The desert had become a graveyard of sand and blood.
Shane had no idea how long it had been since the first dune-dogs broke through. Their bodies littered the dunes in twisted heaps, yet more kept coming, crawling from beneath the shifting sands with glowing eyes and slavering jaws.
The surviving guards had long abandoned their drunken bravado. Bloodied, battered, and missing comrades, they now fought with grim determination at the warden's side. Each time a beast broke through the perimeter, the scarred giant was there—his polearm snapping skulls, his sword hacking through flesh with brutal precision. His voice barked orders, holding the men together through sheer will.
But even he couldn't stop the slaughter completely.
Every so often, a dune-dog would burst near the chained carts. Slaves screamed as they were dragged under, their chains pulling taut until flesh gave way and the sand swallowed what remained. Two entire carts were already gone—wheels snapped, corpses scattered, blood soaking the sand.
"Keep your eyes on the sand!" the warden's voice thundered across the chaos. He stomped down, splitting open a dune. A dune-dog erupted from below, and his polearm punched straight through its skull, pinning it writhing to the ground. "They set traps! Watch your damned feet!"
The guards roared in response, stabbing their spears downward at any sign of shifting sand, revealing dune-dogs waiting patiently with jaws agape.
Shane pressed his back against the half-broken cart, chest heaving, knife raised. His eyes darted between the guards' tightening circle and the other slaves clutching scavenged weapons. His chains clinked with every trembling breath. He wasn't the only one who had stopped waiting for salvation. Some had grabbed weapons from fallen guards, swinging blades with shaking hands. One, a large, hairy beastkin woman, seemed unfazed by the attack, she wrapped her chains around a beast's throat and choked it until black blood spilled.
Shane fought to breathe through the stench. His arms trembled every time he raised them, yet he forced himself to slash, stab, and scramble whenever a dune-dog came too close. The creatures were rabid, focused only on the meat before them, sometimes not even bothering to dodge. His shoulder burned from the earlier wound, and his whole body felt like it was falling apart.
Some slaves broke down completely, throwing themselves at the beasts in despair. Others turned on their fellow captives, shoving them forward as bait to buy a few more breaths of life. Thanks to the warden and the guards, few dune-dogs reached the slaves—the warden was protecting his goods. Shane had only been attacked three times so far, unlike the ferocious beastkin woman, whose lack of a weapon did nothing to lessen her fury.
The battle stretched on. Time blurred into a haze of screams, snarls, and steel.
The warden noticed the shift first. His polearm split another dune-dog's skull, his scarred eye flashing with grim calculation. He turned, voice booming across the firelit camp:
"They're thinning out! Press them harder!"
Shane blinked through sweat stinging his eyes. He dared to look past the piled corpses at the camp's edge. The truth was clear: fewer glowing eyes, fewer snarls beneath the shifting dunes.
The guards rallied at the command, teeth bared, striking with renewed ferocity. Their blades cut faster, their formations tightened. Every dune-dog that lunged was met with steel, chains, or sharpened wood.
Even the slaves had changed. Where panic once ruled, grim resolve now burned in hollow eyes. One slave with pointed horns and hooves looped his chain around a beast's neck while another drove a broken spear through its ribs. A third, the bloodied and half-mad butcher, bit into a dog's throat with his own teeth and refused to let go until it stopped thrashing.
The ground rumbled once more. Another beast clawed its way out of the dunes—but it was alone. The others hung back, growling low, circling warily instead of charging. Their glowing eyes flickered with hesitation, as if awaiting a command.
"They're pulling back," the warden muttered, spitting into the bloodstained sand. His weapons dripped black gore as he scanned the dunes. He watched the new dune-dog slowly making its way toward him. This one was much larger than the rest.
The guards stiffened as the massive dune-dog padded into the firelight. Its fur was darker, its body swollen with corded muscle. Jagged scars marked its hide, and its glowing eyes burned like twin embers in the night. Each step sank deep into the sand, leaving prints twice the size of a man's head.
The smaller dune-dogs lowered their heads as it passed, their growls softening into whines. The air itself seemed to vibrate with its presence.
Shane's throat went dry. 'That thing… It's their leader.'
The System flickered at the edge of his vision:
> [SYSTEM ALERT: HOSTILE ENTITY DETECTED]
> **NAME:** Alpha Dune-dog
> **LEVEL:** 24 [KNIGHT]
The warden's scarred face twisted into a grim smile. He spun his polearm once, planting his sword into the sand beside him. "So the alpha finally shows herself," his voice rumbled like distant thunder. "Good. About damned time."
