Gareth and Viper drew the short straw: corpse disposal.

The valley floor was littered with the mangled remains of the previous night’s siege. Some of the Sandworm carcasses had already begun to putrefy in the desert heat, filling the air with a stench that made the eyes water. They had to be dragged away and burned. The fresher kills, however, were stacked to the side. Jax intended to haul them back to The Sprawl for sale.

He had already arranged for a transport truck to meet them on the seventh day. There was no need to slow down the main convoy with a mountain of insect meat.

Silas had his own mission. He was down in the mine, sweating over a pickaxe. The Tier 1 Sentry Towers were hungry beasts; without a steady supply of Energy Shards, they were nothing more than expensive lawn ornaments. Mining couldn’t stop, not even for a minute.

With the tasks assigned, the camp became a hive of activity.

Jax took a tape measure and walked down the main path leading to the fortress. He measured out exactly two hundred meters, marking intervals along the roadside. Kaleb and Annie followed behind him, placing oil lamps at each mark.

They didn’t ask why. They just did it.

Kaleb paused for a moment, looking back at the fortress. The twin towers loomed against the darkening sky, radiating a silent, lethal power.

Whatever lingering jealousy Kaleb had felt toward Jax evaporated in that moment. It was pointless. Comparing himself to Jax was like a toddler trying to outrun a sprinter; the gap wasn’t just wide, it was insurmountable. He shook his head, picked up another lamp, and got back to work.

By the time evening settled over the wasteland, the preparations were complete.

The team waited. Tension hung in the air like static.

Viper had finally stopped pacing. He stood near the barricade, gripping his bow with white knuckles, his eyes darting toward the darkness of the valley entrance.

Jax stood alone, about fifty meters out from the fortress walls, silent and unmoving.

The sun dipped below the horizon, bleeding red across the sky before vanishing. Night crashed down.

The oil lamps flickered to life, cutting a corridor of dim yellow light through the gloom. The gravel and sand of the road were illuminated, revealing an empty path.

Jax checked his watch. 7:30 PM.

Right on schedule.

“Movement!” Viper shouted, his voice cracking slightly. “Sandworms! Incoming!”

At the same instant, a cold, mechanical voice echoed in Jax’s mind.

[System Alert: High-Density Hostile Signature Detected.] [Warning: Ensure Defense Towers are fueled.]

Jax did a quick mental calculation. The system alert triggered when the enemy breached the 200-meter perimeter around the fortress. He was currently 250 meters from their spawn point.

Good to know, Jax thought. The System’s radar is tied to the base, not me.

Another notification popped up, glowing in his peripheral vision.

[Quest Triggered: Hold the Line] Objective: Eliminate 200 Sandworms. Reward: Blueprint – Tier 1 Howitzer Turret x1. Failure Penalty: Current EXP Reset to 0.

A grin tugged at the corner of Jax’s mouth.

A Howitzer Turret. That was heavy ordinance. And the penalty? Just EXP? He could live with that. But he didn’t plan on failing.

He had a mountain of Energy Shards in his inventory. The Sentry Towers wouldn’t run dry tonight.

In the distance, the ground seemed to boil. A carpet of chitin and mandibles surged into the light, stretching back as far as the eye could see.

Silas had survived a few nights of this, so he held his ground, though his face was pale. But for the newcomers, the sheer scale of the swarm was terrifying.

Gareth’s knees were audibly knocking together. “Th-there… there are so many,” he stammered, backing away. “We… we need to run! Two towers can’t stop that ocean!”

Viper was trying to put on a brave face, muttering curses to psyche himself up, but his draw hand was trembling. He couldn’t even keep the arrow steady on the rest.

Surprisingly, the siblings held it together best.

Kaleb stepped in front of Annie, gripping his wooden makeshift spear. “Don’t look at them, Annie,” he said, his voice steady despite the fear in his eyes. “I’m right here. The towers will shred them. We’re safe.”

Annie looked pale, but she didn’t collapse into a mess like Gareth. She just nodded, clutching her own stick.

Screee—!

The first wave crossed the invisible line.

The lead Sentry Tower swiveled with a mechanical whine.

Thwack-thwack-thwack!

Arrows erupted from the firing ports, streaking through the air with deadly precision. The front line of Sandworms exploded into green ichor and shattered carapace.

Jax didn’t move. It wasn’t time for him to engage yet. He needed them to cluster up, to climb the ramp.

He watched the kill counter on his HUD tick upward. One. Five. Ten.

With the unlimited ammo supply from the Energy Shards, this was just an EXP farm.

Viper, seeing the towers doing the heavy lifting, regained some of his confidence. He drew his bow and loosed an arrow at a straggler.

Clack.

The arrow bounced off the Sandworm’s armored head like it had hit a stone wall.

Viper froze, his jaw dropping. But seeing no one watching him closely, he quickly cleared his throat. “Got one! That dead one over there? That was me. Count it!”

