Despite his best attempts at breaking the ability that had him enthralled, Mike unerringly directed himself towards the wurmlet’s cavernous mouth. As he got closer, he could see row upon row of ridge like teeth, each nearly a foot tall. They were eerily similar to the dunescape he found himself in. They were teeth made for crushing and splitting, not for tearing or biting, and seeing them left little doubt in his mind that once inside of that maw, there would be no escape.

When he was still 20 feet away, the sled slowed to a halt. The sense of relief he felt was short lived, however, as after only a few seconds, he felt a small wave of energy emanate from the creature before the beast lowered the bottom half of its mouth into the sand and to Mike’s horror, he saw the ridged teeth begin to spin. The rotation was slow at first, but slowly increased each second. With each revolution, a large mound of sand was tossed towards the back of the creature's mouth, where it inevitably disappeared down the creature’s throat with increasing speed. Soon, the ground in front of the creature became a small river, which slowly made its way towards Mike’s location.

Just when he became confused how so much sand could be consumed, a large plume of dust erupted from the back of the creature as its sedimentary meal was forcefully expelled from its body. Despite his increasingly desperate situation, Mike found himself overly curious about the mechanics of this strange ability, and stood up to get a better view. It took almost a second for him to realize that he had been able to move. Thinking himself free from the enthrallment, he tried jumping off the sled and making a break for it, but found that he was still unable to so much as look away from the creature’s direction.

Before he could try escaping again, the river of sand reached his location, causing his sled to continue its journey towards the awaiting monster. As his voyage resumed, his desperation mounted, and he willed himself to move, attempting everything from throwing himself backwards to jumping in the air. What he found was that any movement that didn’t cause him to turn or move away from the creature was permitted. That too was limited though, as he was unable to throw the Quicksilver spears he had made into the creature's throat.

At only 5 feet from the wurmlet’s mouth, he was struck with inspiration. Removing some of the raw hide from his chest, he took a few large handfuls of Blasting Powder from his spatial storage bag and wrapped it into a satchel–the substance was more powerful than the explosives he had been trained with, but he estimated it would be enough to split an aircraft carrier in half, he just hoped it would be enough to kill a baby worm.

Unable as he was to toss the explosive, he did the only thing he could and dove into the waiting jaws, his hands extended in front of him with the explosives as he activated Unflinching Meteor. Even with his improved Strength, the sled he took off from was moving awkwardly, causing his dive to fall slightly short, so that only his chest was inside of the beast. He felt nothing as the rotating teeth beneath him lifted his body up and shoved him back with the same ease with which they were excavating sand. As soon as his whole body was inside the mouth, it snapped shut and all he saw was darkness.

*Snap.*

*Crackle.”

*Boom!!!”

All at once, blinding light expanded in front of Mike’s face as the Blasting Powder exploded, shredding the wurmlet’s head instantly and launching him backwards, his body spinning end over end due the the weird way in which he had been forced to hold the package. Normally, he might have enjoyed such a flight, but instead he was distracted by a coursing torrent of energy inside of him. It started somewhere near his navel and branched out, reaching all the way to the tips of his toes. It seemed like its only purpose was to destroy him, and so powerful was its effect that he didn’t even notice as his cartwheeling flight through the air carried him all the way to the next dune, where he crashed several hundred yards up its slope. Creenchez would have been impressed.

Just when he thought he would be torn asunder by the ferocity of the energy inside of him, it disappeared–not the gradual easing of a stinging pain, but like a vacuum had sucked it out from him in an instant, leaving him feeling completely whole. He waited for a moment, expecting notifications to appear, but for once, the System was quiet. Left on his own, he opened his Character Sheet, and after a quick scan, found that the only thing that had changed was his kills towards Unflinching Meteor Level 4 had increased from 4 to 5.

Climbing to his feet, he first took in the sad remains of the wurmlet below, the 15 foot creature was now just 5 feet long. His gaze then traveled to his shredded clothes, which would do little to protect him from the harsh elements of this environment.

“Great, I’m practically naked in the biggest desert ever. What good does my impressive farmer’s tan do if I’m exposed from thighs to toes and waist to head?” he said aloud, even as he turned and began inexorably climbing the hill behind him.

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He was briefly tempted to walk back down and retrieve the Quicksilver shield, which he could see glinting in the sunshine, where it had come to rest at the bottom of the same dune he was on, but then he remembered a saying from his training: Blood attracts blood. With that in mind, he quickened his pace up the side of the mountain. Not three minutes later, a deafening sound emerged from the valley behind him, causing him to look over his shoulder at the 90 foot wurm that seemed to be sniffing around the carcass.

