He gritted his teeth.
His side hurt too, blood dripping down his torso, warm and sticky… and still…
He forced himself to focus.
His breathing steadied as he locked eyes on the attacker, now visible before him.
It was a kid… just like him. Pale skin, blue eyes, bruises along his legs, blood smeared across his shirt. Hope could not tell if it was his own… or someone else’s.
And that stare… anger, coldness, killing intent.
Hope swallowed hard. He tightened his grip on the spear, blood sliding down from its tip as he faced the kid head on.
The boy held a stone in one hand and a bone dagger in the other, just like the last one.
They stood six meters apart. If he dashed forward…
However… he wanted to know. He needed to know.
"Why?" he asked, his voice low.
The kid said nothing. His eyes scanned Hope’s stance, searching for an opening.
Hope pressed.
"Why… do you have to kill others?"
No answer.
Hope clenched his jaw.
"Is it… worth it?" He jerked his chin toward the body on the ground, the boy he had just killed. "IS IT FUCKING WORTH IT? FOR POWER? BECAUSE SOME FUCKERS WANT US TO!?"
The kid’s hand trembled, but he steadied it, gripping the stone tighter. Ready.
"Why…" Hope pointed around them. "So many creatures out there… why do you have to kill your own? Why follow their fuckin’ game?"
The kid’s teeth pressed together, his stare hardening. He did not back down. He raised his hand slowly and stepped forward.
Hope opened his mouth… but nothing came out.
The kid threw the rock.
Hope lunged forward instinctively, the world narrowing to movement and instinct. The stone sliced past his cheek, leaving a hot line that burned as blood trickled down. The impact thudded somewhere behind him.
He closed the distance. Gravel shifted under his boots, dust rising in thin clouds around his legs. The kid reacted instantly, swinging the dagger in a tight, desperate arc.
Hope met it with his spear. The impact rang through the shaft, a sharp vibration that stung his palms.
Then the kid hurled a fistful of dirt at his face.
Hope squeezed his eyes shut on reflex. Grit scraped his eyelids as the dirt hit him, cold and coarse. His heart pounded. His footing dug into the hard earth. He pushed down, anchoring his stance.
A breath. A heartbeat. The smell of iron from his own blood. The rustle of the kid’s steps closing in.
And then… movement.
Hope tilted his torso, feeling the dagger whistle past his chest. The blade sliced into him, a hot line of pain tearing across flesh, stopping barely a centimetre from his heart.
Fear spiked through him. His ribs throbbed. His shoulder burned. His grip tightened.
He thrust.
All the strength he had left drove the spear forward. The stone tip met resistance, then tore through flesh. Warm blood splashed against his knuckles.
The kid jerked, eyes wide… not in pain, but in a strange, empty resolve.
No scream. No breath. No answer.
Even in that final moment, he stayed silent.
The glow in his eyes flickered, died, and the weight of his collapsing body pressed down along the shaft of Hope’s spear.
The boy slid forward until his forehead rested on Hope’s chest, blood mixing with Hope’s own as dust settled around their feet.
Hope staggered, forced to brace himself as the lifeless body leaned heavier, heavier still, until he wrenched the spear free. The kid dropped like a discarded rag, hitting the ground with a dull thud that echoed far louder than it should have.
Cold air filled Hope’s lungs. His hands shook. His heartbeat throbbed inside his ribs, a dull hammering wrapped in pain. The world felt far too quiet… like everything around him was holding its breath.
He finally noticed the prompts flickering before his eyes. They felt almost mocking.
Level 22 ? 23
Feat Achieved:
- Slayer
?? Slayer (G7)
You’ve ended the lives of 1 indexed entity.
? +10 Physis permanently.
? +2 Magia permanently.
Was that it?
Was that the value… the purpose… the meaning of their lives? Some numbers? A bit of power?
Just because they were Crawlers…
He stared at the sky, at the dim grey drifting without care.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Didn’t mean they were animals.
The weight of death pressed on him, heavy and clumsy and foreign. It did not fit inside him. It clawed at his chest like something that did not belong.
In the camps he had seen people kill for the rotten leg of a rat. Hunger drove people insane, pushed them to acts they never wanted to commit. He knew that kind of hunger. He had lived inside it.
But even then… there had been other ways. Some chose to steal. Some begged. Some ran. They didn’t always choose to kill.
And now… now there were other ways too. So… why?
Hope stood in silence.
His ribs burned. The cut on his side kept dripping warm blood down his waist, each drop patting softly against the dirt. His shoulder throbbed. His cheek stung. His chest bled. His palms were sticky with someone else’s blood and his own.
The air smelled of iron. The wind moved faintly, brushing dead leaves across the ground, the sound barely a whisper.
His breathing grew shallow, each inhale tight with pain. Sweat mixed with the blood on his skin. His vision pulsed at the edges.
A tremor ran down his arm. Then another.
He closed his eyes.
Just for a moment.
He took a slow, shaky breath. The cold air stung his lungs, grounding him. He let it go, then took another, deeper this time.
Finally… he straightened.
He wiped the blood from his chin, adjusted his grip on the spear, and forced his legs to move.
No matter what…
He had to keep going.
He looked around and noticed Eve.
She was silent, too silent. He had not even noticed when she approached him.
