[Chapter 293. Logic behind the System]

They caught up to Sarah and were now standing on top of one of the large dunes that overlooked the expanse of the Labyrinth’s second floor. The wind whipped at their armor, carrying fine grains of sand that hissed against the metal plates like a thousand tiny serpents. From this vantage point, the desert stretched endlessly in every direction—a sea of undulating dunes capped by the merciless glare of a sun that seemed closer and more hostile than any they had known. The air shimmered with heat, creating phantom mirages of water and oases that quickly vanished.

"Why does it all look so lifeless?" Lana asked as she reached the top of the dune, her voice barely audible above the whisper of wind. She shielded her eyes with a gauntleted hand, squinting into the distance where the hazy horizon blurred the line between sand and sky. "Not just the creatures, but everything... this place feels dead." Her eyes swept across the landscape, noting the skeletal remains of colossal creatures half-buried in the sand, and the sun-bleached ruins of some forgotten civilization that dotted the dunes like tombstones.

Iris began to slide down from the top of the sand dune, her armored boots carving furrows in the golden grains as she descended with practiced ease. "We are inside a Labyrinth. They are meant to test not only your fighting, but your survival. Where a dungeon primarily tests your capabilities in a fight. A labyrinth can be unforgiving." Her voice remained steady and even, as if discussing a textbook rather than a deathtrap.

"I get that, but why do we have to survive in a wasteland, and now a desert? Will our world turn into one of them?" Lana's voice carried a thread of genuine concern, her brow furrowed as she followed Iris down the dune. The sand shifted beneath her feet, each step sending small cascades of golden grains downward.

Iris stopped halfway down the dune and looked back toward Lana, her silver strands catching the harsh sunlight like metallic thread. "That is something I can't answer, nor could anyone else who doesn't possess any means of divination. But as far as I know, your world already has places like this." Her expression remained impassive, but her eyes seemed to hold knowledge that she wasn't sharing.

Lana stopped beside her, sending a small avalanche of sand down the slope. "Yes, we have deserts in our world. But what I'm asking is why we need to learn this. Androxis stands not in a desert, but a field of green vegetation. What good would it do us to know how to survive here?" Her frustration was palpable, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides.

"Lana, it's not about that. It's to test our ability within different conditions. At least, that is what I believe," Carmen said as she followed the two of them, her words measured and thoughtful. She adjusted the grip on her staff, her gaze sweeping across the horizon with practiced caution. "We don't know what the future holds, now that the System is changing our world every few weeks."

"Why does it have to make sense? Maybe it's just there to make things harder on us," Sarah said while moving fluidly down the dune, her movements graceful and confident despite the shifting sand. She landed lightly at the bottom, her daggers gleaming in the harsh sunlight. "The System doesn't exactly strike me as benevolent or thoughtful in its design choices." Her comment was punctuated by a shrug, as if the existential nature of their struggle was merely an inconvenience to be endured.

Iris stayed silent, listening to them as she made her way further down, her boots sinking into the sand with each deliberate step. Her posture remained upright and composed, a stark contrast to the shifting uncertainty of the desert around them. The other voices faded behind her as she focused on the path ahead, her eyes scanning for any sign of movement or danger that might be lurking beneath the deceptively calm surface of the sand.

"If Searanox were here, he'd preach to us how the System would do nothing but fuck us over just because it can. That there must be a deeper meaning behind it that we are simply not seeing," Vanessa said in a condescending tone, her voice dripping with the kind of sarcasm that had become her shield against the world's harsh realities. She crossed her arms over her chest, the metallic plates of her armor grinding softly against each other as she shifted her weight in the deep sand.

Iris turned sharply toward Vanessa. Her silver eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, the dark fur around her neck bristling slightly. "That is not how he thinks." Her voice cut through the air with an edge of steel, each word precisely placed, as if weighing the importance of the statement itself.

Vanessa was surprised by her sudden reaction. Her green eyes widened slightly before narrowing again. "So you can read his thoughts now, too?" Her lip curled into a sneer, a familiar expression that surfaced whenever she felt her authority challenged by someone. The wind picked up momentarily, whipping strands of her fiery red hair across her face, which she impatiently brushed away.

<Stop bickering, the system gave us a purpose, we follow that.> Carmen cut through their mental connection, her voice a soothing balm of reason amidst rising tensions. Her telepathic touch was gentle but firm, like a hand settling between squabbling children, reminding them of the greater purpose that bound them together.

