It was a sensation he’d never get used to in part because he’d gone so long without it. That feeling of smallness, nearly stifling, hit like a shock of cold water to the face. Then it settled in on him, cloaking him like a straightjacket. Making stone of his limbs.

A lesser human might’ve fainted on the spot. As it was he had to scream at his limbs to move; his body’s instincts had all gone haywire. The great beast—some kind of Flood Dragon, by the looks of its phosphorescent scales, its angular face and sleek build—flicked its head, its maw creaking, holding back a throat-full of toxic death.

Before a flash of volcanic red pummeled it upside the head. The blast was sudden and so violent it felt like the world was ending; Dorian was nearly thrown over by the aftershock. He glanced to his left and saw a Drake rising from the sands, gushing gray blood from a litany of wounds. An eye was poked out. The other smoldered with hate.

It bellowed so deeply the sound seemed to rattle around Dorian’s bones; then it leapt up, spewing liquid fire, and the world whited out once more.

Dorian’s eardrums felt like they’d been punctured. All he heard was static and a shrill whine, then an unnatural silence. The attack did, however draw away the Flood Dragon’s attention. And with it went that chest-crushing pressure. Dorian could breathe again.

He took the chance and sprinted instantly for the bone. In his head he kept up a count—not of footsteps but of heartbeats. There was a certain trap he’d sprung; he needed to make certain he got the timing just right…

Now he was close enough to see it clearly. It was a scale nearly the size of his palm, a deep-ocean green, glowing like a gemstone in the dying light. What little light there was slipped and slid off its polished, curved surface. There wasn’t a scratch or chip on it. It was thin—thin as a nail. It arrested the gaze, hypnotic; its surface was like the Sinkhole itself: a gaping, vast maw you couldn’t help but be drawn into.

Its presence was another kind of pressure. Not a blunt, heavy weight, but something more insidious, under-the-skin. So thick his lungs strained at the effort. It took great hacks to drag in the air now. Still he went, sweat pouring down his head, blocking out the chaos all around him. Only one thing mattered now.

The last three steps seemed to take an eternity; behind him twin explosions rocked the world. Then he reached out, shoving his hand through the air.

This close, it felt like his hand was repelled by a magnet. The closer he got, the slower his fingers got, the more they trembled. It was an infuriating slowdown this close. It was seconds spent that he could not afford. He felt his heart thrashing in his chest. How long might that Drake distract the Flood Dragon?

His hands clasped around the Bone.

In an instant he drew it into the Interspatial Ring. Its colossal presence and aura, shunted into another dimension, vanished instantly.

In the same motion, breathing fast, he whirled around wildly. Burning all of his qi into the [Cloud-Treading Steps], he sprinted like a madman.

He made it five steps before he felt a crushing presence descend on him again. Behind there was the sound of a massive body thumping against the sands, a [Profound] Realm aura flickering, half-dead… Ah, hells.

He didn’t turn around. He didn’t make the mistake of looking into the thing’s eyes. It was much easier to keep running now that he’d already started, even as his legs stepped out and bent at awkward angles, even as the weight on his back stacked up.

From behind came a screech like thunder. Ahead he saw Kaya’s face, pallid in a swarm of smoke. She yelled something beyond his hearing and threw out a Tongue of Flame—not as an attack, he saw, but like an escape rope. Something to cling onto.

Half a heartbeat later every hair on his back stood up. Intuition screamed at him to leap aside. He felt the shadow crane over him first, saw the outline of one massive head rearing back…

Throwing himself forward with all his might, he grabbed for the rope. Kaya hauled it in in one smooth stroke.

From behind him came a sound like a wave crashing. He heard liquid steaming and hissing and sloshing; droplets of it scattered across his back, drilling into him, so hot it tested this body’s limits for pain. He bit back a scream. He didn’t even feel the Tongue burning his hands as he rocketed through the air, pulled by Kaya’s yank. A second later he stood by her side, panting.

There stood the Flood Dragon. The Drake’s fallen body lay unmoving behind it. Its eyes were locked straight onto him; with only this much space for lift-off Dorian was sure he wouldn’t make it.

Where is the trap?! Had he timed it wrong? He’d counted the seconds off in his head all this time. Any second now it’d come…

“Run,” whispered Kaya. Her face was a mask of horror. She bit down on her lip hard enough to draw blood; she twisted her expression into a forced scowl. Her trembling hands lit up with flame.

A braver or dumber man would’ve thought twice about it. Dorian didn’t need to be told twice.

Poor, dumb, brave Kaya charged the [Profound] Realm beast, burning her bloodline to its fullest.

