The notification of the Sandworm’s death brought a wave of relief that washed over Jax, settling the nerves that had been frayed since sunset.

“Not bad,” he muttered, impressed. “This Sentry Tower hits harder than the scrap piles they use back in The Sprawl.”

The only downside was the suffocating blackness surrounding them. Without a flashlight or even a primitive torch, Jax was effectively blind. The heavy, inky darkness pressed against his eyes, rendering the physical world invisible.

Only the rhythmic, mechanical chiming in his mind reassured him that the tower was still active, still hunting in the void.

Suddenly, a massive hand clamped onto his arm from the shadows.

Jax nearly jumped out of his skin, his heart hammering against his ribs. He spun around, adrenaline spiking.

“Jesus, Barney!” Jax gasped, trying to steady his breathing. “I thought you went to sleep! You trying to give me a heart attack?”

He peered into the gloom, barely making out the giant’s silhouette. The darkness here wasn’t just an absence of light; it was a physical weight. He couldn’t even see his own hand if he held it in front of his face. Without the moon, the isolation felt absolute, gnawing at his sanity.

Barney’s voice trembled, small and fragile despite his size. “Jax… I’m scared. Are the bugs coming to eat us?”

Jax reached out, finding the giant’s trembling arm, and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Relax, big guy. We’re safe. You hear that tower working? It’s taking care of everything.”

Despite the comfort, Barney didn’t stop shaking. He vibrated like a leaf in a storm, his grip on Jax’s arm tightening to a painful vice.

Jax sighed, realizing he wouldn’t be getting any peace out here.

“Alright, the bugs can’t get up here,” Jax said, his voice firm but kind. “Come on. Let’s go inside the bunker. It’ll feel safer.”

He guided the terrified giant into the stone structure he’d erected. They sat in the dark, the silence broken only by the occasional screech of a dying Sandworm outside.

“That’s ten down,” Jax murmured to himself, counting the pings. “If they get too close, I’ll handle them myself.”

Time lost all meaning in the dark. Minutes stretched into hours, agonizingly slow.

Jax sat with his back to the wall, facing the direction of the Sentry Tower. He couldn’t see it, but the System notifications were a lifeline, a digital pulse proving they were still alive.

Eventually, the rhythm of Barney’s breathing changed. The giant had drifted off, his heavy snoring filling the small space. Occasionally, he would whimper, trapped in a nightmare.

“Sis… don’t go… scared…”

“Jax… don’t leave me… I’ll be good…”

Listening to the giant’s pleas, Jax felt a pang of sympathy. He sighed, crawling over to adjust the blanket around Barney’s shoulders.

Jax returned to his spot near the entrance, squatting in the dark, waiting.

Then, the shooting stopped.

The silence was deafening.

“Huh?” Jax stiffened. “Why did it stop? Did the Energy Shard run dry?”

He strained his ears, filtering through the silence. Below the high rock formation, the faint, dry rasp of chitin on stone drifted up. Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.

They were still there.

Jax held his breath, daring not to move. Sandworms were blind, but their hearing was razor-sharp. A scuffed boot or a cough could bring the whole swarm down on their heads.

Minutes ticked by. The sounds below didn’t escalate.

Good, Jax thought, exhaling slowly. They haven’t pinpointed us. They might be losing interest.

PFFT.

A thunderous, wet noise erupted from the corner of the bunker.

Jax froze.

The scratching below stopped instantly.

Every instinct Jax had screamed in warning. The Sandworms had paused. They were listening. They were triangulating.

Jax turned his head toward the sleeping giant, resisting the urge to walk over and smack him.

I calculated structural integrity, ammo consumption, and pathing, Jax thought, squeezing his eyes shut. I did not factor in a tactical nuclear fart.

There was no time to be angry. Jax scrambled to the Sentry Tower, fumbling in the dark to shove another Tier 1 Energy Shard into the intake slot.

Clack-whir.

The mechanism roared back to life, and the tower resumed its rhythmic firing, sending arrows plunging into the darkness below.

Jax slumped against the wall, his mind racing as he ran the numbers.

“Attack speed is 0.5. That’s one arrow every two seconds. The first shard lasted… what? It fired roughly a thousand arrows.”

He pulled up his System interface to check the kill count.

“Wait.” Jax frowned. “A thousand arrows… and less than twenty confirmed kills?”

He stared at the blue holographic text, disbelief turning to frustration.

“That’s a garbage hit rate. Even the rusted junk towers back in The Sprawl hit more often than that.”

He checked his inventory. “I’ve got nine shards left. At this rate, that’s only two hundred dead worms total.”

“And this is night one,” he whispered, the gravity of the situation sinking in. “If we burn through everything tonight, we’re dead meat tomorrow. Nobody is coming to this sector for another six days. We’ll be worm food long before then.”

Why was the accuracy so abysmal? The tower’s stats were solid. It had the damage to one-shot these things. It shouldn’t take fifty arrows to kill one Tier 1 mob.

A thought struck him.

“Does the tower need line of sight?” Jax muttered. “Does it need light?”

He crawled to the edge of the cliff, peering over the rim. It was a suicide mission to go down there and check, but not knowing was worse.

“If I could see… maybe I could prioritize targets.”

He looked toward a pile of dry driftwood he’d spotted earlier that day near the perimeter. “I could make a fire. Torches.”

He gauged the distance. It was too far. Crossing the open ground in the dark with an active swarm nearby was a death sentence.

“Dammit.” Jax crouched low, racking his brain for a solution.

He was stuck. High ground, powerful tower, plenty of ammo—but blind and inefficient. He was bleeding resources into the void.

Just as he was preparing to risk a run for the wood, the wind shifted.

Above him, the thick blanket of storm clouds began to break. The heavy curtain drifted apart, and the pale, cold light of the moon spilled onto the wasteland.

Jax blinked, stunned. “Well, I’ll be damned. Even God feels bad for me.”

Before he could celebrate, the System chimed.

[System: Hostile Unit Eliminated. +1 EXP]

[System: Hostile Unit Eliminated. +1 EXP]

[System: Hostile Unit Eliminated. +1 EXP]

The notifications didn’t ping—they streamed. A cascade of kill confirms rolled down his retina.

“I knew it!” Jax grinned fiercely. “It was the light. With visibility, the tower’s tracking lock is nearly instant. It’s a completely different machine now.”

Emboldened, Jax crawled to the edge and looked down.

His blood ran cold.

The base of their rock formation wasn’t just surrounded; it was drowning.

A writhing ocean of Sandworms seethed below. They were climbing over one another, forming a grotesque, living ramp of flesh and chitin, inching their way up the sheer rock face. It wasn’t dozens. It was hundreds.

“Holy…” Jax’s throat went dry. “If that light hadn’t come on…”

He quickly checked the quest progress.

[Current Task Completion: 28/100]