Jared and Sylvia stirred awake on the blistering sand. The moment consciousness returned, pain slammed through their skulls as if a blacksmith’s hammer had landed squarely between their eyes.
When their vision cleared, an endless desert stretched to every horizon, wind screaming across the dunes and flinging needles of grit that stung their cheeks.
Overhead, the sun blazed like a thousand knives, turning the world into a furnace where even the air shimmered under the merciless heat. Sylvia pressed a trembling hand to her temple. “Mr. Chance, where in the heavens are we?”
Her voice quavered, equal parts wonder and fear.
Jared shook his head, brow knotted, sifting desperately through ragged memories that refused to come together.
Moments ago, or perhaps lifetimes, they had been inside the main hall of Heaven Gate Sect’s ruins, reaching for an ancient tome that pulsed with golden light. That touch had triggered a blinding flash, consciousness snapped off, and when he came to, they were on this alien wasteland.
“I haven’t a clue…” Jared admitted, sweeping the horizon again. “This isn’t level nine, and it’s nothing like any realm we’ve traveled before.”
Their gazes met, an unspoken mirror of dread, each seeing in the other the same fragile uncertainty.
Determined to learn more, they agreed to gain perspective from the sky. But when they summoned their energy, the desert answered with silence.
An invisible weight clamped to their limbs, anchoring them to the sand and smothering every attempt at flight. Even their spiritual senses bled away after only a few kilometers, as though the air itself chewed holes in their power.
“How can our strength be cut down so brutally?” Sylvia cried, worry carving lines across her dusty face.
Jared drew a slow breath, forcing calm. “Panic won’t help. If we can’t fly, then we walk. We might find other people somewhere out there, and we’ll ask them.”
They set off, every step carving a deep print in the scorched dune. Heat seeped through their boots, licked at their soles, and traveled like fire along bone. Still, they pressed forward, teeth clenched against the pain and the mystery ahead.
After an uncounted stretch of time, a hush broke, the soft, sinister rustle of something tunneling beneath the sand.
Instinct snapped them back-to-back, weapons half-drawn, eyes scanning the dunes’ shifting skin.
Sand erupted. Serpents of every size and color burst upward, midnight black, kaleidoscopic, all glittering with lethal beauty.
Forked tongues hissed, forming a chorus that closed around Jared and Sylvia in a narrowing ring, hungry eyes shimmering like jewels stolen from hell.
“Damn it, an entire swarm!” Sylvia gasped.
Her fingers locked around her longsword, shoulders coiled like a spring ready to snap.
Jared clenched his fists, voice steady despite the storm. “Stay sharp. We can handle them.”
The reptiles struck first, arrowing through the air with terrifying speed. Steel flashed, fists whirled; man and woman met the living torrent head-on, blades ringing against scale in a dance of heat, sand, and venom.
Their strength was strangled by the strange pressure in the air. Each swing of the blade, each thrust of the spear moved through honey-thick resistance, draining their muscles long before metal ever met scale.
Around them, the serpents multiplied in a churning, living tide. Every time Jared and Sylvia beat one back, three more snapped forward, fangs cutting fresh welts that bled through cloth and leather.
“We can’t fight them forever! We have to break free before they drown us in their coils!” Jared screamed.
The sea of vipers split as a colossal shadow rose. A serpent as thick as a water barrel heaved into view, bronze-black scales glinting like hammered armor. It was the Serpent King. It loosed a roar that shook gravel from the cavern roof—challenge and warning in one thunderous note.