He looked at her and she looked back. Hope saw in her face a mix of emotions, yet the ones he thought would be there were not.
There was no disgust, no fear.
What he found instead was something heavier. Her eyes were wide, not with shock, but with a deep, aching sadness. A quiet hurt. A trembling kind of worry that tightened her jaw. She glanced at the dead boy, then at Hope’s bleeding side, then at his shaking hands.
She looked as though she wanted to speak but could not find the words.
Hope forced a smile despite it all.
"Shall we get going?"
Eve stared at him… and nodded.
As they started walking, he passed by the food he had been eating, and yet… he was not hungry anymore.
He just needed to clear his head, and nothing did that better than a long run.
He no longer aimed to hunt the Talgarans. He only killed the ones that came at him first. The rest he simply ran past.
And he ran, and ran… and ran.
At some point, the System pinged a skill upgrade. He barely glanced at it and kept going.
??Longstride (Level 5)
Your body remembers the rhythm. Endurance becomes movement.
? 25% reduction in stamina drain while running.
? +60 Physis permanently.
Hours passed. His legs burned. His ribs ached. Sweat soaked through every rag on him.
Didn’t matter. He kept moving.
And then, eventually… the green was gone.
The river spread out wide, spilling into a lake that shimmered under the sky. Beyond that—no trees. No thick roots. The jungle region… was over.
Just bare land. Cracked. Dry. Pale gold stretching far, far ahead.
Hope skidded to a stop, breath rough.
His whole body stank—blood, sweat, dirt—but that was fine. Crawlers didn’t get clean unless life really smiled at ’em.
He crouched by the edge and picked up a handful of the stuff underfoot. Grainy, dry, it slipped through his fingers in a slow trickle.
The last regions had been strange, foreign. But this one—this one he knew well enough.
A desert.
He glanced back over his shoulder and saw Eve still there, quiet as ever.
Her eyes met his, calm and steady, and for a moment something sharp flicked through his chest.
That tension… it was time to let go. They had aimed for his life, and he had killed them. And… he had a hunch it would not be the last time in this place.
It was time to move on.
He let out a slow breath.
"So… next region’s a desert, huh?"
Eve held his gaze and gave a small nod. "Yes. It appears so. Are you familiar with that environment?"
"Yeah, was kinda my backyard back home. Second camp sat right near one. Place wasn’t too nice to folks like us. Burned your lungs by noon, froze your bones by night. Real lovely spot, I tell ya."
"I see…"
"Back then, findin’ food in the desert was harder than… shit, harder than anythin’, now that I think of it. Let’s hope it ain’t the same here. My stomach’s already complainin’."
He strolled over to the lake first, crouched down, and took a few deep gulps of water. Then he splashed some over his face and arms, scrubbing off the grime and sweat as best he could.
For a moment, he caught his reflection in the water and stared at it a little longer than he meant to. Then he stood, wiped his hands on his shorts, and broke into a run, heading straight for the desert.
As the ground shifted underfoot, soft sand giving way to firmer patches, Hope slowed just a touch, eyes sharp on the empty stretch ahead.
"Back then," he called over his shoulder, voice steady between breaths, "deserts had a rhythm. Sun’d tell ya when to set out, and when to turn back to camp. But here... no damn night. Things won’t be restin’ when ya think they should."
He kicked through a shallow drift, scanned left and right.
"Rule was—always stay movin’, never stay on the same patch too long. In the sand, standin’ still makes ya easy meat. Same with movin’ straight at a constant pace. You gotta change your rhythm, keep it irregular. And keep your steps light. And, important… you listen. Real close. Sound’s different on sand—you’ll hear ’em comin’, if ya pay attention."
He shot a glance back again.
"And one more thing—don’t trust what ya see out here. Lotta stuff hides under. It ain’t the ones walkin’ above that’ll gut ya first. It’s the ones waitin’ below."
"You seem very knowledgeable about hunting. Were you a hunter back home?"
"Hunter? Guess so. I mean… I had to eat to live, huh. Where else would I get food from?"
Eve opened her mouth like she had more to say, but then closed it slow. Hope frowned, but didn’t dwell on it. His focus was slippin’ back to the sand around them.
The dunes ahead rolled long and wide. Wind cut soft lines through ‘em, but no tracks. No movement. Not a damn thing in sight.
Which meant only one thing.
They were hidden below.
Just like back then.
He slowed his steps, letting his weight shift light. Three steps to the right, one back left, pause, then two more forward with a twist in between.
He kept going, using the pattern he was used to back then. A long sequence that had been burned in his mind, formed by dozens of steps in an order that repeated itself.
And like that, he kept going. Slower than running, but faster than walking.
His eyes swept the dunes ahead, sharp and steady. Then, off to the left—he caught it. A faint shift in the sand. Just a ripple, like the ground had breathed, pulsed.
Hope’s gut clenched. He slowed even more, muscles coiled, breath shallow.
The next few steps came slower, lighter still. He kept his ears wide open, boots barely kissing the ground.
And he waited… he waited until he felt it.
Right beneath him—the sand went softer.
Now!
He shot sideways, one sharp hop and a skid through the loose grit.
A second later, the patch he’d stood on burst open with a violent eruption.
Sandmaw
Level 28