Name: Ishgoba

Monster Type: Greater Sand Wurm

Level: 120

Strength: 2500

Dexterity: 300

Intelligence: 50

Charisma: 2

Toughness: 400

Luck: 50

Abilities: Entrancing Song–Uses vibrations of the earth to sway the minds of its prey, forcing them to come to its mouth. Sand Excavation–Consumes sand at a rapid rate to pull objects closer to it. Sand Tunneling–Uses its ability to manipulate the sand to travel rapidly through it. Sand Sensing–rather than relying on sight, this monster senses its prey through the vibrations in the earth around it.

Where the wurmlet was strong, what Mike could only assume was its mother seemed unstoppable. Every one of its stats dwarfed his own, and he held no illusions that he could escape from such a creature should it try to catch him.

The beast sniffed around the corpse, keening softly as it nudged a piece of the wurmlet’s body. It was a sight that tore Mike’s heart. He hadn’t asked for this. He never did. He had joined the SEALs because he wanted to protect his country and he trusted those who were in charge. Since leaving the SEALs, he had avoided confrontation as much as possible, and that extended to animals. While he loved meat, he was a huge proponent of not wasting any of it.

The scene before him was made worse by the human-like actions of the wurm. This wasn’t simply a dumb beast, but a creature with intelligence greater than his own, which led him to assume that it could love just like he could. A sentiment that was strengthened as he reflected on the hobgoblins waiting for him in his valley.

Still, while he didn’t like it, he would fight to survive. It was part of the world, more so now after the System than ever before. He was now part of an ecosystem where he was the bottom of the food chain, and he wouldn’t back down from fighting to survive. There were still those counting on him.

No longer wanting to witness the scene in front of him and wanting to escape the grim thoughts, he crept backwards. After only taking a single step, the wurm’s very large head snapped away from its child and towards him like an uncoiling viper, causing Mike to freeze up instinctively. After its initial motion, it too remained still, only sniffing the air as it tried to search for his location. Once again Analyzing the creature, he was drawn to Sand Sensing, which was the obvious cause for why the wurm had so easily sensed his movement but couldn’t seem to find his location at present.

Knowing that a single movement would mean his demise, he had no choice but to hold completely still, willing with all of his might for the beast to turn away from him. Seconds turned to minutes, and minutes stretched to hours as neither of them moved, a feat made especially difficult for Mike due to the extreme cold. Bad got worse however, as the sun crested the dune behind the wurm, bathing Mike in its warm rays. It was initially a relief, until his pasty skin began to redden despite it being barely morning, getting darker with each passing moment. Even with the mounting pain, he remained motionless.

Another hour and his sunburn had begun to blister, forcing him to recognize that he couldn’t hold out forever. At some point, escaping the wurm would be more likely than surviving a day in the desert’s heat.

After another five minutes, just before the sunlight hit the wurm’s position, it turned away and buried into the sand dune behind it, leaving no trace that it had ever been there. Mike counted backwards from 100 before he turned and began running up the slope as fast as he could, forming a thin sheet of metal behind him to block the sun. It was only about 9 o’clock in the morning, but already it was incredibly hot and he needed the extra protection after his exposure.

Reaching the top of the dune, he dug down and began constructing his shelter. He had spent a decent amount of the night thinking of how he could improve upon yesterday’s design, but that would have to wait. Once again, he was left only with the time to construct only what was necessary for survival. The one exception to that being that he would always build on the top of a dune from now on, as he theorized that it would make the excavation process much easier.

Arriving at the top of the dune, He quickly constructed a short tent out of quicksilver maybe 3 feet tall at the apex and lacking a bottom. Thus protected from the sun, he began scooping out sand as as fast as he could. Digging a hole that he constantly reinforced with Quicksilver.

When he was done, the pit underneath was 4 feet deep. Of necessity, it was lined completely with Quicksilver, as the sand was too dry to hold any shape on its own. Because Quicksilver was so conductive, he was forced to mostly bury the structure on the outside, this also prevented the Quicksilver from reflecting and giving away his position–thoughts of vultures larger than skyscrapers were on his mind more than usual that morning.

With his shelter finished, he was obliged to sit down and care for his wounds. The blisters had long ago split all over his body, and their moisture had attracted the dry sand he worked with, covering him in a coat of visceral filth. Knowing that it was possibly his only way of surviving his current predicament, he sat down and prepared to use Hands of Healing. At least the medicinal coma would allow him to sleep better than he had yesterday.