The massive beast lifted its head and released a howl that pierced the desert night. The dunes shuddered under the sound, and the remaining dune-dogs echoed the cry, their hesitation vanishing as they surged forward with renewed frenzy.
Shane staggered back against the cart, his knife slipping in his blood-slick grip. His chest heaved, panic clawing at his ribs. 'It isn't over. It's just getting worse.'
The Alpha's roar was not just sound—it was a physical force, a wave of invisible pressure that slammed into Shane and everyone else, driving the air from their lungs and threatening to buckle their knees. The lesser dune-dogs surged forward with unified, feral frenzy, their eyes burning with renewed bloodlust under the Alpha's command.
The warden met the charge not with fear, but with grim, almost joyous fury. "FINALLY! A FIGHT!" he bellowed, his voice cutting through the bestial howls. He abandoned all defensive orders to his men. This was beyond them now.
One moment he was a scarred statue amidst the chaos; the next, he was a blur of motion and steel. He didn't wait for the Alpha to reach him. He charged *it*, his long sword carving a silver arc through the night. The Alpha, intelligent and swift, twisted away from the decapitating strike—but the warden's follow-up was already there, the short polearm scything low to hamstring the massive beast.
The Alpha leaped backward with an agility that defied its size, its claws gouging deep furrows in the sand. It landed and immediately lunged, not at the warden, but at the line of terrified guards. Testing. Probing for weakness.
It ripped open a guard's torso before he could even scream.
The warden's face twisted in rage. "FIGHT ME, YOU OVERGROWN JACKAL!" He closed the distance, his weapons a whirlwind of deadly intent. Steel clashed against unnaturally hard claws, sending sparks flying into the dark. Each impact was a thunderclap, a contest of raw power. The warden's IRA flared around him, a visible aura of red-gold energy that made his strikes land with earth-shattering force.
Shane could only watch, mesmerized and horrified. This was a level of combat he couldn't comprehend; the speed was beyond what his eyes could follow. It was a dance of death, a primal ballet between two forces of nature.
But the Alpha was cunning. It used its pack. As the warden pressed his attack, two smaller dune-dogs broke from the main fray and dove for his flanks. The warden, his focus entirely on the Alpha, didn't see them.
Shane's body moved before his mind could catch up.
"Behind you!" he screamed, his voice raw and torn.
He hurled the bloodied butcher's knife. It was a pathetic throw, devoid of strength or skill. It didn't need to hit. It clattered against the cart wheel next to the lunging dogs.
The sound was enough. The warden's combat-honed instincts did the rest. He dropped into a spin, his polearm extending like a viper's tongue. It caught the first dune-dog in the ribs, flinging it aside. His sword, reversing its momentum, sheared through the neck of the second.
His scarred eye flicked to Shane for a fraction of a second. There was no thanks, no acknowledgment—only a sharp, calculating glint. Then he was back on the Alpha.
That moment of distraction, however, was all the Alpha needed.
It lunged. Not at the warden's weapons, but at his center of mass. The warden brought his sword up in a desperate parry, but the Alpha's sheer weight and momentum drove him backward. He slammed into the side of the remaining slave cart with a sickening crunch of wood and a grunt of pain. The Alpha's massive jaws snapped shut, missing his throat by inches, instead closing on the haft of his polearm and wrenching it from his grasp, sending it flying into the darkness.
The warden was pinned, one arm trapped, his sword arm struggling to keep the drooling, snapping maw from his face.
The guards were too far, too occupied with the renewed assault from the pack. The other slaves could only watch in terror. Though some knew they needed the warden to kill the Alpha and protect them, most would be happy to watch him die.
The Alpha's glowing eyes burned with triumph. It leaned its weight forward, and the warden's sword arm began to tremble, the steel blade inching closer to his own face.
Then, a new sound rose over the chaos, one that made the very ground tremble.
It was a low, rhythmic thunder—the pounding of wide, padded feet on sand. Over the crest of the nearest dune, a line of shadows darker than the night emerged. They rode upon hulking, six-legged reptiles—*Kank*—beasts native to the deepest wastes, their hides the color of sun-baked stone, their snorts sending plumes of dust into the air.
The riders were unlike any Shane had seen. They were tall and broad-shouldered, moving with a deliberate, heavy grace even atop their mounts. Their skin was a deep, reddish-brown, like old leather, and their eyes, dark and piercing, were shielded by a faint, flickering second eyelid that blinked horizontally against the kicked-up sand. They wore practical, imposing armor: polished bronze cuirasses over dusty linen robes and deep hoods that shadowed their faces. Their shields were large and round, meticulously polished to a mirror shine that reflected the firelight in dazzling, disorienting flashes.
