I walked away from the battlefield, looking around the section of the desert that was riddled with corpses and body parts, my slightly squinted eyes traveling from one side to the other without any movement of my head. I was completely soaked in purple blood that carried a sweet smell unlike the iron-like smell of human blood.

I then made my way to Faris who was on his knees before a man with a scruffy beard who looked to be a bit on the heavier side. After reaching the two, I ducked down. There was a deep wound on the man's chest that was gushing out more and more blood every second.

I looked to my right, where Faris was with a blank expression, his hands awkwardly hanging in the air, unsure of what to do. Then I directed my gaze to the man who was already looking at me.

"Just... kill me," the man whispered through bloody, clenched teeth.

I raised my eyebrows when I heard the surprising sentence. The man having such rationality and focusing on his imminent death rather than a nonexistent chance of survival was unexpected. Though it could have just been that the man was a coward or depressed even before entering this place.

Whatever it may have been, I was eager to oblige. After all, doing so would answer one of my many questions.

"Are you sure?" I asked, my voice shaking slightly.

The man closed his eyes and nodded slightly.

I looked at Faris who nodded slightly as well before breathing in and reaching out before gently taking the man's head off the ground. And as Faris watched with a complicated expression, I swiftly sliced through the back of the man's neck.

Afterward, I lowered the man's head and pretended to say a prayer before standing up and turning around to face the crowd of people with their uncomfortable gazes directed towards me and Faris.

I averted my eyes from the crowd and turned to Faris.

After a while, Faris inhaled and broke the silence. "We're still in front of the golden line, so we're in no hurry. I propose that we rest until the golden line reaches this point and then begin to walk along it once again. Any objections? Good, go ahead and rest up then."

I acted normally and went on to rest, but my mind couldn't rest at all. From the beginning, a certain train of thought had lurked in my mind, but I had chosen to ignore it. However, just now, I discovered something that changed everything.

***

Faris looked like he wanted to ask me something but didn't know how to approach it. I knew what he was thinking about, and I knew that if I gave him the information he wanted, I would no longer be safe around him.

Because of that, I stayed quiet and oblivious, hoping to dispel any theories he had with my ignorant attitude. My strategy seemed to work, as Faris stopped looking towards me and never approached me for the half hour or so that we used to rest.

Our resting time then ended when the golden line passed us, and we had to move once again.

There were now 76 of us left. 21 had died even though there had been just 43 monsters, of which Faris and I had killed the majority. Well, useless people were bound to die in a place like this.

'Nothing I can do about that right now,' I thought with no distinguishable emotion on my face as I approached Faris whose gaze was on the golden line above.

Then there was a sound of sand falling once again. At that moment, Faris raised his brows slightly, and his mouth opened in a look of realization.

'He figured it out, huh? I wonder if he'll tell me.'

"You look like you realized something," I said, stopping a few meters beside him.

"Uh, yeah," Faris answered, shifting his gaze to me. "Or at least I think I did."

"Well?" I asked.

"The amount of sand falling is increasing as the golden line goes further. I was right in that we were really supposed to follow the golden line. But I didn't realize the golden line was such a strict timer. You see, if we don't make it in time to the place we're supposed to, we won't just get lost. Eventually, the sky is going to fall, and if we aren't fast enough, we'll be buried alive in gray sand."

***

Faris shared his realization with the whole group, against my objections to doing so. Maintaining a good pace was important when walking long distances, and peace of mind was necessary when resting, so obviously it was a bad idea. However, Faris thought it was good to motivate everyone, and I couldn't do much to stop him.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

As expected, there was chaos. It wasn't to an extent that couldn't be handled, and everything settled down after a while.

There were issues with people wanting to go faster and not wanting to rest on the journey through the gray desert, though.

Everyone calmed down eventually, as the monsters took our focus away from the timer in the sky and killed those who were overly panicked.

In the end, it all worked out.

There were now 30 of us left. I wasn't sure about the time, and there was no way to tell in this place. I estimated it to have been a full day since we arrived in this place.

I wasn't really used to being awake for long periods, but I had never had any problems pulling an all-nighter or two.

It's just that being engaged in so many battles has worn me down a ton. Even with how much stronger I had gotten, I couldn't keep it up if I didn't get a wink of sleep.

That was why I accepted Faris' offer to guard me while I slept. Of course, I didn't trust him. It's just that he didn't know what I knew. He didn't think like I thought. Even though I couldn't trust him, I knew for certain that he wouldn't attempt to harm me.

So, with my thoughts unresolved, I went to sleep.

***

The sky was red. There was blood everywhere. Red blood. Human blood. My eyes felt weird. Things were blurry. No, it wasn't blurry. Just unclear, but in a way that made things seem normal. It was like I couldn't really see, but that's how it was supposed to be.

I jumped to my feet. My whole body was drenched with blood. It felt slimy. I wiped my shoulder. I couldn't really tell if it was my skin or the black clothes that were under the blood.

I made some kind of sound that mixed into the rustling noise in my ears. I then looked around, and even with my limited vision, I could make out corpses. So many corpses that they stretched out as far as I could see. That wasn't possible, was it?

I tried to think, but it was all too unclear for me to form any kind of thought. It was like words or letters didn't exist. At the moment, there existed only inexplicable pandemonium.

The corpses seemed to have been ripped apart by something. A monster. One so large that it covered the entire world. It was the most important thing.

I wiped my eyes, but my vision only got worse. I blocked my ears, but the rustling only got louder. Everything. Everything was destroyed. All because I didn't follow through.

I knew this was the place I would eventually end up in. I just didn't want it to be this soon. I never wanted it to be. I wanted to just push it all away. Keep living and pursuing something I didn't understand.

That's what I had to do. What I was going to do.

Was it too late now? Is this because I'm not good enough? No, I'm good enough. I would've had a chance if I had done it. If I followed through. Think rationally. Forget everything. It's just like that.

I suddenly couldn't move any further. My being was grabbed by something. I was then raised into the air, and just like I thought, I would be ripped apart. I screamed out.

***

"Graaah!"

I jolted up into a sitting position as if shocked by electricity, my breathing uneven as I buried my face in my hands, shivering uncontrollably.

"Hey, Akir, are you okay?" Faris asked, rushing to my side.

I slowly raised my head and looked to my right, where Faris sat down. My eyes were wide as I stared at Faris. There was some separation between my lips, allowing the sound of my teeth being ground against each other to be heard more loudly. The sound stopped soon after and was followed by an eerie silence.

Then there was an abrupt movement, and gray sand was launched into the air behind me at a low angle, my foot pressing on the ground to support my rapid twisting motion.

Faris had left his sword behind in the place a few meters away, where he had been before I woke up. Although the chances of him making it to his sword were low, Faris still leaned back and tried his best to hurry towards it instead of facing me.

It was useless. Before he knew it, my body had completed the movement, my dagger had appeared in my left hand, and I had stabbed it through his throat.