The nine o’clock bell hadn’t even tolled, but the city defense soldiers at the main gate of The Sprawl were already nodding off.

“Old Lü, how long until we lock up?”

“Ten minutes.”

“Ugh, forget it. Let’s close early. Drinks are on me at the club tonight.”

“Heh! You serious? Then what are we waiting for? Pack it up!”

The two guards were eagerly gathering their gear when a raspy, desperate voice drifted from the darkness below the walls.

“Officers… wait! I need to get in!”

The soldiers froze, exchanging confused glances. They raised their torches, peering into the gloom.

“Down here!”

Jax clawed his way up from the dirt. He was a wreck—exhausted, dehydrated, and caked in grime. The last few hundred meters hadn’t been a walk; they had been a crawl, dragging the unconscious Barnaby inch by painful inch.

Seeing Jax rise from the earth like a revenant, the two guards stumbled back in genuine fright. Then the torchlight flickered over the massive, motionless body behind him.

“Holy shit! Are you playing ghost in the middle of the night? You have a death wish?”

“Dragging a corpse into the city after dark? That’s a damn curse waiting to happen! Get lost! Beat it!”

The sight of the haggard man and his giant, lifeless companion sent a superstitious chill down their spines. To them, this wasn’t a refugee; it was a bad omen.

“Wait! Officers, please! Can’t you make an exception?” Jax forced a pathetic, ingratiating smile. “We have Credits inside! We can pay!”

The guards didn’t buy it. One of them stepped forward and swung his rifle butt at Jax’s face.

Jax stumbled back, barely dodging the blow, his legs trembling from exertion.

“Piss off! I’ve seen plenty of these cheap tricks before!”

With a sneer, the soldiers grabbed the heavy Spiked Barricades sitting outside the entrance and dragged them together, blocking the path. Then, they retreated inside and slammed the massive city gates shut.

Thud.

The sound of the heavy timber locking into place hit Jax like a physical blow. His stomach dropped.

“It’s over,” he muttered, staring at the reinforced wood. “Being exposed on the Gobi at night is suicide. The Sandworms start foraging now. One or two I might survive… but if a swarm hits…”

As if summoned by his fear, a faint vibration traveled through the ground.

Jax scanned the desert. The sky was an abyss of ink, void of moonlight. The only illumination came from the weak, flickering lamps on the two Sentry Towers atop the gatehouse.

The wind howled across the wasteland, rolling grit and stones over the hardpan. Scrape. Scrape.

The sound was indistinguishable from the movement of chitin against sand. The hairs on the back of Jax’s neck stood up.

Gulp.

Jax swallowed hard, forcing the panic down.

“No. I can’t just sit here waiting to die. I need a plan.”

His eyes darted around the immediate area until they landed on the obstruction the guards had left behind.

“The barricades!”

He immediately grabbed Barnaby’s collar and dragged the heavy giant underneath one of the Spiked Barricades.

The structure was about a meter and a half tall, a crude but effective defensive tool made of sharpened logs lashed together, designed to break the charge of insectoid monsters.

Jax squeezed in beside Barnaby, using the wooden spikes as a cage.

The darkness deepened. Exhaustion clawed at Jax’s mind, his eyelids drooping like lead weights. He bit the tip of his tongue hard, the sharp pain jarring him back to alertness.

“Whew. Just three more kills to complete the binding mission,” he whispered to himself. “If I survive tonight, maybe I can finish it.”

To keep himself awake, Jax crawled out from the safety of the spikes to patrol the perimeter.

He ventured about twenty meters out but dared not go further. The light from the Wall faded into absolute blackness beyond that point.

Just as he turned to head back, a distinct sound cut through the wind.

Shhh-shhh.

Jax froze. He backed away slowly, his eyes scanning the edge of the light.

Suddenly, a dune shifted. Sand cascaded outward as a monstrosity erupted from the earth.

A Sandworm.

It was nearly two meters long, its segmented body encased in a yellow, armor-like carapace. Its head was a nightmare of biological engineering, dominated by a pair of serrated, pincer-like mandibles.

“Damn it! Contact!”

Before the words fully left his mouth, the beast lunged. Hundreds of legs blurred as it skittered across the sand with terrifying speed.

Panic flared in Jax’s chest.

Don’t lose it. Focus!

