Chapter 244: Third Layer (2)

The transition from the silver forest to the grey desert was not gradual.

One second, Nathan was pushing through thick silver branches. The next, he stepped out into open air and nearly fell face-first into a sea of grey sand.

"What the—" He caught himself on the edge of the treeline and stared.

The forest just... stopped. Behind him, silver trees stretched back as far as he could see. Ahead of him, nothing but sand. Grey sand, under a white sky with no sun, no clouds, no anything. Just an endless pale void.

"That’s ominous," Dillon said.

He stepped out beside Nathan. Cloudy was coiled around his shoulders like a very nervous scarf, her scales dim and crackling weakly. She didn’t like it either.

Garrett and Red came next. Red’s hooves sank into the sand. The Mad-Sheep made a sound that was half-bleat, half-complaint.

"Yeah, buddy, I don’t like it either," Garrett muttered.

Elise walked out last with the Frost Golem trailing behind her. The Golem’s crystalline body reflected the white sky like a mirror.

"This isn’t natural," she said. "Even by Tower standards."

The rest of the raid party filed out of the forest behind them. Kaito, sword drawn. Arthur, shield raised. Han Seo-jun, already half-vanished into his own shadow. Long Wei, cracking his knuckles. Amara, her spirits swirling tightly around her head like anxious birds.

Smithy walked up beside Nathan and stared at the desert. He didn’t say anything. He just pulled out a small notebook and started scribbling.

"Okay, I’ll bite," Nathan said. "What are you writing?"

"Notes." Smithy kept writing. "The layers are changing environments. Forest, then denser forest, now desert. There might be a pattern with noting."

"Care to share with the class?"

"Still working on it."

Nathan sighed. Of course.

---

The raid party spread out along the edge of the desert. Nobody wanted to step too far in without knowing what was underneath.

Amara crouched at the sand’s edge and pressed her palm against it. Her spirits dipped into the grains like water into a sponge. Her eyes went distant for a second.

Then she pulled her hand back fast.

"Something’s under there," she said.

"Something?" Kaito asked.

"Lots of somethings."

Nobody liked that answer.

"How far in?" Arthur asked.

Amara shook her head. "Can’t tell. The spirits don’t like the sand. They say it’s..." She paused, searching for the word. "Dead. But moving."

"Great," Dillon said. "Dead but moving. My two favorite things in one sentence."

Nathan activated Hunter’s Insight and scanned the desert. The mana signatures were faint. Almost invisible. Like the sand was swallowing them.

"There," he said, pointing. "About two hundred meters in. Something’s there. Can’t get a clean read on it."

"Then we go around?" Garrett asked.

"No." Nathan shook his head. "We need to go deeper anyway. The Tower layers stack. We can’t skip one."

"Fantastic," Dillon muttered.

---

They moved into the desert.

It was worse up close.

The sand wasn’t just grey—it was wrong. It didn’t shift under their feet the way sand should. It clumped. It stuck. Every step felt like walking through wet cement. The further they got from the treeline, the heavier it felt.

And the silence.

There was no wind. No birds. No insects. No sound at all except their own footsteps and the occasional nervous crackle from Cloudy.

Nathan hated it. He’d take a screaming horde of spiders over this any day.

"How long do we walk?" Kaito asked.

"Until something happens," Arthur said.

"That’s not a plan."

"It’s the only one we’ve got."

Kaito grunted. He didn’t argue further.

---

Elise pulled up beside Nathan.

Her Frost Golem was struggling. The sand was sticking to its legs, slowing it down. Elise had already dismissed and resummoned it twice to clear the buildup. It was costing her mana.

"This environment is designed to wear us down," she said quietly. "No enemies yet. No threats. Just exhaustion."

"I noticed." Nathan glanced back at the raid party. Already, some of them were lagging. The lesser-equipped teams were struggling with the weight of the sand. A Southern Republic mage had fallen behind and was being helped by one of his teammates.

"We need to find whatever’s out here and kill it fast," Nathan said. "Before the desert does the job for them."

Elise nodded. She didn’t say anything else.

---

The first attack came without warning.

One second the sand ahead of them was flat. The next, it erupted.

A massive scorpion burst out of the ground. Its body was easily the size of a horse. Its armor was dark grey, almost black, with pale blue veins pulsing along its shell. Its tail arched over its back, dripping with something that sizzled when it hit the sand.

And it wasn’t alone.

