A guttural groan ripped through the armored shell of the dust-crawler. Then, a shudder, violent and sudden, slammed Silas against the grimy interior wall. A collective cry of alarm erupted, quickly stifled by another impact. The vehicle pitched, its reinforced chassis groaning under immense strain, throwing him sideways across the narrow aisle.
Faces flashed past, distorted by fear, as bodies tumbled like discarded rag dolls. Silas hit the floor hard, his head connecting with a metal strut. Pain bloomed, a hot, wet line tracing his temple. He tasted salt and copper.
Dazed, he struggled to rise, pushing through a haze of shock. A terrifying sight met his eyes, framed by the dust-crawler’s shattered viewport. Red saline dust, a swirling inferno, consumed their world. The vast, armored hull, meant to withstand the Expanse’s brutal temperament, was being dragged, impossibly, downwards.
“The Wyrm! It’s pulling us under!” a miner screamed, his voice raw with terror.
Desperation turned the enclosed space into a madhouse. Miners clawed at each other, their faces etched with frantic despair. No harnesses or restraints existed in this desolate world; survival was a solitary, brutal affair. The very air thickened with rising dust, making each breath a harsh scrape against the throat.
Thick plates of ceram-steel groaned, then tore away, peeling back like dry skin. The Salt Wyrm, a titan of crystallized horror, consumed their world. Its immense form, a living mountain of saline rock and shifting dust, was a nightmare made manifest.
“We’re dead! Gods, we’re all dead!” another shrieked. “Isn’t there an Ascendant among us?”
Hope, a fragile, fleeting thing, sparked briefly. A man with a wild, desperate glint in his eyes stumbled forward. He extended a trembling hand towards the viewport, murmuring a low incantation.
A weak, shimmering shard of crystallized dust manifested from his palm, barely visible in the dim light. It hung for a moment, an ethereal arrow, then shot towards the encroaching dust. The shard struck the thick saline barrier surrounding the Wyrm, disintegrating harmlessly, leaving not even a ripple.
Disappointment, cold and immediate, settled like a shroud over the frantic passengers.
“A lesser Ascendant,” someone spat, the words heavy with scorn. “Couldn’t even dent the Wyrm’s outer layers.”
Indeed, the Ascendant’s ability, a whisper of what Silas knew true power could be, was futile. His dust-shard, meant to pierce, dissolved against the creature’s immense, self-reforming body of saline rock and shifting particles. The Wyrm’s very nature made it immune to such trivial assaults.
The lesser Ascendant, eyes wide with a manic terror, continued to launch the ephemeral shards. Each one evaporated, powerless, as the dust-crawler tilted further, its remaining armor groaning in protest.
Then, a section of the viewport nearest the frenzied Ascendant buckled inwards. A colossal, grinding maw, lined with rotating crystalline teeth, burst through. It snatched the screaming man with a whip-like motion, his desperate cries abruptly silenced as he vanished into the red void.
Silence, heavy and suffocating, followed. Only the grinding roar of the Salt Wyrm remained, growing louder. Red dust poured in, a relentless tide, swirling around ankles, then knees. Panic, now devoid of sound, became a primal, choking fear.
Silas watched, numb with horror. The dust rose to his waist, then his chest. Bodies crumpled, overtaken by the insidious tide. He bit down hard on his lip, drawing blood, the metallic tang a sharp counterpoint to the salt-laced air.
‘Death. Not like this.’
He would not be devoured, not after escaping the brother’s vengeance. A surge of desperate defiance fueled him. Fast, he tore a strip from his grimy tunic, wrapping it tightly around his mouth and nose, praying it would buy him precious seconds against the suffocating dust.
Without hesitation, Silas launched himself into the roiling, granular abyss. The dust immediately enveloped him, a crushing, suffocating embrace. Pressure bore down on every inch of his body, making even a flicker of movement a monumental effort. He felt the weight of the Expanse itself, pressing him into submission.
A faint shriek of tortured metal echoed, then a thunderous collapse. The dust-crawler. Its last gasp. Silas knew, without seeing, that all who remained inside were gone, swallowed by the Wyrm or choked by the saline earth.
Below him, a massive tremor rippled through the dust. The Salt Wyrm. It was coming. It felt less like a creature moving through the earth, and more like the earth itself had awakened, hungry.
‘Cannot die. Not yet.’
His heart hammered, a frantic drum against his ribs. It thrashed against his chest, threatening to burst before the Wyrm could claim him. Blood roared in his ears, a rushing torrent, as despair threatened to consume him whole.
Then, a profound, silent detonation within his skull. Not pain, but an expansion, a release. It was as if a hidden chamber of his mind had shattered, opening into the deep, resonant pulse of the Crystalline Expanse itself.
Under his worn tunic, a faint, crystalline luminescence pulsed along his forearm, a new pattern etched beneath his skin, the Mark of Ascendancy. He couldn’t see it, but he felt it, a profound shift. Breathing, once a desperate struggle, became effortless. The crushing pressure of the dust vanished, replaced by a strange, amniotic comfort. He was no longer battling the dust; he was part of it.
