I grabbed the spear from my back. I took my stance.
Whoosh!
The spear sailed swiftly through the air.
Clang!
The sharp sound of clashing metal. The spear deflected off the centipede's hard carapace and tumbled across the sand, coming to a halt a few meters away from the monster.
The centipede lunged. I sidestepped, drawing my katana in the same fluid motion.
Slash!
Several of its legs were severed. Green fluid spurted from the stumps. A sharp, putrid stench permeated the air.
However, I had neglected my footing. The sand beneath me abruptly gave way. Gravity dragged me down into a swirling sinkhole.
The gaping maw of a giant sandworm lay waiting at the bottom of the pit. Its rows of teeth churned.
Darkness. An acidic stench. Slimy walls of flesh pressed in on me from all directions.
I had been eaten.
Suffocating. The oxygen was thinning. The crushing pressure of the worm's stomach walls threatened to pulverize me.
"Tch."
I didn't panic. Annoyance heavily outweighed my fear.
I wrested free my katana, which was wedged between my body and the stomach wall, and began sawing into the thick flesh.
Slash... Slash!
The wall of flesh tore open. Blinding sunlight flooded back in. I crawled out of the self-made exit, my entire body caked in digestive slime. The worm writhed in its death throes upon the sandy surface.
I stood up, shaking the repulsive slime from my clothes. My breathing was heavy.
My eyes swept across the battlefield. The centipede whose legs I had severed earlier was writhing helplessly not too far away. And lying nearby was the object I was looking for.
My spear.
I strolled over and plucked it from the sand where it had fallen. The tip remained razor-sharp, unbent despite striking that hardened carapace.
"Still usable."
Brushing the sand off the shaft, I made my way toward the carcasses of the monsters.
My knife carved into them, extracting the life crystals from the bodies of both the centipede and the sandworm.
Two fist-sized crystals, glowing faintly with a cloudy hue.
I closed my grip around them.
Draw.
A cooling sensation flowed from my palms, creeping up my arms before cascading through the rest of my body. The lingering fatigue from the poison and the skirmish gradually ebbed away. Tense muscles relaxed. Minor cuts sealed shut.
Within seconds, the light within the crystals died out. Their color shifted to a dull transparency. Empty glass. Trash.
I tossed the drained crystals into the sand.
Thud.
As a generalist who prioritized efficiency, lugging around a sack of empty glass stones would be sheer foolishness. It was nothing but dead weight. Back in the city, the true market value lay not in these depleted energy husks, but in the physical materials themselves.
I glanced at the centipede's carapace and the sandworm's hide. Hard, heat-resistant.
Too large to carry.
I turned and walked away. Leaving the carcasses, and the ghosts of the past, behind in the ruins.