, rolling to absorb the fall, his shoulder slamming against packed sand and half-buried rock. Yue Lin landed beside him a second later, knees bent, one hand braced on the floor.
A fine mist of dust rained down from the hole above.
Riven groaned and pushed himself up to one knee. "This stupid—"
"Be careful!"
Before he could finish cursing the creator of these damned trials, Yue Lin moved.
Her hand pressed flat against his chest — firm — and shoved him backward.
He barely had time to register the warmth of her palm through his robes before something massive crashed down where he'd been kneeling.
Thud.
The impact shook the pit.
Stone hit sand with brutal force, sending a burst of dust outward in a choking wave.
Riven blinked, heart hammering, staring at the object embedded in the ground inches from where his head had been.
The slab.
The entire stone marker had torn free and fallen in after them.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Riven exhaled shakily. "…Thanks."
Yue Lin didn't look at him. Her eyes were on the slab. "You're welcome."
They both turned toward it.
Fine cracks ran along its edges now, the material clearly not as sturdy as they'd thought.
Just then the sand on the walls of the pit shifted.
Both of them froze.
A faint scraping sound echoed out. Soft. Wet.
Riven's eyes flicked toward the walls.
The sandstone wasn't solid anymore.
It was rippling. As if awoken by the unexpected sounds.
"Yue Lin," he said quietly.
"I see it."
The wall to their right bulged outward—
And burst.
A pale, segmented body shot out, glistening and slick, thick as his forearm. No eyes. Just a circular maw lined with jagged teeth.
Riven moved on instinct.
He pivoted on one foot and snapped out a high kick.
His boot connected hard with the creature's side mid-lunge, sending it slamming against the opposite wall with a meaty crunch. It hit the stone, flopped once, then stilled — black ichor trailing in a thin arc where it had flown.
But there wasn't time to enjoy the hit.
The other walls shivered.
Then ruptured.
More bodies began to push through the soft sandstone. First two. Then five. Then nearly a dozen — pale worms with twitching mouths and twitching limbs, oozing from cracks like pus from an infected wound.
Riven reached for his pouch, fingers brushing the five needles inside… then hesitated.
He didn't have many.
And these things didn't seem strong enough to need them.
He exhaled sharply, drawing back as one lunged toward his waist. He ducked low, rolled beneath its arc, then slammed his elbow down on its back as it passed — a wet snap echoed out as its shell crumpled.
Behind him, Yue Lin was already slicing her way through two more, moving with clinical precision — no wasted strikes, no panic.
Riven spun, dodging another.
I really need to reach higher proficiency with Velvet Thorn Acupunture, he thought, scowling. It said I would be able to control the needles mid-flight and even recall them then.
Instead, he had to brawl in a hole full of meat-worms.
He drove his fist into anothers maw, teeth crunching against knuckles. He felt something give under the strike — bone, or whatever passed for it in these things — and it collapsed at his feet.
He looked at his hand.
Slick. Sticky. Covered in whatever passed for blood in the worm's body.
"…This is disgusting."
He wiped it on the edge of his robe, but it only smeared.
"Should've at least worn gloves."
Another worm shrieked as Yue Lin bisected it.
And still they kept coming.
The swarm thickened — but so did their rhythm.
They didn't speak.
They didn't need to.
The last few days of cramped proximity, coordinated movement, and chain-forced cooperation had tuned them into a single rhythm. Riven shifted left without looking, knowing Yue Lin would pivot to cover his blind spot. She ducked beneath a lunging worm, knowing he'd take the follow-up from behind.
Blades flicked. Feet slammed. Elbows cracked bone.
They weren't perfect.
But they were close.
Still — there were too many.
The worms kept pouring in, crawling over the bodies of their dead, slick and mindless. Not strong — not even close.
Mid Inner Essence at best.
Not even Lesser Ferals.
But there were dozens.
And more kept coming.
"Clear a gap!" Riven barked, already moving.
Yue Lin surged forward, a clean horizontal cut splitting two more in half. Riven followed the path she carved, stomping another worm into the sand before twisting and sprinting toward the closest intact section of wall.
A quick breath.
A burst of strength.
And he jumped.
His body arced upward in a smooth leap, legs coiling and pushing off the soft ground. He cleared the edge of the pit, a full two to three meters, in one bound, his boots hitting the cracked surface above with a hard thud.
This was one of those moments, where he was really glad for his abnormal strength.
Then he turned, crouching low, hand outstretched.
Yue Lin was already following.
She jumped — not quite high enough to make the edge alone, but still far higher than any mortal could manage. Her hand caught his with a faint slap of contact, and he gripped her tight, bracing his body as he pulled her the rest of the way up.
She landed beside him with only a faint stumble.
"Run!" Yue Lin shouted.
They stumbled across the cracked stone, past the half-sunken trail their boots had left, away from the pit that still squirmed with things below. The desert swallowed the noise behind them — the worms getting left behind.
But they didn't stop until they left the desert.
Something about it just didn't feel safe.
As if the worms could pop up from the ground at any second.
Eventually, they slowed.
The desert behind them.
The fossil forest ahead.
Safe enough for now.
Yue Lin let out a slow breath, brushing sweat from her temple, then paused.
She stared down at her hand.
It was streaked with faint greenish-black slime — the lingering mess of worm guts Riven hadn't managed to clean off his palm, now transferred to hers when he'd pulled her up.
"…Disgusting," she muttered.
Krrrrr.