The mont that deep, thunderous sound echoed again across the desert world, every single youth instinctively froze.
That was another first thud. The second ca ten seconds later, and this ti, they all frowned deeply.
The third thud followed—deep, echoing, and heavy—and most of the youths braced themselves, assuming it was another round of three like before.
But when the fourth thud struck the earth like the judgnt of so ancient god, sothing changed... drastically.
In an instant, the brown mist that had already made vision hellishly difficult began to shift and swirl unnaturally, almost like it was being sucked into a whirlpool of darkness.
The mist vanished again, but not in the sa way.
This ti, it didn’t just turn transparent. No. The entire mist dimd like soone had switched off the sun.
A wave of grey swept over the sky and even the mist turned ashen, as if soone had drained the color out of the world.
And then ca the cold.
It didn’t start as a breeze. It hit like a knife. The temperature plumted with no warning, like soone had opened the door to the void and forgotten to shut it.
One minute, everyone was sweaty and half-dead from heat and exhaustion.
The next, their breath ca out in frosty clouds and their fingers started to go numb. Clothes weren’t enough. Talents weren’t enough.
Even those with fire-based abilities felt the creeping chill working its way through their layers of protection like an invisible frost demon licking at their bones.
Within minutes, shivers spread like wildfire. Lips turned blue. Knees buckled. And so youths? They started to feel sleepy. Very sleepy.
At first, the idea of sleep seed like a relief. Their bodies were tired. Their eyes were heavy.
So of them had been fighting for hours, walking through a confusing mist for even longer, and their limbs felt like lead.
But then the smarter ones rembered the deadliest part of hypothermia: that fatal, sneaky urge to just close your eyes and let it all fade.
It was a trap. The second they let their bodies rest in that cold, they wouldn’t wake up again—not here, not now.
And in this trial? Falling asleep ant disqualification. Or worse.
The science was simple. In extre cold, the human body focuses on protecting vital organs by reducing blood flow to the arms and legs, which is why fingers and toes go numb first.
The slower blood flow lowers core temperature, making it harder to stay awake. Add in exhaustion and your brain starts making mistakes.
Like thinking it’s okay to take a little nap. But in this environnt, a "little nap" ant your body temperature could fall below survival levels in just minutes.
And out here, where everything wanted you dead, freezing in your sleep was the sa as getting eaten by a beast.
So the youths began to move. No one told them to, but everyone knew it. Keep walking. It didn’t matter where.
Movent ant blood flow, and blood flow ant warmth. Or at least, sothing close to it.
People started stomping their feet. Slapping their arms. Rubbing their hands together. Jumping. Humming. Yelling random things to stay awake.
One group even started singing terribly off-key songs just to keep their brains alert.
The once-silent desert had beco a weird, zombie-like dance of teens flailing around in an eternal walkathon of suffering.
No one cared how dumb they looked anymore. It was cold. Too cold to care about dignity.
Lilith and Tierra had wrapped extra pieces of cloth around Creed—still unconscious—and tightened the ropes binding him to Lilith’s back to make sure he wouldn’t fall if she stumbled.
Lilith looked serious, her violet eyes glowing faintly in the grey mist. She was a being of lightning, of destruction and speed, but even she was having a hard ti keeping her body from trembling.
Tierra, on the other hand, grinned as if this was all a fun joke, but even her hands were tucked into her sleeves now.
Her daggers hung loosely in her belt, unused. There were no beasts this ti. No claws or teeth or screams.
Just silence, cold, and a kind of suffering that didn’t make noise—it just drained you.
"This is worse than those birds," Tierra muttered, kicking a rock ahead of her. Her breath misted like smoke.
"At least the birds died," Lilith replied, not even turning her head. "This doesn’t even bleed."
They weren’t just walking aimlessly. They had to keep their minds busy.
So, Tierra started listing all the reasons why freezing to death in a fake desert simulation was a terrible way to go.
Lilith would correct her with actual factual logic, like how hallucinations are a sign of late-stage hypothermia.
Tierra responded by pretending to hallucinate Creed turning into a taco. It was dumb, hilarious, and exactly what they needed.
Hours passed like decades. The grey mist didn’t lift. The cold didn’t ease. And the worst part? No more thuds ca.
Which ant the phenonon wasn’t resetting. It was continuing. Hundreds of youths gave up—so out of exhaustion, others because their bodies simply couldn’t take it.
But Lilith and Tierra never stopped. Not once. They didn’t run or panic or yell. They just moved. Step after step after step.
They used their Source energy to heat themselves from the inside, flaring their intent like miniature furnaces to warm their bodies just enough to keep going.
It wasn’t perfect, but it worked. Every once in a while, they’d pass another youth curling up in defeat, and Tierra would smirk and whisper, "Lightweight."
Twelve hours. That’s how long the cold world lasted.
And then, just as suddenly as it began, the four thuds returned. Each one bood louder than the last, shaking the desert floor. The sky lightened.
The grey mist thinned. And slowly, gradually, the overwhelming cold faded like it had never been there.
The brown mist returned, bringing with it that familiar sense of tension and danger, but to the survivors... it felt like rcy.