Two more erupted to the left. Three to the right. Then five behind them. Then a dozen. Then more.

The desert came alive.

"CONTACT!" Arthur roared.

The raid party scrambled into formation. Weapons out. Summons ready. The sand churned as dozens of scorpions surfaced, their glowing blue eyes locking onto the group.

"These things were waiting for us!" Dillon shouted.

"Obviously!" Garrett shouted back.

The first scorpion lunged.

---

Nathan fired.

A Mana Arrow caught the scorpion in the eye. It screeched and recoiled, but it didn’t die. The armor was thick. His arrow had barely cracked it.

"Armor’s heavy! Aim for the joints!" he called.

Garrett and Red charged the nearest cluster. Red’s horns slammed into a scorpion’s leg, and Garrett’s Volcan came down on its head. The thermal pulse cracked the shell open. Garrett finished it with a follow-up swing.

Dillon and Cloudy took to the air. Cloudy’s lightning arced across the swarm. The scorpions twitched and slowed, but they kept coming.

Elise raised Aurora’s Heart. Glacial Lance materialized and punched through a scorpion’s tail, pinning it to the sand. The Frost Golem stomped on its head.

Kaito cut through two in a single motion. Arthur tanked a tail strike on his shield and answered with a sword thrust through the attacking scorpion’s face.

Amara’s spirits swirled outward. They wrapped around scorpions’ legs, slowing them. Long Wei shattered another with his bare hands. Han Seo-jun appeared and disappeared, leaving dead scorpions behind him.

Smithy’s Void Eel phased through the sand and disrupted the scorpions’ coordination. It wasn’t dramatic. It was effective.

And Nathan kept firing. Over and over. Marking targets. Directing the raid party. Keeping everyone alive.

The swarm kept coming.

---

Ten minutes in, Nathan realized something was wrong.

"They’re not thinning," he said. "We’ve killed at least thirty, and there are still more."

Smithy looked up from the sand. He was studying one of the dead scorpions. "Because they’re not coming from the sand."

"What?"

Smithy pointed at the corpse. "Look at the shell. It’s hollow. There’s no meat inside. Just sand."

Nathan stared. Smithy was right. The scorpion wasn’t a real creature. It was a shell animated by something else.

"The sand itself is the enemy," Smithy said. "The scorpions are just puppets."

"Then how do we kill the sand?"

Smithy smiled grimly. "Still working on that."

---

The battle raged.

Nathan’s party held the center. The other teams flanked. Amara’s spirits kept the swarm from overwhelming them. Elise’s ice slowed the scorpions long enough for the others to kill them. Ororo’s Healing Field kept everyone standing.

But they weren’t winning. They were just not losing. And Nathan could feel the raid party wearing down.

A Southern Republic mage collapsed from exhaustion. A Northern Coalition tank took a stinger to the shoulder and had to be dragged back. A Western Federation warrior got surrounded and barely escaped with his life.

"We need to retreat!" Kaito shouted.

"Where?!" Arthur shouted back. "The forest is just as bad!"

Nathan looked around. The desert stretched endlessly. The scorpions kept coming. The white sky stared down at them.

Then he saw it.

A shape in the distance. Not a scorpion. Not a sand dune. Something else.

"THERE!" he shouted, pointing. "Everyone, that way! Move!"

The raid party broke into a run. The scorpions chased. The sand churned beneath their feet.

The shape got closer. Closer. Closer.

And then Nathan saw what it was.

A wall.

A massive wall of black stone rising out of the desert like the edge of the world. It stretched in both directions as far as he could see. And at its base, there was an opening. A tunnel. A way out.

"GO!" Nathan shouted.

The raid party poured into the tunnel. The scorpions stopped at its entrance. They didn’t follow.

The sand went still.

---

Nathan leaned against the tunnel wall, breathing hard. His party was scattered around him, gasping for air. The other teams were in similar states. Amara was kneeling on the ground, her spirits dim. Arthur was checking his shield. Kaito was cleaning his blade.

Nobody spoke for a full minute.

Then Dillon said, "What the hell was that?"

"Sand puppets," Smithy said. "I’ll explain later."

"Please do."

Elise walked up beside Nathan. Her Frost Golem was gone—dismissed to save mana. She looked tired, but her eyes were sharp.

"We found the way forward," she said.

"Yeah." Nathan looked down the tunnel. It stretched into darkness. Somewhere deeper, the fourth layer was waiting.

He pushed himself off the wall.

"Let’s move."