The Scorchlands: 72 Hours Post-Exile

  The world was red.

  Red sky. Red earth. Red dust that coated the inside of Amari’s lungs and turned his spit into mud.

  Amari lay prone on the ridge of a dune. He didn't move. He barely breathed. The heat radiating off the ground was a physical weight, pressing him into the sand like a thumb.

  Temp: 115°F.

  Water: Critical.

  Caloric Deficit: 4000+.

  Beside him, Niko was a lump of grey rags. The assassin had stopped shivering hours ago. Now he just lay there, eyes glassy, watching the horizon ripple in the heat haze.

  "I see it," Niko croaked. His voice was a ruin—dry leaves scraping together. "The fountain. In the quad. It's right there."

  Amari didn't look. He knew what Niko was seeing.

  The Heat-Haze.

  The Scorchlands didn't just burn your body; they burned your mind. The ambient mana here was wild, chaotic. It twisted the light. It whispered in the wind.

  "There is no fountain," Amari rasped.

  "It's cold," Niko insisted, reaching a trembling hand out toward the empty desert. "I can smell the water."

  Amari grabbed Niko’s wrist. He squeezed. Hard.

  "Pain is real," Amari whispered. "The fountain is a lie. Focus on the pain."

  Niko blinked. The hallucination shattered. He slumped back into the sand, a tear cutting a track through the red dust on his cheek.

  "I'm sorry," Niko whispered.

  "Save your breath."

  Amari turned his gaze back to the valley below.

  He was hunting.

  For three days, they had walked south. For three days, they had eaten nothing. The Void Engine was screaming. It was no longer idling; it was cannibalizing his own muscle mass to stay online. He felt lighter, hollowed out.

  But the hunger sharpened his senses.

  He could smell the mana in the air. It smelled like sulfur and hot copper.

  And he could smell life.

  There.

  Movement in the rocks, fifty meters down.

  It wasn't a monster. It was a Dune-Scorpion. High F-Tier. About the size of a dog, with a chitinous shell the color of dried blood.

  It scurried between the shadows, its tail raised, sensing the air.

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  Amari didn't have a weapon. He didn't have magic.

  He had the Void.

  "Stay here," Amari ordered.

  He slid down the dune. He didn't run. Running wasted water. He moved like liquid, sliding with the shifting sand, making no sound louder than the wind.

  The scorpion paused. It clicked its mandibles. It sensed something.

  Amari froze.

  He emptied the air from his lungs and let his heartbeat sink, slow and heavy, until even the sand beneath his ribs stopped shifting.

  The world narrowed to heat, wind, and waiting.

  The scorpion’s tail lowered. Its mandibles clicked once, uncertain — then it moved again, convinced the dune was nothing but dead ground.

  Amari moved.

  It wasn't a technique. It was desperation. He lunged, kicking up a cloud of red dust. The scorpion hissed, whipping its tail forward. The stinger—dripping with neurotoxin—aimed for his chest.

  Amari didn't dodge. He caught the tail.

  His hand burned as the chitin sliced his palm, but he didn't let go. He yanked, swinging the beast like a flail, smashing its body against a jagged rock.

  CRACK.

  The shell fractured. Green ichor sprayed onto the red sand.

  The scorpion twitched and died.

  Amari’s hands trembled so badly he nearly dropped the carcass. Not fear—caloric collapse.

  He fell to his knees, panting. The exertion nearly blacked him out.

  He looked at the mess in the sand. It was disgusting. It smelled of ammonia and rot.

  In the Academy, this was a monster.

  In the Scorchlands, it was a battery.

  Amari ripped the shell open with his bare hands. He found the Beast Core—a small, dull pebble of crystallized mana located near the heart.

  He didn't hesitate. He popped the core into his mouth and swallowed it whole.

  Burn.

  It hit his stomach like a coal.

  [SYSTEM ALERT]

  [FOREIGN BIOMASS DETECTED]

  [PROCESSING...]

  [VOID ENGINE: ENGAGED]

  Pain ripped through him. It wasn't digestion. It was assimilation. The Void Engine tore the mana structure apart, stripping the toxins, refining the energy.

  His veins turned black for a second. His eyes rolled back.

  Then, the energy hit.

  It wasn't the clean, sugary rush of a potion. It was dirty. Heavy. Metallic.

  But it was power.

  Amari gasped, the color returning to his face. He felt his muscles knit. The hollow ache in his bones receded, replaced by a low, predatory hum.

  He looked at the meat of the scorpion.

  He tore a strip of the raw, green flesh.

  He climbed back up the dune. Niko was watching him with wide, horrified eyes.

  "Amari?" Niko whispered. "You ate the core. That's toxic. You should be dead."

  "Not for me," Amari said.

  He handed the strip of raw flesh to Niko.

  "Eat," Amari ordered. "Avoid the glands. It will keep you alive."

  Niko looked at the oozing meat. He looked at Amari’s mouth, stained with green ichor.

  Niko took it. He ate. He gagged, but he kept it down.

  They sat in the silence of the red waste.

  "We need to move," Amari said, looking at the setting sun. "The heat is dropping. The hunters will wake up soon."

  "Hunters?" Niko asked, wiping his mouth. "You killed the hunter."

  Amari shook his head. He pointed to the sand valley below.

  The wind had shifted. And where the sand was smooth before, there was now a ripple. A disturbance.

  Something massive was moving under the surface. Something that didn't scuttle.

  It swam.

  "That was a snack," Amari said, watching the massive ridge of sand move parallel to them. "That is the landlord."

  Amari stood up.

  "Walk without rhythm," Amari said, remembering an old lesson from the first timeline. "If you vibrate the sand, it hears you."

  They turned south, into the deep red dark.

  The Academy was gone.

  The food chain had begun.