The mont the air stopped biting, kids dropped to the ground, gasping, groaning, or just flat-out collapsing into trembling heaps of relief.
They had survived the cold.
But none of them were celebrating. Not really.
Because after the cold... ca the silence.
And after the silence?
Another thud.
One single thud. Heavy. Loud. Echoing across the desert like a threat.
And every single youth went quiet again, standing frozen... waiting in dreadful, nail-biting anticipation to hear just how many thuds this ti... and what nightmare would co next.
Thud!
And then another. And then another. Each one pounding like the war drum of so ancient entity playing with their lives.
But this ti... the thuds didn’t stop at three.
Nor four.
Nor even five.
They kept going—six... seven.
Seven booming thuds!
As the last one trembled the very sand beneath their feet, everyone went silent for a heartbeat—and then erupted with cheers so loud they could’ve woken the sandworms back to life.
The number seven had beco sothing of a lucky charm in this twisted trial. Every ti those seven rhythmic pulses ca to an end, it ant a reset.
It ant they survived again. For now, they were alive.
Then, as expected, the brown mist began to fade once more, like so old curtain being drawn aside by invisible hands.
And for the first ti in a long while, the desert world was visible again in all its sand-colored glory.
The youths all turned with hopeful eyes toward the landmark that had beco the very symbol of this nightmare—the black pyramid that had been taunting them from afar since the very start.
Dozens of heads turned eagerly, praying that finally—finally—they’d be close.
But what they saw instead made their hearts drop into their feet.
The pyramid was still there, alright. Majestic. Towering. Glowing faintly in the desert sun. But now... it looked even farther away than before!
Like it had taken a few giant steps back while they weren’t looking.
A collective, disbelieving silence took over as everyone stood frozen, staring at the golden structure that had sohow slipped further from their reach like a desert mirage playing a cruel joke.
"How—how is that even possible!?" one girl blurted out, spinning in place.
"It’s like we’ve been walking in circles!" another scread, flailing dramatically.
Lilith’s face went stone cold. Her violet eyes narrowed like a hunter who just realized they were the prey all along.
"We weren’t walking in circles," she muttered, sparks of purple lightning already dancing across her skin again.
Tierra, right beside her, flipped a dagger into the air and caught it lazily. "We were being led in circles," she corrected with a sharp grin.
"This place is rigged. It’s not a normal desert. It’s got a chanism—or maybe an enchantnt—that pushes us away from the goal every ti we think we’re getting close. Smart, annoying, and cruel."
Lilith nodded, her hands already moving as lightning arced across her fingers like threads of fate. "That ans there’s sothing at the pyramid they don’t want us to see."
"Or sothing they do want to see us fail to reach," Tierra added, twirling her dagger.
Without wasting another second, Lilith’s body blurred and reappeared a few ters away in a crackle of electricity.
Her scythe slamd into the ground and carved a thick arrow into the desert floor—deep and unmistakable.
It pointed directly at the pyramid. This was her plan, and she’d been waiting for the mist to clear so she could finally use it. She would track their progress manually.
Every few hundred ters, she’d carve another arrow using her weapon’s deadly edge, keeping their path locked in a straight line. No more guessing.
No more wandering. They were going to the pyramid, even if the desert itself tried to lie to them.
And so, the next leg of their journey began.
The hours blurred again into a haze of sand, heat, effort, and pain. Another 24 hours passed, and each new thud brought fresh terror.
First, a triple thud summoned yet another swarm of those cursed black birds. But this ti, the youths were ready.
The air buzzed with sources, weapon intent, and battle cries as the sky turned into a battlefield. Lightning danced. Space shimred. And charred feathers rained.
Then a five-thud wave ca, unleashing a new nightmare: strange, worm-like beasts covered in a slippery mbrane that made them nearly impossible to pierce.
Their bodies shimred like oil on water, and no matter how sharp the blade, it just slid off unless you hit them at a perfect angle or used strong techniques to break their repelling skins.
The fight was frustrating. Gross. And involved way too many monts of people slipping in worm goo while screaming.
Next, another four-thud cycle blanketed the desert in icy night again. Cold returned with a vengeance, but the survivors were learning.
They stomped, walked, talked, cursed, and even sang their way through the frigid hours. Lilith and Tierra refused to slow down.
Even with Creed tied to her back like so kind of handso sandbag, Lilith marched on like a storm given legs, while Tierra flickered through space just ahead, keeping an eye out for traps or trouble.
Finally, after that hellish 24 hours, the seventh thud echoed again.
Relief hit harder than ever before.
As the mist pulled away like it had done before, Tierra and Lilith both spun around to check the arrow they had carved just before the mist settled in again.
That arrow—that single mark—was supposed to point straight at the pyramid. It was their compass, their anchor, their proof that they weren’t going in circles.
But what they saw made both of their eyes twitch in disbelief.
The arrow was pointing... away from the pyramid.
Again.
Exactly away!
Tierra stared for three full seconds, then slowly turned to Lilith with a blank expression. "I think the desert hates us."
Lilith blinked. "...I think it’s personal."
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