“Dead Man’s Maw…”

Jax muttered the name, his eyes tracking the dark, rust-colored stains on the canyon rocks. It wasn’t rust. It was dried blood—layers of it. He instantly understood why the local mercenaries avoided this sector like the plague.

“Guess the name isn’t just for show,” he murmured. “This place screams danger.”

Despite the ominous signs, Jax scanned the terrain again. The choke point was perfect. The high walls funneled movement, the sightlines were clear, and the elevation offered natural defense. Why was it a death trap?

It doesn’t matter, he told himself, shaking off the doubt. The swarm could hit at any moment. I don’t have time to second-guess.

He opened his System interface, accessing the spatial storage.

“To place a Sentry Tower, I need a Bastion first,” Jax reasoned, recalling the mechanics of every RTS game he’d ever played. “It’s like the Town Hall or Command Center. If the Bastion falls, it’s game over. Protecting it is priority number one.”

He paced the entrance of the valley, analyzing the topography for the optimal construction site.

“Three candidates,” he mused.

He walked to the first spot. “Option A: The ledge on the left. Five meters high. Decent, but the angle is bad. The rock outcropping blocks the line of sight for the towers. That’s a no-go.”

He moved to the right side of the valley. “Option B: Seven meters up. Better height, but there’s a gentle slope leading right to the top. The Sandworms could swarm up that ramp in seconds. If they overrun the Bastion, I’m dead.”

Jax turned his attention to the third location, his eyes narrowing.

In the center of the valley mouth stood a natural rock formation, shaped like a river delta or a massive, irregular trapezoid. It split the valley floor like a wedge. It was roughly three hundred meters long and just under a hundred wide, rising nearly ten meters into the air.

Because it sat directly in the wind tunnel of the canyon, the rock was weathered and stripped bare, leaving sheer, difficult-to-climb cliffs on all sides.

“This is it,” Jax grinned. “Strategic perfection. Easy to defend, impossible to flank. It commands the roads on both sides. The ultimate tower defense platform.”

He walked up to the base of the formation and struck the rock with a piece of driftwood. It rang solid. Despite the weathering, the core was dense stone. It wouldn’t crumble under the weight of his buildings.

“Jackpot,” he said. “Barney! Stay down here. I’m going up for a look.”

Barney craned his neck, looking up at the ten-meter cliff. “Jax… high. Scary.”

“If you’re scared, hide behind that boulder,” Jax said, his voice calm but firm. “The bugs won’t come out until sunset. We have a few hours. I’ll be right back.”

Jax approached the rock face. Thanks to the enhancement potion he’d chugged earlier, his muscles coiled with new power. He scaled the ten-meter vertical ascent with the ease of a spider, cresting the top in seconds.

The plateau was flat and windswept. But he wasn’t the first to stand here.

A pile of bleached bones lay in the center. Human bones.

” tough break, pal,” Jax muttered, kicking a rib cage. “Looks like someone else had the same idea but lacked the firepower.”

He felt no fear, only a pragmatic numbness. In the wasteland, corpses were just terrain features. As long as they didn’t smell, he didn’t care.

He gathered the bones and unceremoniously punted them off the edge. There was no time for burials.

“Flat ground, good visibility, and a nice breeze,” Jax noted, wiping dust from his hands. “Perfect.”

From this vantage point, the canyon floor was laid out like a map. The central rock split the road into two kill zones. Any enemy passing through would be exposed to fire from above.

Jax closed his eyes and summoned the System.

“Time to build. Tier 1 Bastion.”

The blueprint appeared in his mind, along with the cost.

[System Alert: Tier 1 Bastion Construction. Cost: Refined Iron x50, Stardust Stone x50.]

“Damn,” Jax hissed. “That’s half my stash. I’ll only have enough left for a handful of towers.”

But there was no choice. No base, no towers.

“Build.”

The world shifted. A glowing green grid overlaid the physical ground, dividing the rock surface into one-meter squares. A translucent hologram of the Bastion appeared, occupying a 3×3 grid.

Jax focused, and the hologram moved with his gaze. Red grids flashed where the terrain was uneven; green grids pulsed where the foundation was solid. It was intuitive, just like placing a building in a game.

“Center mass,” Jax decided.

He positioned the hologram in the dead center of the plateau and mentally clicked confirm.

A pillar of digital light erupted, followed by a mechanical chime.

[System Notification: Tier 1 Bastion under construction. Time remaining: 04:59.]

“Five minutes? I can work with that.”

Jax waited, watching the timer tick down. When it hit zero, the light shattered into particles, revealing the structure.

It… wasn’t impressive.

It looked like a stone yurt or a primitive bunker. A round dome roof supported by thick pillars, with open sides. Inside, the furniture consisted of two woven straw mats.

Jax couldn’t help but laugh. “Good grief. It looks like an Orc hut from Warcraft. Why isn’t it a sleek Human command center?”

He shook his head and pulled up the next blueprint.

“Alright, the main event. Tier 1 Sentry Tower.”

[System Alert: Tier 1 Sentry Tower Construction. Cost: Refined Iron x10, Stardust Stone x10.]

“Ten each,” Jax calculated. “I have enough materials for five towers.”

He paused, noticing a discrepancy. “Wait. The blueprint doesn’t use the Energy Shards. Do the towers burn shards as ammo?”

He filed the question away for later. He selected the tower and looked at the grid. He placed the first tower at the very tip of the trapezoid, the point of the spear facing the valley entrance.

[System Notification: Tier 1 Sentry Tower under construction. Time remaining: 04:59.]

“Another five minutes. Fast and cheap. I like it.”

While the tower materialized, Jax dug through the system menus, looking for stats. He eventually found a new tab: [Illustrated Handbook].

It had two sections: [Defense Towers] and [Zerg Bestiary].

He clicked on the tower section.

[Tier 1 Sentry Tower] [Attack Power: 100] [Range: 50] [Attack Speed: 0.5] [Durability: 100 (Unenhanced)]

“Attack 100 is clear enough,” Jax muttered. “Range 50… meters? Yards? I’ll assume meters. Attack speed 0.5 means one shot every two seconds. Slow. And Durability is basically HP.”

He switched to the Bestiary. There was one entry unlocked.

[Tier 1 Sandworm] [Attack Power: 50] [Defense: 50] [Speed: 30] [Special Skills: None] [Combat Score: 60]

“Score of 60?” Jax smirked. “No wonder I could kill one with a shovel before I even leveled up. They’re barely stronger than a civilian.”

Suddenly, a sharp chime echoed in his skull, followed by a flashing red text box.

[New Mission: First Blood] [Objective: Kill 100 Tier 1 Sandworms using Defense Towers.] [Time Limit: 24 Hours.] [Reward: Wall Blueprint x10.] [Penalty: EXP reset to 0.]

Jax’s jaw dropped.

“What? A hundred of them in twenty-four hours? Are you kidding me?”