The ground trembled beneath him.
Max's eyes snapped open. Blurred shapes hovered above, their voices dull, distant—like echoes from underwater. His limbs felt heavy. A sharp throb pulsed behind his eyes, each beat louder than the last.
'What… happened?'
A bitter memory surfaced.
The food. That taste. The AI message.
'We were poisoned.'
Pain flared behind his eyes. His body coiled.
He surged upright.
One of the figures flinched. An older man, face lined with age and shadow, snapped his head toward Max. His eyes widened.
"Shit, he's awake."
Max's gaze sharpened. He scanned the space around him. Stone walls stretched outward, damp and cracked. The air was cold. This wasn't the inn.
His jaw clenched. His voice cut through the silence.
"Why did you poison the food? And where the hell am I?"
Another tremor rolled through the chamber. Dust and pebbles rained down from above.
The old man didn't flinch. He held Max's stare, his face unreadable. Then he breathed out, slow and calm.
"Oh? Poison?"
His tone felt wrong and too smooth.
"I wouldn't know anything about that. We would never do such a thing."
Max's fingers curled into fists.
'Liar.'
His eyes darted—corners, exits, shadows. No sign of Ash. No sign of Kael.
Only stone.
Only strangers.
His voice dropped lower.
"Where are they?"
The old man tilted his head, expression flat.
"Ah, right. About that."
A pause.
Then—
"The sandworms attacked the settlement. Your brothers fought to protect it. They brought you here so you could assist once you woke up."
Max didn't move. He didn't blink.
The silence between them thickened like fog.
Another tremor rolled through the stone floor, deeper than before. The walls groaned, thin cracks creeping along the surface.
Max stepped forward. His tone cut like a blade.
"You expect me to believe that?"
The old man's smile didn't waver. It stayed stretched across his face like it had been carved there.
"Dunehaven is in danger."
The floor lurched. Chunks of dust and stone dropped from the ceiling.
Max felt the quake in his chest.
The old man kept his eyes on him.
"Your brothers need you."
Max didn't answer. He turned toward the pit's edge—a jagged hole that dropped into darkness. The light barely reached the bottom.
"How long have they been down there?"
A shrug.
"Hard to say. Five minutes? Maybe ten?"
Max didn't flinch.
"If they've lasted that long, they're fine."
The old man's mouth twitched.
"What? How can you be so sure? Just how strong are they?"
Max crossed his arms.
"The hot-headed one? He's a stage 5 fire welder."
The words spread fast. People shifted. A ripple of whispers moved through the crowd. Faces turned. Eyes widened.
The old man's voice dropped.
"Fire soulcore?"
He stared harder.
"Wait… you don't mean—are you related to Flame?"
Max let out a breath.
"Yeah."
Silence pressed down.
The name hit like thunder. Fear rolled through the chamber, thick and quiet.
Max didn't care. His eyes stayed on the pit.
"We need to get back to the surface," he said.
"Do you have a communicator?"
The old man shook his head.
"Even if I did, it wouldn't matter. Ours is broken."
Max's mouth twitched.
"Then let me fix it."
The old man scoffed.
"You? What do you think you are, some kind of tech genius?"
Max rolled his neck.
"I was the number one student at World Tech Academy."
The air shifted.
The old man blinked. His expression cracked for the first time. Eyes scanned Max like they were trying to peel back skin and see what was underneath.
Everyone knew what the Academy was. It wasn't a school. It was a forge. A place where the world's sharpest minds created the tools that built cities and changed wars. People who graduated didn't just study tech—they rewrote how it worked.
'And he says he had been at the top?' the old man thought
The ground trembled again. Stones tumbled from the ceiling. The chamber groaned under the weight above.
Max barely moved. His focus stayed locked on the hole.
"If that thing is anything like the worms outside, Kael should handle it easily."
No answer came right away.
The old man's voice dropped, quiet but heavy.
"It's not."
Max's brow tightened.
"The ones outside were Tier 4."
The pause stretched, long enough for something cold to settle.
"The one below us… is Tier 6."
Max's breath caught. A dull thud echoed in his chest, then another, faster.
'Tier 6?'
His boots scraped against the stone as he stepped closer to the edge. The dark yawned back at him. He stared, but it refused to give anything back.