Dorian kept running, estimating the takeoff, counting down the seconds in his mind. No. It isn’t enough. Mid-sprint he went for the nearest large dune instead, a new plan popping fully-formed to mind.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kaya leap up like a shooting star. She shone like hope; a battle-cry leapt from her lips with such sincerity Dorian almost believed it. She was a burning, white-hot dot against the night.

Then the Flood Dragon batted her out of the sky with one derisive paw.

She hurtled to the sands like a skipping-stone, bounced four times off the sand—each one accented by the sickening crunch of bones breaking—and settled at last in the dust. She didn’t move. Half her limbs were bent the wrong way; her chest was a mess of gore and bone. Blood gushed out from her mouth like a fountain; her body lay splayed like a broken doll. Her eyes stared blankly, uncomprehending.

All the while Dorian had torn into the dunes. Suppressing a wince, he kept digging. His sweat was dripping into his eyes now, down his chin; just a little more! Where’s that damned trap?

There was no hiding from this [Profound] beast—least, not behind any dunes. The only way was to suppress his aura; to cut off the use of any qi Techniques, bury himself in one, and bide an inkling of time.

Just enough time for his would-be trap to go off. Assuming it hadn’t malfunctioned already, that is. If it did, he was done for either way.

He was almost done digging. But the great head was swerving now, scoping out the sands, wafting away the dust and the smoke with ferocious breaths; stifling a curse, he leapt into his half-finished hideout and heaped a layer of sand back over him. It was shallow, it was easily disrupted, but right now it’d have to do. Its only purpose was to buy time. Time for his trap to go off.

Breathing as slowly as he could, he tried to make sense of the situation.

He thought of Kaya. His heart spiked a little as he thought of her limp form—dead, probably. He thought of the look on her face, her constant half-smile now turned into a vacant, unblinking stare… she was an investment he’d never get back. No matter—it’d done what he needed, at least. Exchanged her life for his own. That was a worthwhile trade, especially if he made it back out with the Bone.

That was no guarantee. It was looking less likely by the second. He’d bought himself some time with this hide-out, sure, and it was a stroke of sheer luck that he had an Interspatial Ring on him to mask the aura of the Bone. But already he could hear the Flood Dragon’s raging in the distance as it searched for him, flattening dunes in a breath. Scouring around for any hint of him. All around him were the shocked, fleeing footsteps of various beasts scattering to the winds. Still the sounds drew closer.

Is this how it ends? He banished the thought; allowing any hint of it to poison his mind in the heat of battle was as good as an admission of defeat. But still it crept up on him, a shadow in the back of his mind, looming larger by the second. Another dune flattened, a few hundred feet off… another, closer…

He counted his heartbeats and his breaths, waiting.

Then—finally, nearly ten beats late—he felt a disturbance of qi in the air. A thrumming of force, rising fast.

Minutes before dashing for the bone, he’d left Kaya to plant a Heart-Quickening Draught. At first Kaya had been incredulous—and rightly so. It was useful as a pepper-up for warriors, primarily. But his time with Hu had revealed another, more potent use.

When stirred the right way and prepped with the correct ingredients, the Heart-Quickening Draught could be primed to explode after a short window. Hu had nearly blown one up on their first meeting.

It was no great effort, then, to prime one on-the-fly. Alter the ingredients just so, add in some delay, imbue it for a higher blast radius… It blew like the crack of a divine whip, so loud and cutting that even down in the dunes, muffled by the sand, Dorian felt his teeth chatter. It was a perfect firecracker, an auditory signal flare. The sound was music to his ears; he thought it’d never come.

From above came a growl. A shifting of a massive body. A fast slithering away, off in the direction of the sound, off to investigate. Dorian breathed out a sigh of relief. Perfect!

He knew he had to move fast. He clawed his way out of the sand with haste—by now he had an uncomfortable amount of experience burrowing his way out of tombs—and burst out. He scanned for the Flood Dragon. Back still turned, still slithering away in the opposite direction. His skin tingled with sweat and blood. He could almost feel the seconds winding down, his window for escape drawing closed.

He needed one more quick thing before takeoff. He looked around, saw the corpse of a Beast crushed to dust, saw the core within, and snagged it. It’d serve as an alibi if needs be. That, or a treasure to soothe the Tribe’s appetite for treasure. Like it or not he couldn’t afford to strike out on his own in this damned desert yet; especially if Kaya was sacrificed, he couldn’t come back empty-handed.

Then, just as he had stuffed the core into his ring and bent his legs for liftoff, a soft groan, almost a whimper, drew his attention.

His head whipped around. He stared in shock.

There, lying in a pond of her own blood, was the savaged, grisly, unmoving body of Kaya.

Still—by some miracle—breathing.