Instinct, ancient and primal, surged through him. Silas extended his hands, not pushing, but willing the dust to yield. He moved. His body slipped through the granular ocean, countless microscopic crystals parting, then reforming behind him, as if he were a fish in water, guided by an invisible current.
A colossal maw, a vortex of grinding teeth and roiling dust, erupted where he had been moments before. The air displaced by its ravenous lunge sent a shockwave through the granular medium. If he had hesitated, even for a breath, he would have been another speck of red on its terrible teeth. Chills, cold and stark as the crystalline forests, raced down his spine.
The Wyrm pursued, faster than he could flee. He felt its presence, a massive, accelerating shadow in the dust, its hunger palpable. It gained on him with every frantic surge.
‘There must be more. There must be another way.’
He pictured the beast’s gaping maw, its endless appetite. A surge of defiant rage, cold and clear, washed over him. He imagined compacting the very dust around him, forcing it back down the monster’s throat. And then, the dust *obeyed*.
Around Silas, the granular current shifted, coalescing. Fine saline particles spun, compacting, hardening into a dense, crystalline spearpoint. It gathered, vibrating with raw, concentrated power.
‘Saline Lance.’ The words surfaced, unbidden, from the depths of his newly awakened mind.
Silas thrust his hand forward. The condensed projectile shot from his palm, a blinding white streak against the ruddy dust. It hit the Wyrm’s maw with an explosive crack, not a gentle stream, but a concentrated, high-pressure impact that ripped through its internal membranes.
Kwaaagh! The Salt Wyrm’s scream was a seismic event, a guttural roar that tore through the saline earth. Its massive body thrashed, shaking the very foundations of the Expanse. Dust erupted in geysers, blinding and violent, as the creature writhed in agony.
Seizing the opportunity, Silas surged upwards, propelled by his newfound connection to the earth. He burst from the dust, gasping, even though he no longer needed to. The raw air, thin and dry, tasted of freedom and cold, metallic dust.
“A survivor! Over here!” a voice boomed, cutting through the silence that followed the Wyrm’s thrashing.
Raising his head, Silas squinted against the glare. A compact dust-crawler, heavily armored and fitted with massive, multi-directional treads, idled nearby. Several figures, an unusual aura radiating from them, dismounted with an easy confidence that defied the desolate landscape.
Ascendants. They moved with purpose, their presence a stark contrast to the despair he had just witnessed. Their lack of fear, even in the shadow of the colossal Wyrm, spoke volumes of their power.
Then, the Salt Wyrm, angered and wounded, finally breached the surface. Its gargantuan, segmented body, crusted with ancient salt and sharp crystals, rippled under the twin suns. Its maw, now ragged and bleeding crystalline ichor, spewed clouds of agitated dust.
A man, older, with a lean, weathered face and eyes like chips of flint, gestured towards the writhing beast. “Hold it! Don’t let it dive again.”
“Understood, Captain,” a woman with hair like pale, wind-swept salt replied, her voice soft yet firm. She extended a hand. From her palm, a wave of frigid air rushed out, drawing every trace of latent moisture from the ground around the Wyrm. The surrounding dust solidified, turning the churning earth into an unyielding, brittle prison. The Wyrm shrieked, its thrashing momentarily paralyzed.
“Only for a few breaths,” she called out, her brow furrowed with effort.
“More than enough,” the Captain replied, a grim smile on his lips. He drew a weapon from his back, a massive, two-handed blade forged from obsidian-dark salt-crystal. With a terrifying battle cry, he charged, his figure a stark silhouette against the blinding white flats.
The salt-crystal blade descended, a guillotine of petrified malice. It struck the Wyrm’s hardened scales, tearing through them like brittle shale, exposing raw, glistening muscle. The beast convulsed, its agony palpable.
Another Ascendant, a burly man with thick, calloused hands, pressed his palm against the Wyrm’s pulsating flesh. “A surface Wyrm. Rare fortune.” His palm vibrated, a blur of motion too fast for the eye to follow. A low hum resonated through the air.
Boom! The Wyrm’s body, where the man’s hand rested, exploded outwards, a sickening spray of saline gore and shattered crystal. It was as if an internal pressure had ripped it apart from within.
The final blow came from a hulking figure, a man easily twice Silas’s size, who moved with a terrifying, earth-shaking momentum. He leaped, a mountain of muscle and bone, slamming down onto the Wyrm’s exposed head. A concussive blast echoed across the Expanse, and the creature’s head disintegrated in a storm of blood and broken crystal.
“Hah!” The giant roared, a laugh of pure, unbridled triumph, splattered with the monster’s ichor.
Silas stared, mouth agape. In mere moments, the beast that had swallowed so many, the terror of the Crystalline Expanse, was reduced to a mangled ruin. The sheer, devastating power of these Ascendants left him breathless.
The Captain sheathed his greatblade, its surface now pristine, absorbing the dust and blood. His cold, calculating gaze found Silas, and a shiver, not of cold but of apprehension, ran through Silas’s newly awakened body.