The sun slowly rose between the twin peaks of mound Ronom, making the snow near its top sparkle brighter than the brightest gems.

The morning light traveled down the green valley between the peaks, dispelling the lingering veil of night. Eventually, only the faintest of shadows could be traced amongst the evergreens and river Fay splashed and frothed amongst them. Nearby, a bird picked up its morning song, soon followed by others.

A lean male figure stood still on the riverbank, back pulled straight, long crimson hair and matching robes fluttering in the gentle morning breeze.

His face was impeccable, without a hint of aging. Yet boundless wisdom radiated from his sapphire-blue eyes. He took in the scenery and a small smile spread on his thin lips.

A bitter smile.

So, this is where I, Illume, meet my end, he thought. What an irony, for one called Eternal to cease being.

A hollow laugh escaped his lips.

He was once great. But so were those who schemed against him. And now his strength lay sapped, what little left bitterly resisting the end of his existence.

The curse was eating him from within and resistance -he knew- was ultimately futile. But he hung on, searching for a place to let it all end.

This curse is truly vile to extinguish my fire. Though the countless sacrifices that birthed it, are pitiable. Still, it was worth scraping up a bit of time; this is a nice resting place...

A breeze ruffled the leaves of nearby evergreens and a ray of light flickered playfully across his face. He looked towards the blazing sun.

“Worry not, father. Soon, I will be with you again.” he whispered.

Illume closed his eyes.

His perception spread like a thin membrane. It easily encompassed the mountain range and then spread to the surrounding lands. Its warmth was perverted by the curse, but he was too far away from civilization to worry about affecting ordinary people.

Instead, Illume focused on the feedback from his perception.

He could feel the brutal innocence of predators and the fearful fleeing of pray, from the gigantic Ronom bear mauling a frightened deer down to the tiny ants and the fungi they orderly harvested. He loosened his focus; beyond the struggle for life, there was a sense of unmarred harmony.

It’s nice to be strong, if only for dying in the embrace of the whole, he mused.

It was long since he had last considered the inevitable, but this did not mean he was ill prepared. After all, everything has an end.

As his form started shimmering, Illume directed the last portions of his will to preserve the valley’s beauty.

Hundreds of thousands of strides away, in the middle of the Great Desert, a traveler came to a halt.

His sand-colored hood fell off, revealing short black hair that stood out a little too much amidst the yellow expanse. He did not seem to notice though, for his sharp black eyes scanned the horizon.

What the…

He had just stepped within the range of presence.

It was something mere words couldn’t do justice; it assaulted his thoughts with silent pain, screams of agony locked in a soundproof coffin. The traveler’s affinity with magic was limited, but there was no mistaking that twisted power for anything but what it was; a plague upon existence.

He frowned and scratched his dry unshaved chin.

When unknown things feel bad, run. He remembered a teaching from when he was young and smiled despite himself.

He prepared to bolt for it but hesitated. Leaving the presence alone felt wrong.

And his intuition never failed him.

Without pausing to drop his backpack or rearrange his hood, the traveler grabbed the black scabbard stapled on his leather belt. He tilted it until it was almost parallel to the desert’s sand and moved his weight on the front foot. He then slid his hand on the scabbard’s metallic surface until the hilt was within his grip.

The traveler concentrated for a moment, his outline blending with the straight dune lines of the sandy environment.

He inhaled.

Martial aura poured from his body to his hand and from there to his weapon.

The traveler narrowed his eyes and a savage expression passed through them.

A blade bearing the same color as the sheath was revealed; slowly at first, but with increasing speed that peaked as it left its scabbard, becoming a blur.

In one fluid motion, the lightly curved long blade -a katana- followed a circular path to carve empty space. The martial aura covering it left the hot desert air shimmering in its wake, as if a cold gust had flown past.

Brows knitted with intensity, the traveler slashed away at the abominable presence. He releashed even more martial aura in the process, which he formed into a thin line on the blade’s edge.

Woosh

By the time the katana slid back into its scabbard, only the clean reverberating sound of his swing was left behind.

“Space-Severing Iai” the traveler murmured.

He then doubled over, gasping for air.

Travelling under the desert sun for several months had required little effort. Yet, he was now soaked with sweat, muscles shaking.