The riders were Sundered Xeric, masters of the deep desert, and they announced their presence with overwhelming force.
There were thirty of them, a solid wall of sound and menace. A unified, guttural cry went up from the riders—a harsh, barking shout in a language of sharp consonants, more terrifying for its coordination than any wild howl.
They hit the flank of the dune-dog pack like a tsunami of flesh and steel. Their attack was brutally efficient. Polished shields reflected searing beams of firelight to blind the beasts, and in that second of confusion, curved swords sheared through matted fur and bone. Their Kank mounts trampled and snapped spines with brutal efficiency.
The sudden assault from this new, perfectly adapted enemy shattered the pack's coordination. The dune-dogs, creatures of primal instinct, were utterly outmatched. Their focus was torn from the pinned warden and the helpless slaves.
The distraction was all the warden needed.
With a roar of pure, undiluted fury, he summoned a final, massive surge of IRA. The red-gold aura around him flared so brightly it was blinding. He didn't shove the Alpha away; he exploded upward.
The sudden, immense force broke the Alpha's hold, throwing the massive beast's head back and unbalancing it.
The warden's trapped hand scrabbled at his belt, coming free with a brutal, hooked dagger. As the Alpha stumbled, its neck exposed, the warden drove the dagger up under its jaw, deep into the soft tissue of its palate.
The Alpha's triumphant roar became a choked, gurgling shriek of agony. It recoiled violently, stumbling back, trying to dislodge the blade buried in its mouth.
The warden didn't waste the chance. He surged to his feet, snatching his sword from the sand. "MY POLEARM!" he bellowed.
The lead Xeric rider heard him. He urged his Kank forward, scooped the polearm from the ground, and sent it spinning toward the warden in a perfect throw.
The warden caught it, his entire focus on the wounded Alpha. He braced for the final lunge.
But it never came.
The Alpha, now bleeding from its mouth, fixed one eye on the terrifying new riders systematically butchering its pack and let out a low, pained whimper. The fire of battle in its eyes guttered out, replaced by the primal spark of self-preservation. It was a leader, but it was not a fool. It was outnumbered.
With a last, hate-filled glare at the warden, the massive beast turned and fled. It flowed into the sand, its powerful body digging into the dune and vanishing beneath the surface in seconds, leaving only a trail of disturbed sand and droplets of black blood behind.
The warden stared at the spot where it had disappeared, his chest heaving, his weapons held ready. A string of vicious curses spilled from his lips—not of victory, but of frustration. A prize like that Alpha's pelt and skull would have been worth a fortune.
Around him, the Sundered Xeric were already finishing their work, their loud, barked orders echoing as they systematically slew the last of the leaderless pack and began efficiently looting the bodies for fangs and claws.
The Xeric leader guided his Kank over to the warden. He pushed back his hood, revealing a face as scarred and weathered as the desert itself, his dark eyes assessing the scene with cold pragmatism.
"Ohhh, it's you, Bassy," the man said, his voice like grinding stone. "Your noise draws the predators from the deep dunes. You spoiled the hunt. The pack we were driving is dead or scattered. Their value is lost." He spoke Common with a thick, arid accent, every word measured and devoid of warmth.
The warden, Bassy, wrenched his bloodied dagger free from the sand. He wiped it clean on his thigh, his scarred face a mask of annoyance rather than gratitude.
"It was mine to kill, Kaelen," Bassy grunted, his voice a low rumble of displeasure. He glanced around at the devastation—his dead men, the broken carts. Then his good eye swept over the surviving slaves. "These maggots are worth less than that Alpha's hide. Your interruption cost me."
"The desert takes what it is owed," the Xeric, Kaelen, replied flatly, unmoved by the complaint. "Be grateful it did not take your entire caravan. The debt for our intervention is cleared. I pray you make it safely to town."
He turned his Kank without another word, barking a sharp order to his people. They finished their looting quickly and formed up, their thunderous arrival now replaced by the rhythmic pounding of their mounts fading back into the dunes from whence they came.
Bassy watched them go, then spat into the sand. The crisis was over. The goods were partially secure. The account, in his head, was a net loss.
Shane watched the exchange. The help had come, and it came at the right time. Otherwise, the Alpha might have taken the warden's head, and the defenseless slaves would have been next.
> [DREAM TRIAL - FIRST SCENARIO COMPLETE]
> [Objective: Survive until dawn - SUCCESS]
> [Rewards withheld. Proceeding to Second Scenario...]
The world began to dissolve into mist—the warden's frustrated figure, the bloodied sand, and the fading sound of the Xeric departure all melting away. The dream was not done with him yet.