Ethan crested the rise at a jog, lungs only burning lightly as the desert finally gave him some mercy. The sun had just dipped below the horizon, and with it went the worst of the heat. Above him, the sky was clear and vast, stars started to appear, scattered in sharp detail and lighting the night.

  Movement caught his eye.

  Down on the plain below, shapes clashed in uneven rhythm. Steel flashed, then recoiled. Ethan slowed just long enough to focus.

  A man, a woman, and—his stomach tightened—a child were fighting off a monster. Or at least the man was.

  He didn’t hesitate after that.

  Ethan broke into a sprint. The scene resolved itself with brutal clarity as he drew nearer. The man was armed, gripping a short sword much like Ethan’s own, though his stance was wrong. He swung hard, overcommitting, the blade ringing uselessly as it rebounded off the creature’s chitin.

  It looked like a scorpion, but it wasn’t quite the right word for it. Not really.

  The thing towered over them, its armored body the color of the dunes themselves, plates overlapping in ridges designed to deflect blows. Two massive claws jutted from its front, serrated and thick, while its tail arched high above them all, stinger poised and motionless in a way that made Ethan’s skin crawl. The entire scene was lit up by a small fire and the receding sun.

  The man stepped back instinctively, placing himself between the creature and the others. The woman, maybe early thirties, from a glance—grabbed the boy by the arm and pulled him behind her, eyes wide as she looked around frantically.

  The man attacked again.

  This time, the scorpion caught the blade.

  One claw snapped shut around the sword with a metallic crunch. The tail twitched, angling downward. The woman screamed. The man let go without thinking, stumbling backward and hitting the sand hard as he scrambled away on his hands.

  Too slow. The tail struck.

  The man rolled desperately, the stinger slamming into the ground where his chest had been a heartbeat earlier, sand hissing as venom ate into it. He didn’t get far. One claw lashed out and closed around his ankle, dragging him back with brutal ease.

  His scream carried clearly across the dunes.

  The tail rose again.

  Ethan dropped his pack and slid in between them.

  The stinger came down, and Ethan met it head-on, angling his body and blade together, letting the flat of his sword run along the armored curve of the tail as it crashed past him. The impact rattled his arms, but he held, redirecting the force rather than stopping it outright.

  He followed the motion without pausing.

  As the tail struck the sand, Ethan twisted his grip and snapped his blade upward, driving it hard into the exposed joint at the base of the creature’s claw. The sword bit deep where armor thinned.

  The scorpion shrieked—a high, grating sound that cut through the night—and its grip loosened.

  The man yanked his leg free and crawled backward, dragging himself away as Ethan reset his stance, eyes never leaving the creature as it recoiled, wounded but far from finished.

  The scorpion recovered faster than Ethan would have liked.

  It twisted, dragging its wounded claw back while the other snapped forward in a wide, sweeping arc meant to herd him into range of its tail. Ethan stepped inside the motion instead of away from it, feet skidding across sand as he slid beneath the claw’s path. The creature’s size worked against it at this distance; its limbs were powerful, but slow to redirect.

  Ethan struck again, his blade biting into the thinner plating near the joint of its leg. The scorpion screeched and lurched sideways, sand spraying as it tried to reorient.

  But it didn’t retreat. That told Ethan everything he needed to know.

  Some creatures fled when wounded. Others doubled down, driven by instinct or simple aggression. This one reared back, tail snapping down in a rapid series of strikes that turned the sand into a cratered mess of hissing impacts. Ethan moved with them, stepping between blows, letting the tail crash where he had been rather than where he was going.

  His breathing steadied and circled, always just outside the scorpion’s ideal range, forcing it to turn again and again. Each rotation was slower than the last. Each missed strike cost it more than it realized.

  When the creature lunged, Ethan was already moving.

  He ducked beneath a snapping claw, blade flashing out to carve through the joint at its base. The limb sagged, useless, and Ethan was gone before the tail could follow through. He slid past its side, cut again, shallow but precise, it opened another seam in its armor.

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  The scorpion shrieked, thrashing wildly now. Sand churned beneath it as it tried to crush him through sheer mass, slamming claws down in broad, brutal arcs. One caught Ethan’s shoulder and sent him staggering, pain flaring as the impact rattled through his arm.

  He rolled with it and came up already moving.

  Where the man before him had panicked, had tried to meet strength with strength, Ethan never gave the creature what it wanted. He never stayed in one place long enough. Every blow he took was glancing, every blow he delivered landed where the armor was weakest.

  Joints and seams. Again and again.

  The scorpion slowed. Its movements lost cohesion, strikes coming late, then sloppily. One leg buckled entirely, sending its body tilting at an awkward angle.

  Ethan didn’t waste the opening.

  He darted in close, blade driving deep into the exposed gap beneath its carapace, twisting hard. The scorpion let out one final, piercing shriek and collapsed, its massive body slamming into the sand with enough force to shake the ground.

  Ethan stepped back as its legs twitched, then stilled. Deep black blood covered its armored body.

  Silence returned to the dunes, broken only by the sound of his breathing and the distant whisper of wind across sand.

  He lowered his sword, watching the body for several seconds longer than necessary. Only when he was certain it wasn’t getting back up did he acknowledge his notifications.

