"Move, monster!"

An Ascended of Clan Valor had fear in his eyes as he pushed Mordret in the back with the butt of his spear. Mordret had already been walking as fast as he could, so the forceful push made him stumble and fall.

The blistering white sand burned his mangled face.

He sighed, then struggled to stand up.

One of his eyes was gone, and he had only one hand left. His Reflections had all been destroyed. His body was in a sorry state…

Even though Mordret had managed to escape the rampage of the Great being, his luck in the Nightmare Desert was awful. Soon after entering it, he stumbled on the pursuing Gate Guardian, and after barely surviving that unfortunate encounter, a band of surviving Masters of Clan Valor ambushed and overpowered him.

He had failed to finish off his sister, too.

'A pity.'

Now, his arms were bound behind his back with enchanted shackles. Even if he wanted to abandon his original body, he was temporarily trapped within it… the heavy chains were probably not the tool Morgan had planned to imprison him with, but they too were forged by his father.

Getting out of the shackles was going to be troublesome. If anything, though, having only one hand left could help with that.

"Stand up!"

Mordret sighed in exasperation.

"I'm trying… really now, is this how you treat a prince of Valor?"

Instead of the answer, the Master angrily hit him in the ribs.

Mordret plopped back into the scorching sand.

Another voice resounded from somewhere above:

"Stop it! You're only slowing us down… the Skinwalker has to be drawing close. If we want to survive, we need to reach the Citadel as soon as possible."

Indeed, that was the only reason that the stragglers of Clan Valor had kept him alive — they wanted Mordret to show them the way to the Black Skull Citadel.

The Nightmare Desert was vast, but with the Echo mounts, the band of survivors had been able to traverse a great deal of distance in the past day. Their luck was also not too bad — the area where the Call had pulled them was not that far from the Citadel.

With Mordret's help, they managed to make it most of the way there.

The last stretch, however, had to be traversed on foot.

Someone pulled him to his feet. The woman was trying to appear calm, but he could feel her fear… the Ascended had encountered the Skinwalker, too. In fact, the ones with him now were simply those who had survived the encounter. They knew that death — or something much worse — was relentlessly pursuing them.

"Lead the way. Your life depends on reaching the Black Skull, too. Where is it?!"

Mordret lingered for a moment, then smiled.

"Don't worry. We're already close."

He walked forward, navigating between white dunes and ancient ruins.

After several hours of suffocating heat, they finally saw the giant black skull appear in the distance. The Masters froze for a moment, excitement burning in their eyes.

…Mordret, however, silently took a step back.

He shook his head.

These people asked him where the Citadel was, and he led them here.

However, they should have asked another question as well.

The question was really simple…

What had he done with the corpses of the Awakened inside the Black Skull Citadel?

The answer was that he had done nothing.

Nevertheless, human figures suddenly started emerging from inside the giant black skull. One, two, three… a dozen, two dozens… three…

'Time to run.'

Turning around, Mordret allowed his body to fall and roll down the Knight Shtad's headless corpse was also there, walking at the front.

The survivors wanted to escape the Skinwalker, but they had actually been marching toward their deaths all along.

'Time to run.'

Turning around, Mordret allowed his body to fall and roll down the slope of a tall white dune.

***

In the end, Kai stayed with Sunny and the others. Together, they made their way through the desert, heading for the spot where he had left the other survivors.

The path was not easy. There were too many powerful Nightmare Creatures around, and even though most of them were mesmerized by the call of the Seeds, some weren't, or at least not completely.

Luckily, none of the abominations they had to fight were of the Great Rank. Each of the five Masters was immensely powerful, too…

Still, it was a rough journey.

All of them were utterly exhausted, suffering from the inhuman conditions of the white desert, and under terrible mental strain because of the harrowing feeling of being pursued.

Nobody knew whether the corpse of Master Xu was on their trail or not… but just the possibility of meeting the creature again was enough to fill them with a suffocating sense of dread.

The abominations they fought were all powerful and dreadful, too.

Out of the five of them, Nephis seemed to be affected the least. However, she was struggling with her own burden.

Looking at the flawlessly white expanse of white dunes, she shook her head and sighed quietly.

"I never thought I would return here one day. Or, at least, so soon."

For them, this land was called the Nightmare Desert simply because it was the source of the Chain of Nightmares.

But for Nephis… for her, it was the source of her personal nightmares. She had never spoken about her time here in detail, but Sunny knew that it must have been a gruesome experience.

Gruesome enough that the proud and strong Changing Star had agreed to receive psychological counseling, even. This desert, and whatever she had experienced in the Second Nightmare, were not things one could easily forget. © 2024.

'I can imagine… no, actually, I don't think I can.'

Sunny had only spent a day in the Nightmare Desert — and that was as a Master, in the company of other people. Yet the sight of endless white dunes was already making him feel a hint of despair.

What would it have been like, to get lost in this cursed land alone, as a powerless Sleeper?

"We're getting close!"

Kai's voice distracted him from the heavy thoughts.

In front of them, the sand receded a little, and five strangely shaped metal towers could be seen protruding from it, arranged in a semicircle. The sunlight was reflecting on the polished metal, making it even more blinding.

Each tower had a different height, with the shortest of them being at least several dozen meters tall.

Sunny stared at them for a few moments before realizing what the towers were — they were the tips of five fingers belonging to a colossal steel gauntlet.

The gauntlet itself was buried under sand.

He did not know what creature could have worn the gauntlet, and where the rest of it was... and, right now, Sunny did not care.

All he cared about was that the towers were hollow, and there was shade inside.

'There are also people inside.'

Sunny's expression turned grim as he followed Kai toward the temporary camp of the survivors.

'...It'll be good if there are only people.'