The dry, rhythmic scratching from below the platform was driving Jax insane.

It sounded like a thousand stiff bristles brushing against stone. Scritch. Scratch. Scritch. Knowing that sound came from the countless, chitinous legs of Sandworms scrabbling for purchase on the cliff face made his skin crawl.

“Why are there so many of them?” Jax muttered, peering over the edge. “The canyon has plenty of other exits. Why swarm here?”

It didn’t add up. In his experience, mob spawns were regulated by the system. When he picked up this commission at The Guild Hub, the officer had been clear about the density and aggression levels. This was supposed to be a D-rank cleanup job—tedious, but safe.

But looking at the writhing sea of carapace below, this was easily C-rank, maybe even pushing B-rank difficulty.

“Classic,” Jax spat, rubbing his temples. “First night out and the difficulty spikes. Just my luck.”

He had planned for an easy harvest of Cores to complete the quest. Instead, he was looking at a potential siege.

Jax forced himself to calm down. Panic was a luxury he couldn’t afford. He needed to secure the perimeter before the swarm crested the wall.

Under the faint, sickly light of the moon, Jax circled the edge of his high platform. He scrutinized every inch of the cliff face. It didn’t take long to find the weak points. There were several sections where the rock was jagged and uneven, full of deep fissures and protruding spurs.

Perfect ladders for soft-bodied invertebrates.

“I need to smooth this out,” Jax assessed. “If they find these footholds, they’ll swarm the base in minutes.”

He looked around for a tool—a hammer, a pry bar, anything. The platform was bare.

“Damn it.” He kicked the ground. “I brought food and water, but no heavy tools. Amateur hour.”

He peered over the edge again. The Sandworms were already exploiting the terrain. They were stacking atop one another—a living pyramid of gnashing teeth and legs—reaching nearly five meters up the wall. They were only a few meters shy of the ledge.

“Sitting here waiting to die isn’t my style,” Jax growled. “I’ll clear these rocks if I have to kick them off myself.”

He grabbed the only gear he had: a coil of sturdy rope. He secured one end to a stone pillar in the center of his makeshift fortress, testing the knot with a sharp tug. Satisfied, he tossed the coil over the edge near the most dangerous cluster of jagged rocks.

Gripping the rope, Jax rappelled down, his boots finding purchase on a protruding spur.

“Get… down!”

He stomped viciously on the rock shelf.

Thud.

The stone didn’t budge. It was as hard as iron, fused to the cliffside.

“Ugh, weak,” Jax panted, wiping sweat from his forehead. “If only Barney was awake. That giant could snap this off like a twig.”

As if summoned, a wailing cry drifted down from the platform above.

“Jax? Jaaaaax!”

“Bro! Where did you go? Don’t leave me! Waaah!”

Jax rolled his eyes, a mix of annoyance and amusement bubbling up. “I’m down here! Quit howling!”

He wasn’t worried about stealth anymore. The swarm below had already locked onto his scent; silence was moot.

Heavy footsteps thudded above, and Barney’s massive head popped over the rim. He spotted the rope, and his eyes followed it down to where Jax was dangling in the dark.

Barney’s face crumpled in horror.

“Bro! No!” Barney shrieked. “Don’t hang yourself! Come back!”

Jax’s expression went flat. “Who’s hanging themselves? I’m clearing rocks, you idiot! If you have a conscience, get down here and help me!”

Barney blinked, the tears stopping instantly. “Oh. You’re not dying?” He yawned, rubbing his eyes. “Okay, good. I’m gonna go back to sleep then.”

The giant turned around and started walking away.

Jax stared at the empty space where Barney’s head had been, dumbfounded.

“Hey! You heartless bastard!” Jax yelled. “Get your ass back here!”

The rope suddenly jerked upward twice.

“Bro,” Barney called out, not reappearing. “It’s dangerous down there. You should come up.”

Defeated, Jax climbed back up to the platform. But as he coiled the rope, staring at the fibers, an idea sparked.

“Physics,” Jax whispered, a grin spreading across his face. “I forgot about leverage. The rope is tough enough… I can torque it.”

He immediately sprang into action. “Barney! Wake up! No sleeping until the work is done!”