He assessed the situation; the presence had vanished, gone as if it had never been there.

However…

Stupid! A muscle on his face twitched.

He had gone and expended all his martial aura in the middle of the Great Desert!

Still, the traveler trusted his intuition.

More accurately, he had learned that ignoring it often brought misfortune. Like when he had spared a group of bandits that felt unforgivable, only to do the honors after they pillaged a village a couple days afterwards. The traveler seethed in guilt and anger at the memory of the powerless villagers watching their homes burn.

But his musings were short-lived. For he noticed -what was that?- a bulge of sand traveling fast towards him.

When the bulge reached half a dozen strides away, a fleshly mass shot out from it. The traveler dodged to the side and a worm-like creature twice as long as his height soared by. It landed on its snout and -thrashing its gigantic body- burrowed itself into the soft sand with a slithering sound.

Given its mass and speed, a collision would have been … painful to say the least.

"Ahaha!" the traveler burst out laughing as the bulge betraying the worm’s position silently circled around to repeat the attack. In retrospect, using martial techniques in plain sight was foolish for another reason too; they were sure to disturb nearby creatures.

Luckily, it’s only a giant worm.

Or so he thought, until he noticed half a dozen similar bulges of sand approaching from different directions.

Just great! the traveler sighed. It would be bothersome, but he could probably manage that many. Even without martial aura, he could still rely on his well-trained -albeit exhausted - body and the sharpness of his katana.

He once again drew the long thin blade, took deep breaths and relaxed his arm to the imperceptible trembling of muscles abused through abrupt physical and aura movement.

It’s too early for practical application against the immaterial; it drains of all my energy and if the target had been moving there's no way I would have succeeded. He evaluated his previous performance, while keeping track of the incoming bulges displacing the thin sand.

The first worm jumped out again.

This time though, the traveler was ready. He dodged and, with a graceful maneuver, sliced it right in the middle as its bulk soared by.

Even without the aid of martial aura, his black katana was a priceless treasure and it cut the squishy creature cleanly in two. Its two halves fell to the ground twitching and leaking some strange foul-smelling liquid.

The rest of the worms also launched themselves towards the traveler, slithering out from bulges of sand. Calculating attack directions, he easily dodged between their fleshly trajectories.

But their coordination left little room for a counter-attack.

These six are used to hunting together, the traveler realized after they repeated the same maneuver a couple of times.

He was at a disadvantage and he knew it; he would tire faster in the sandy terrain, whereas the giant worms were in their native environment.

The traveler gritted his teeth. He needed to take at least one of their attacks if he wanted to win.

Colliding with two of those should be my limit without aura.

He cursed his own stupidity. Who told him to expand all his energy in a hostile environment? That was plain hubris!

However, he felt like it would be fine...

Don't you dare deceive me! Damned intuition!

This time, he stood his ground as the worms charged in. Beyond a faint slithering sound when they moved under the sand’s surface, they remained eerily quiet for creatures of their size.

The traveler was once again assaulted from six directions. This time he span in place, dexterously pivoting on his left foot so that he maintained his balance –hence the ability to fight back.

The squishy dry flesh of a couple of worms brushed with his skin as they flew like gigantic arrows around him and he used the chance to cut another two soft bodies in half.

Then he collided with the worm that was jumping through his exact position.

“Boof.” A soft sound escaped the traveler’s lips as his lungs compressed.

Despite the worm’s soft and squishy flesh, he felt his chest cave in a little from the impact and his insides protested with spikes of pain. But at most he should have broken a couple of ribs. His sculpted body, nurtured under the care of martial aura, was not for show after all!

The worm he collided with twisted and tried to push him into the scorching sand. But, bearing the pain, he managed to roll out of its path. In the frenzy of action, he managed to slice off what he supposed was its head.

The traveler stood up, but did not have time to catch his breath or refocus his vision before he again noticed the slithering sound; the three remaining worms were almost upon him!

He was too unsteady from the previous impact to properly evade. So, he braved colliding with another one to dispose the rest.

“Boof-caugh”

This time, he spat a mouthful of blood when the worm’s front smashed into his chest. He gritted his teeth and rolled sideways before he was dragged into the sand, but was too winded to dispatch it.