  Skill leveled [Sword Mastery Lv.2]

  Skill leveled [Sword Mastery Lv.3]

  Skill leveled [Sword Mastery Lv.4]

  Skill leveled [Sword Mastery Lv.5]

  …

  …

  [Sword Mastery] has reached Lv.20

  Evolution required

  You have defeated [Scorpion Lv.5]

  Congratulations, you are now [Warrior Lv.2]

  Str +2, End +1, Ag +1, Per +1, Will +1

  Before he could really appreciate that one fight had brought him all the way to a skill evolution, he heard a grunt, so a little annoyed, he dismissed the notifications and turned around. But not before putting his free stat into strength. Bringing it up too two.

  The man had managed to sit up, clutching his injured leg. The woman held the child tight against her side, one hand covering his eyes as they moved toward the man.

  They stared at Ethan, unsure how to proceed.

  Ethan exhaled slowly and finally let the tension drain from his shoulders. The bonus stats flowed into his body, filling him with more strength.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “You’re safe for now.”

  Ethan sheathed his sword slowly and forced his breathing to settle before moving any closer. He’d learned the hard way that people fresh off a near-death experience could be unpredictable. The man watched him closely, one hand still planted in the sand, the other hovering near where his sword had fallen, eyes sharp despite the pain etched across his face.

  Ethan stopped a few steps away and raised his empty hand slightly.

  “It’s done,” he said evenly. “It won’t be getting back up.”

  The woman didn’t loosen her grip on the child, but some of the tightness went out of her shoulders. The boy peeked through her fingers, eyes wide and glassy, staring at the scorpion’s unmoving bulk.

  The man finally exhaled. “You came out of nowhere,” he said. His voice was rough, strained, but steady. “Thought we were dead.”

  “You were close,” Ethan replied without sugarcoating it. He crouched and reached for his pack, moving deliberately so the man could see every motion. “Your leg—may I?”

  The man hesitated, then nodded once. “Thank you.”

  Ethan pulled a small roll of cloth and a compact med kit from his pack, setting them on the sand. He worked quickly but carefully, cutting away torn fabric and brushing grit from the wound. The scorpion’s claw hadn’t pierced deep, but the grip had been brutal—dark bruising already spread beneath the skin, and shallow cuts oozed sluggishly.

  “Venom?” the man asked, jaw tight.

  “Not from that,” Ethan said. “The tail didn’t break skin, and its claws don’t hold any.”

  The man let out a breath he’d clearly been holding. And it was obvious why. Wherever the tail hit, sand hissed, its venom eating away at the ground hungrily.

  Ethan cleaned the wound, applied some disinfectant just in case, then wrapped it tight. The man winced but didn’t pull away.

  “You’ll be good to go,” Ethan added. “Just a small wound.”

  “That’s good to hear,” the man said, though he didn’t look or sound convinced.

  Only then did Ethan look properly at the others. The woman met his gaze, fear still there but tempered now by exhaustion. She looked pregnant, and heavily at that. One hand rested protectively at her side as she kept the boy close.

  “We don’t… we don’t know what’s happening,” she said quietly. “One moment we were home. Then it was sand. Heat. That thing. And something talking in our minds.”

  Ethan nodded. “You’re not the only ones.”

  The man pushed himself upright with effort, testing his weight carefully. “Name’s Mark,” he said and extended his hand. “Thanks for the help. Do you know what’s going on? Where other people are?”

  “Ethan,” he replied, returning the handshake. “I know the answer to both your questions. Though I’m not sure you’ll like them. As the thing in your head stated, you’re now in the trials. I guess you could say it’s some kind of test. And for your other question, I’m heading to where more people should be.” He paused and looked between the two strangers. They looked grim, but a sliver of hope rose in the woman’s eyes. She met his gaze and spoke up.

  “I’m Sarah,” she said. After a beat, she nudged the boy gently forward. “And this is my son.”

  The boy hesitated, then spoke up, voice small but determined. “Tom.”

  Ethan nodded.

  “That’s a good name.”

  Tom nodded solemnly, then edged closer to his parents again.

  “Can we… can we stay with you?” Sarah asked. “At least until we understand where we are?”

  Ethan didn’t answer immediately. He glanced around the dunes, eyes tracking the empty stretches of sand, the still body of the scorpion.

  “You can,” he said. “But we need to move.”

  Mark frowned. “I appreciate your help, but this is all a little hard to understand. We were hoping to rest. Just for a bit.”

  Ethan shook his head. “Not an option. Creatures like that don’t hunt alone, and blood carries.” He stood and turned back toward the corpse. “If you want to come, get ready to leave. I’ll be quick.”

  He knelt beside the scorpion and worked efficiently, carving away sections of intact chitin from the joints and abdomen, careful to avoid cracking them. He could hear Mark and Sarah whispering between themselves, likely trying to come to terms with everything and decide their next steps. Ethan hoped, for their sake, that they followed him to safety.

  He finished with its armor and moved on to the venom sac, extracting it with practiced precision and sealing it in a bottle from his pack.

  Mark had moved closer and was watching him with a mix of unease. “How long have you been out here?”

  “A while,” Ethan replied after a moment. “You’ll get used to it. But I recommend you do quickly.” He glanced at Mark’s family pointedly.

  Sarah adjusted her grip on Tom, and Mark nodded. “Alright, we’ll come. If you’ll have us.”

  Ethan slung his pack back on and turned toward the open desert, already setting a pace he knew they could manage.

  “Stay close, we’ll have to travel through the night for a while.” he said.

  They followed as he tried to create distance between them and the monsters that would be sure to come investigate the previous battle.