Kael and Ash had fought creatures before. Dangerous ones. But not like this.
They should've known.
They had to know.
And they still went.
"What the hell are they thinking…"
His thoughts churned. Numbers and facts clawed their way up.
In the world of Varagos, many races crawl, walk, or slither across its lands. Most of the known ones are creatures with low intelligence and pure instinct. But what ties every being together is one cruel constant: their vessel tier.
A Tier 1 body is twice as powerful as a Tier 0. Tier 2 doubles Tier 1. The math is simple. The pain isn't.
But while the system looks the same, humans and creatures are not equal.
Creatures are born with soul stages that match their vessel tier. A Tier 3 beast has a Stage 3 soul. Instant power. But their souls are dull—no soulcores. Which means no skills. Just raw blood and bone with a soul.
Humans of Varagos are different. They're born at Stage 0 no matter the vessel tier. But their souls grow—and within them, a soulcore forms. It unlocks skills that make a human very dangerous.
Still, the cost is steep.
A human at Tier 2 must train their soul to Stage 2 just to match. The best can push beyond—Tier 2s hitting Stage 4. This is why Max is in stage 4 dispute, being a tier 2.
And then there are traits.
Humans have none. That's their curse. Other discovered human planets held humans too, but these humans have no soulcores, just physical power based on their vessel tier. They were weak and Predictable. But they still have intelligence that rivals most races.
Other races? They were born for war, but yes, some of them aren't.
Sandworms of Varagos? They have multiple traits. Fireproof. Stone Armored body. A Tier 1 worm can crush a Tier 2 human—Because their traits aren't earned. They're inherited.
Now Kael and Ash were beneath Max's feet.
Facing a Tier 6 sandworm.
His jaw locked.
"A Tier 6…"
Even an ascended at Stage 5 wouldn't last. Not unless they had the right skill. Not unless they were born to kill something like that.
Kael was a fire soulcore wielder.
Fire meant nothing to something bred in stone and heat.
That fight wasn't brave.
It was suicide.
The chamber groaned around him. Dust rained down in slow, steady drifts. Something massive moved beneath the earth, patient and aware.
And Max felt it now.
The dread.
The kind that grips the spine and doesn't let go.
'Dammit. Kael is strong, but not that strong. Even a stage five shouldn't be able to take down a creature of equal tier. And we're talking about one that is almost immune to fire damage. And Ash—what the hell was he thinking? Did he forget the warning?'
The old man looked away. His eyes didn't meet Max's anymore.
Then—
A voice echoed from deeper inside the cavern.
"I got the Nightveil Drought."
The old man flinched. His breath caught, face tightening as if something sharp had pierced him.
"Shit."
Max didn't move. His mind locked into place, threads snapping together, forming a picture too clear to ignore.
His face darkened.
"…It all makes sense now."
The old man lifted his hands.
"It's not what you think—"
Max's eyes fixed on him, cold and cutting.
"Do you think I'm an idiot? "
No one answered.
His voice didn't rise. It didn't need to.
"I already knew about the creature underneath this settlement the moment I set foot here. I play along because I wanted to see how you guys were keeping it in control. To think you were planning to feed us to that thing."
The room froze.
Breaths held. Eyes wide. The truth spread like fire through dry grass.
Max's gaze drifted across the others. The settlers. Quiet and Still. Guilt was heavy on every face.
"The worms didn't avoid this place because of walls. Or luck. It was that thing below. That monster."
His gut twisted.
"The way you guys looked at us. Like you knew. You pitied us. Like we were already dead. You all knew."
Max turned back to the old man. His words dropped like stone.
"But worst of all…"
He took a step forward.
"…Now I understand."
His chest rose and fell, steady. But his hands wouldn't stop shaking.
He thought of the woman from before. The way she clutched her child. Not with hope—but fear. Like she was hiding her.
His throat tightened.
"I've seen fewer kids here than in any other settlement."
The words scraped out of him.
"You've been feeding children to that thing using the nightveil drought as a way of putting it to sleep."
Gasps rang out.
The air shifted. One man stumbled back. Another lowered his head, jaw clenched.
Nobody denied it.
Max didn't blink.
"You were going to use me to put it back to sleep, weren't you?"
His voice cracked with anger.
"And you sent my brothers down there to die."