Vanessa scoffed, her fiery ponytail swaying as she turned away from Iris, her jaw tight with unspoken arguments. The group continued in tense silence for several minutes, the only sounds being the soft crunch of their boots on the sand and the whisper of wind across the dunes. Each step seemed to amplify the discomfort between Vanessa and Iris, creating an invisible wall that even the desert heat couldn't melt away. Sarah shot curious glances between them, her expression a mixture of amusement and concern, while Lana kept her focus ahead, pretending not to notice the mounting tension.

"Why are there no beasts? Aren't there supposed to be beasts everywhere?" Sarah asked while looking around the empty desert, her voice breaking the uncomfortable silence that had settled over their party like a shroud. She squinted into the distance, her hand instinctively moving to the hilt of one of her daggers, the gesture so natural it seemed like breathing. The vast emptiness of the desert stretched before them, its deceptive tranquility more unsettling than outright hostility.

Iris answered her without hesitation, her eyes scanning the landscape with focus. "They are all around us." She pointed her large blade toward a cluster of rocks several meters away, the black metal gleaming under the merciless sun. The rocks sat there innocuously, weathered by time and sand, looking like nothing more than natural formations scattered across the dunes. "Vanessa, shoot those rocks." Her command was issued with the same matter-of-fact tone she used for everything, as if ordering someone to shoot disguised beasts was as mundane as asking them to pass the salt.

"It's a rock, why—" Vanessa got cut off by Iris mid-sentence, the interruption so sudden it seemed to physically push the words back down her throat.

"Just shoot the rocks." Iris's voice held no room for argument, her gaze fixed on the rocks with an intensity that made Vanessa feel like she was the one being scrutinized, not the alleged beasts in disguise.

Her tome flipped open by itself inside her hand. The soft glow that would normally emanate from it was completely washed out by the bright light of the sun above, making the arcane symbols on its pages nearly invisible. Vanessa's fingers moved with practiced reluctance, tracing patterns in the air that grew heavier with each passing second of hesitation. In the next moment, a bolt of arcane energy flew into the rocks, impacting one of them and shattering it into pieces with a sound like cracking ice. The next bolt crunched into something that wasn't stone, producing a sickening wet thud that was immediately followed by a low, guttural hiss.

A chattering screech that grated on the nerves filled the sudden silence of the desert. The sound was like stone grinding against bone as two Dune Scorpions unearthed themselves from the cluster of rocks with explosive force. Sand sprayed in every direction as they burst forth, their segmented legs kicking up small clouds that danced in the harsh sunlight. One of them had a cracked carapace, the fissure running diagonally across its back, revealing pulsating flesh beneath, while the other one was undamaged, its sandy-brown exoskeleton gleaming like polished stone in the unrelenting sun.

Both creatures were enormous, nearly two meters in length, and they ran across the sand with surprising speed that belied their bulk, their multiple legs moving in perfect synchronization. Before they could bridge the gap between themselves and the party, a second bolt of arcane energy slammed into the already weakened armor of the leading scorpion, hitting precisely at the intersection of several cracks. With a small explosion of soft tissue and a splatter of ichor, the creature collapsed, its legs twitching in death throes as its massive body settled into the sand with a dull thud.

In the next moment, Sarah vanished from her position beside the others, her form dissolving into a distortion of air that seemed to ripple for a split second before reforming directly behind the remaining scorpion. Her daggers sank deep into the hardened carapace of the beast with a sound like metal striking stone, the impact sending vibrations up her arms that traveled to her shoulders. With a swift, fluid motion, she drew her arms back out towards the sides, the blades carving deep grooves into the creature's exoskeleton, sending chunks of chitinous armor flying through the air.

The scorpion twisted with surprising agility, its massive body coiling as the large stinger on its tail shot forward with lethal speed, the tip glowing with a faint purple light that betrayed its venomous nature. Sarah brought up her dagger and blocked it with practiced ease, the impact creating a shower of sparks as if it were an incoming blade rather than a biological weapon, while simultaneously sidestepping to avoid the creature's snapping pincers that lunged toward her midsection.

Iris watched her from a distance, her silver eyes missing no detail of the skirmish, as Vanessa began to form her next bolt. Before she could complete the spell, Iris moved with impossible speed, closing the gap between them in an instant and slapping the Tome out of her hand with enough force to make Vanessa stumble backward.

"Why did you do that!?" Vanessa screamed as her spell fizzled out, the energy dissipating harmlessly into the air. Her book landed with a soft thud in the sand, its pages fluttering like wounded birds. Her face flushed with anger and embarrassment, her green eyes flashing with indignation at the humiliation.