Barney groaned, sitting up sluggishly. “What work? I’m tired…”

“Here.” Jax shoved one end of a rope into Barney’s massive hands. “Take this.”

Jax took a second rope. He scrambled back down, tying one rope securely around the stubborn rock spur, and the other around a secondary anchor point. He climbed back up.

“Okay, big guy, listen to me. We’re going to use the Spanish Windlass technique. See these two ropes? We cross them, insert a lever—or in our case, we just twist them around each other manually.”

“Twist?” Barney looked confused.

“Just grab this end and pull. Don’t let go,” Jax commanded.

Jax grabbed his own rope. They began to twist the strands together. As the ropes wound around one another, the length shortened, creating an immense, compounding pulling force on the rock below.

“Keep turning!” Jax grunted.

“It’s… heavy!” Barney whined, his face turning a deep shade of tomato red. He clamped his mouth shut, afraid that if he spoke, he’d lose the pressure in his diaphragm.

The tension mounted. The ropes sang, vibrating like guitar strings. Jax felt his grip slipping, his muscles screaming in protest.

“Just… one… more…”

CRACK.

The tension released instantly, sending both men tumbling backward onto the hard floor.

A deafening BOOM echoed from below as a half-ton slab of rock sheared off the cliff face and plummeted into the darkness.

[System: Hostile Unit Eliminated. +1 EXP] [System: Hostile Unit Eliminated. +1 EXP] [System: Hostile Unit Eliminated. +1 EXP]

Notifications cascaded through Jax’s vision. He sat up, blinking.

“Serious? That counts as a kill?”

He scrambled to the edge. The massive boulder had crashed directly into a clustering point of the swarm. In the moonlight, he saw a mess of crushed chitin and ichor. At least ten Sandworms had been flattened into paste.

Jax laughed. “Gravity! The ultimate weapon!”

He looked at the remaining jagged rocks. “Barney, get up. We’re starting a demolition company. This is way faster than the Sentry Tower.”

Of course, without heavy machinery like the cranes found in Redrock Bastion, they had to do it the hard way. But they had leverage, and they had a giant.

For the next few hours, the duo worked in a rhythm. Tie, twist, snap, drop.

Crash. [EXP +1] Crash. [EXP +1]

By the time the moon began to dip, they had sheared off most of the dangerous handholds. Jax checked his interface.

[Current Mission Completion: 88/100]

“Not bad,” Jax panted, wiping grime from his face. He checked his inventory. He had burned through two more Energy Shards keeping the tower active during their operation, leaving his supplies dangerously low. “Alright, break time.”

Barney didn’t need to be told twice. He was already on the ground, snoring loud enough to wake the dead.

Below, the swarm had fallen silent. The Sandworms, sensing the futility of the assault and the mounting casualties, had retreated into the sands.

“Hey!” Jax yelled down at the retreating shapes. “Where are you going? I still need twelve more! Come back!”

He sighed. “Cowards.”

He couldn’t leave the mission at 88%. Not when he was this close.

“Fine. I’ll do it myself.”

Jax secured the rope around his waist and handed the anchor end to the sleeping Barney, tying it around the giant’s wrist just in case. He carefully rappelled down to the base of the cliff.

The ground was littered with debris and corpses. The air smelled of copper and ozone. Jax scanned the area with narrowed eyes.

The main swarm was gone, but the battlefield was strewn with stragglers—Sandworms that had been crippled by the falling rocks or grazed by arrows. They writhed in the sand, unable to burrow.

“Perfect,” Jax whispered. He wasn’t about to show mercy to a bunch of oversized bugs. He picked up a heavy stone, weighing it in his hand.

He approached a twitching Sandworm that had been crushed from the waist down.

“Sorry, buddy. Nothing personal.”

THUD.

[System: Hostile Unit Eliminated. +1 EXP]

He moved to the next one.

THUD.

[System: Hostile Unit Eliminated. +1 EXP]

It was brutal work, beating the drowning dogs, but in the wasteland, efficiency was king.

After a few minutes of grim cleanup, the final notification chimed.

[Mission Complete: 100/100]

Jax dropped the bloody rock and exhaled a long breath.

“Done,” he muttered, looking up at the lightening sky. “I should get back up before the sun hits. I’ll loot the Cores once there’s full visibility.”