Jax turned and sprinted for the barricade. He threw himself into a baseball slide, skidding through the gap in the wood. The rough ground shredded the skin on his back, leaving a trail of raw, burning abrasions. He gritted his teeth against the pain.

BOOM!

The Sandworm, carried by its own momentum and unable to stop, slammed full force into the barricade.

Squelch.

A sharpened log pierced the creature’s underbelly, punching straight through its body. Viscous, foul-smelling ichor sprayed over Jax like a burst pipe.

Jax gasped for air, his heart hammering against his ribs. Then, he remembered.

The mission. I need the kill.

“Three more… starting with you!”

Jax scrambled out from the gaps in the wood. He leaped onto the thrashing worm’s back, pinning it down to prevent it from wrenching itself free.

“Trying to run? Not a chance!”

He didn’t care if there were others. He needed this one dead.

Jax located the creature’s head. His fingers found the seam of a heavy carapace plate at the base of its skull. He dug his fingers in.

Rip.

He tore the flesh connecting the plate, ignoring the stinging acid of the worm’s blood burning his hands. He shoved his fingers deeper into the open wound.

The Sandworm went berserk. It thrashed and bucked, tossing Jax around like a ragdoll on a mechanical bull.

But Jax held on with a death grip. Even as the creature ripped itself free from the wooden spike, he stayed mounted, his hands buried in its exposed nervous system.

“Die!”

Jax roared, putting every ounce of his remaining strength into an upward heave.

CRACK.

With a sickening wet tear, Jax ripped the carapace plate clean off. The force of the action threw him backward onto the sand, the bloody piece of shell still clutched in his hand.

Hiss!

The enraged Sandworm turned on him. Its head was now a bald, pulsing mess of raw flesh and dripping fluids. It shrieked and charged.

“You’re still not dead?”

Jax wanted to curse the thing’s mother. He scrambled back, gripping the sharp carapace like a dagger.

But the damage was done. The worm made it ten meters before its legs gave out. It shuddered once, then collapsed into the dirt, dead.

Jax’s legs turned to jelly. He nearly collapsed right there.

“Right. The Core. Check for loot.”

He stumbled over to the carcass. Fighting back a wave of nausea, he thrust his hand into the ruined head, groping through the brain matter. The sensation of sticky, warm slime was revolt inducing.

Finally, his fingers closed around something hard. He pulled it out.

A grayish-white crystal, coated in mucus, glimmered in the faint light.

“Haha! A Core! That’s my ticket into the city!”

His victory lasted less than ten seconds.

From the darkness beyond the torchlight, a sound emerged. Not the rustle of one worm, but the roar of a tide.

Shhhhhh-shhhhhh.

“Ring! Ring! Ring!”

Suddenly, a piercing electric alarm screamed from the top of the Wall.

“Yes! The Sentry Towers are active! We’re saved!”

Jax looked up at the battlements in relief.

The Sentry Towers stood five meters tall atop the ten-meter wall, spaced evenly along the perimeter. They were complex machines, housed in wooden protective shells with steel-reinforced cores. A canopy protected the delicate mechanisms from the corrosive Black Rain.

Sensors embedded in the desert floor detected the swarm. Jax knew the protocol: the towers only auto-engaged when the hostile count exceeded one hundred.

That meant there were over a hundred Sandworms out there.

He looked into the dark. The desert floor seemed to be boiling. The sand rippled like water as a wave of monsters surged toward the light.

“Whew. Just need to survive the crossfire.”

Jax gripped the piece of sharp carapace tight. He glanced back at Barnaby, sleeping peacefully under the barricade. For a moment, he felt a pang of jealousy.

“Must be nice to be brain-dead. No worries at all. Sigh.”

Thwack-thwack-thwack!

The Sentry Towers roared to life.

Silver-gray heavy crossbow bolts, propelled by immense kinetic energy, rained down from the wall.

Jax watched as the vanguard of the Sandworm swarm was nailed to the desert floor, their shrieks piercing the night. It was a massacre.

“Just don’t aim at me…”

As if the universe heard him and decided to play a joke, a group of Sandworms broke through the barrage. Dodging the rain of bolts, half a dozen of them zeroed in on the only fresh meat available.

They turned toward Jax.

“You have got to be kidding me!”