Jax, who had seen the whole embarrassing display from fifty meters away, didn’t bother to call him out.

“Sure,” Jax shouted over the noise of the towers. “Keep track of your own kills!”

Gareth looked up, confused. “Wait… we get credit for our own kills?”

“What do you think?” Jax shot back, glaring at him. “You think the System gives handouts?”

The comment was meant for Viper, but it worked on Gareth too. The man looked down at his empty hands, flustered. He scrambled to pull his shovel off his back. It was a pathetic weapon, but it was better than nothing.

Jax glanced at Kaleb and Annie. They were standing there with sharpened sticks. Brave, but useless.

He walked over to them, reaching into his inventory. He pulled out two gleaming steel long knives.

“Drop the twigs,” Jax said, tossing the weapons to them. “These are yours now. Don’t die.”

Kaleb caught the blade, stunned. The weight of the steel felt real, reassuring. He looked at Jax, eyes wide with gratitude. “Thank you, Boss. We… we won’t let you down.”

Jax waved him off and turned back to the darkness. He scanned the perimeter. Something felt… different.

[System Alert: Anomaly Detected.] [Warning: Winged Ravagers approaching. Prepare for aerial combat.]

Jax frowned. Winged Ravagers?

He squinted into the gloom beyond the lamp line.

There, bobbing in the darkness like demented fireflies, were pairs of glowing eyes. They weren’t crawling. They were hovering.

A swarm of mutated Sandworms burst into the light. These ones had thick, translucent wings sprouting from their backs. They buzzed through the air, their flight clumsy and heavy, struggling to stay more than three meters off the ground.

“Heads up!” Jax roared. “We’ve got fliers! Winged Ravagers incoming!”

The team froze. They looked up, watching the light glint off the airborne carapaces.

Clack-clack-clack. Their wings beat with a sickening, rhythmic sound.

“What the hell are those?” Viper shrieked. “Sandworms can fly now?!”

“Are those Tier 2?” Gareth wailed, dropping his shovel. “We’re dead! Tier 1 towers can’t hit Tier 2 targets! Run!”

Panic rippled through the group.

“Hold your ground!” Jax’s voice cut through the fear like a whip. “They aren’t Tier 2. They’re just mutated Tier 1s. Look at them—they fly like bricks. The towers will chew them up just fine!”

Jax turned to check on the rear. Barnaby was squatting by the large bonfire near the fortress gate, obsessively feeding logs into the flames. He was sweating profusely, his face flushed red from the heat and exertion. He was trying to make up for his mistake the other night.

“Barnaby!” Jax called out.

Barnaby looked up, soot smudged across his forehead. “Brother! I’m keeping it bright! They won’t get past!”

Jax smiled gently. “Good job, but it’s too hot. You’re roasting yourself. Go take a break.”

Barnaby shook his head stubbornly. “No! I want to help Brother!”

Jax sighed. He knew only one way to get through to him.

“Barnaby, look at you. Your skin is getting all oily from the heat. If Elena saw you working this hard, she’d skin me alive. Do you want your sister to be mad at me?”

Barnaby’s eyes went wide. “Sister… said that?”

“She wrote it in the letter,” Jax lied smoothly. “She said, ‘Make sure Barnaby doesn’t overwork himself.'”

Barnaby dropped the log immediately. “Okay! I’ll rest! Don’t tell Sister!”

He scurried off to the safe zone.

Jax turned back to the battle. The situation was evolving.

The ground-based Sandworms weren’t attacking the walls directly. They were piling up at the base of the ramp, climbing over each other, forming a living, writhing mound.

They’re making a ramp, Jax realized. Sacrificial pawns.

The Winged Ravagers were using the mound as a launchpad to gain altitude and buzz the platform.

“Get the torches!” Jax commanded. “We counterattack now!”

The team rushed to the bonfire, grabbing two torches each.

As the clumsy winged horrors buzzed toward the platform edge, Jax hurled his torch.

The spinning flame struck a cluster of Winged Ravagers mid-air.

WHOOSH!

The oil lamps had soaked the ground, and the insects themselves were dry and flammable. A wall of fire erupted instantly, the heat wave hitting the defenders like a physical blow.

“Throw them!” Jax yelled. “Target the piles!”

Viper, Kaleb, Annie, and even Gareth began hurling their torches into the writhing mass of insects below.

The valley filled with the screeching of burning chitin and the nauseating smell of roasted bug meat. The fire created an impassable barrier, scorching the wings off the Ravagers and turning the “ramp” into a pyre.

Minutes later, the system chimed.

[Quest Completed: Hold the Line] Reward Added to Inventory: Blueprint – Tier 1 Howitzer Turret x1.

Jax let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

The fire raged for another half hour. The Sandworms, realizing the platform was an impregnable fortress of fire and arrows, finally broke. The swarm chittered in frustration and began to recede into the darkness.