His organs were damaged. Even breathing was painful.

“Damn!” The traveler cursed, trying to stand up. Yet the pain and unsteady sand made him lose his footing and he fell on one knee. There was a good chance this last worm could take him down.

However, his dismay was short-lived, because the beast fled, its soft slither quickly fading alongside an inconspicuous bulk of sand.

His intuition told him he had chased it away for good.

The traveler trusted his intuition.

Only, maybe, he trusted it too much.

Amidst giant worm halves that kept twitching, he spat another mouthful of blood.

“I'm never again expending all my aura like an idiot” he murmured before losing consciousness.

“Look, he collapsed!” A shout came not too far away from the collapsed traveler.

It belonged to a youngster, not even sixteen winters of age. He and his three companions had been carefully approaching from the moment they noticed the struggle.

“Har-Har! But alive betcha” laughed a second one from the group.

He was of the rough sort that could easily scare -or savagely beat- someone in a dark alleyway. He looked around in bad humor at the scattered worm halves, which were oozing sticky foul-smelling fluids, and kicked a half that sluggishly moved to bury itself in the desert sand and it landed some strides away with a dull thump.

“Must be traveling from afar” observed a middle-aged man wearing an eye-patch, eyeing the traveler’s large backpack.

He approached and examined the scene. Upon confirming that the traveler had lost consciousness, he started rummaging through his belongings.

“It's quite a feat to beat so many desert worms though.” interjected the only woman among them, following behind the man with the eye-patch. “Mm? His weapon looks pretty good” her eyes narrowed upon seeing the black katana, still gripped tightly by the unconscious hand.

“Maybe he's a disciple of some well-known school?” She sounded a little apprehensive. “It’s not wise to offend the powerful.”

“Bah, you are young and naive, damsel” scolded the man with the eye-patch.

“No respectable school would send a single disciple to wander the Great Desert. Plus, he carries a plate naming him Johan of the Sword's Path School and this isn’t a famous one.”

The thin lines around the woman’s mouth -the only signs she may not be quite as young as she looked- tightened in a mixture of a frown and a smile. But she didn’t reply.

“Then it’s lucky we spotted this Johan!” The youngster was excited at the prospect of effortless loot and it made his mannerisms exaggerated.

“Even better! We found a warrior!” grunted the man with the eye-patch.

He stood up.

“Luck’s indeed with us, boy; not far from here, to the east, lie the Black Lands. I still have some connections there, and he can fetch a considerable price; transporting ordinary mortals is not worth the effort, but trained warriors are a different story!”

“Then he, too, was lucky in his carelessness. Because he would die here from the heat. But as a slave he may still work himself free within a decade or so” the woman smiled without humor.

Without caring for a reply, she removed a small ceramic gourd from her belt. She uncorked its wooden lid, the smooth smell of tea leaking out, and took a large swig. She then turned her head to watch the drifting clouds, hanging from the clear sky like yellow-tinged cotton.

Her lack of spirit did not seem to affect her companions, who kept analyzing the situation.

“Har! If ‘t was a mage, then ol’ eye-patch here would ‘ave killed ‘im on the spot to be safe” sneered the rough-looking man.

“Why would I be afraid of another mage, you imbecile? Even most disciples cannot match me in a magic duel!" rebuked the man with the eye-patch, his voice filled with anger.

“Who’s an imb’cile, ya ol’ coot?“ the rough-looking man flared up. “Didn’t ya say I’d be good use?”

“I can just change my mind.” The single eye fixed on the rough-looking man with unmistakable displeasure, making the latter shiver. He opened his mouth to protest, but failed to find a comeback.

“Well, let us return to camp then. I think there's a sandstorm brewing.” The woman took the opportunity to cut in. "Also, there's no reason to linger near animal remains, which may attract more predators."

The man with the eye-patch retrieved a pair of handcuffs from his own backpack and put them on the unconscious Johan. He then murmured something intelligible, his eye narrowing in concentration. Whatever it was, it caused the air to shimmer but had no visible effect.

“There, that should keep him alive from the heat. Carry him!” He commanded the rough-looking one, who grudgingly did so.

The group of four trailed off in the sandy expanse, carrying their captive.