Chapter 7.5 -
Slowly, the forest around me changed its face.
The giant trees that had once clawed at the sky now began to shrink. The rotting green foliage gave way to bare black branches, rigid and withered like the fingers of a corpse pointing upward.
The temperature spiked drastically. All moisture evaporated in an instant, leaving behind a bone-dry air that stung the inside of my nose.
I stepped across the boundary.
Crunch.
The ground beneath my feet was a parched crust.
The wind here carried no life. Instead, it bore fine particles of sand that clung instantly to my skin, which was still damp with cold sweat.
The landscape before me had completely changed. The humid forest from before was gone.
Now, as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but a desolate expanse. Pale yellow and ashen gray. The wind here carried no moisture—only dust and the scent of the past.
I trudged forward, dragging my spear behind me.
In the distance, stone ruins jutted out from the sand like the bones of a giant left unburied. Their arrangement formed the outlines of streets and the foundations of houses.
A village...
The soil here felt loose, yielding beneath my boots. Shallow pits marked the landscape here and there. There were no rusted weapons, no signs of war. Only unnatural piles of bones.
I surveyed my surroundings.
Plague? Famine?
Perhaps the sick were gathered here, slaughtered, and then buried in a mass grave so the healthy could escape. But that lingering pain and betrayal must have seeped into the earth; this place had ultimately turned into a dungeon, saturated with negative energy.
Crack.
A dry sound shattered the silence.
A skeletal hand thrust out from the sand. Then, a head with an unhinged jaw.
One by one, they rose.
They weren't soldiers. They were farmers, mothers, children. Zombies and skeletons draped in the tattered remains of their clothes. Their eyes were hollow, yet their mouths let out starving groans. The energy surrounding them felt pitiful, not terrifying.
They charged at me. Their movements were dragging, erratic.
I didn't draw my weapon. It wasn't worth dulling my steel on these fragile bones.
Thud.
A bare fist smashed into a skull. It shattered into chalky dust.
I kicked away a skeleton that tried to grab my leg, sending its rotting body flying. They kept coming, driven only by a hollow instinct.
But this commotion attracted the true predators.
The ground trembled once more. This time, the tremors felt wet and ravenous.
Sshhk!
Giant centipedes and sandworms erupted from the surface. They weren't aiming for me, but for the corpses. Bones crunched between insectoid jaws. A banquet for the desert's decomposers.
One massive centipede, boasting a gleaming black carapace, noticed my presence. Its mandibles clicked together.