The heavy armored bus groaned under a massive impact, its thick plating crumpling like tin foil. Inside, the world became a symphony of grinding metal and human screams.
“Ugh!”
“Cough!”
The bus rolled, and its passengers were tossed violently within the steel shell. With no seatbelts to hold them, bodies slammed against the walls, ceiling, and floor like dice in a cup.
Yoon Ji-han was no exception. He hit the roof with a sickening thud, his vision flashing white. Dazed, he struggled to his feet, a warm trickle of blood running from his forehead. There was no time to wipe it away.
Through the reinforced windows, an impossible sight had captured everyone’s attention. A sea of crimson sand pressed in from all sides. The enormous bus was being swallowed whole by the desert.
“Shit! A sandworm’s dragging us under!”
“We’re all going to die.”
“Fuck! Is there an Chowol-in on this bus? Anyone?”
Panic clawed at the air inside the cabin. With a series of percussive bangs, plates of armor were ripped from the bus’s frame, peeling away like old scabs. Soon, the hull would be breached, and they would all become feed for the monster below. Or perhaps they would suffocate first, buried under tons of sand. A part of Yoon Ji-han wondered if that might be the more merciful death.
Just then, a voice cut through the chaos. “You damn bug…”
One of the miners, his face a mask of fury, thrust a hand toward the window. A blade of pure wind shot from his palm.
Yoon Ji-han’s eyes widened. An Chowol-in.
The attack was magical, that much was clear. But the power behind it was pathetic. The wind-blade struck the wall of sand pressing against the window and dissipated with a soft puff, doing no damage whatsoever. The sandworm was completely unharmed.
A wave of despair washed over the passengers who had felt a fleeting spark of hope.
“He’s only an F-rank.”
“Damn it! That figures. No real Chowol-in would be caught dead riding out to the Yeongseok Gwangsan.”
Even among the Awakened, the chasm between ranks was immense. F-ranks were the pebbles at the bottom of the food chain, barely stronger than ordinary humans and utterly useless against a colossal monster like a sandworm.
Yoon Ji-han didn’t know why an F-rank had been on this bus, but his ability was a poor match for the situation. Trying to cut through the sheer mass of sand protecting the sandworm’s body was a fool’s errand.
“Die! Just die!” the man shrieked, losing control. He unleashed a frantic volley of wind-blades, each one vanishing uselessly against the sand as he burned through his mana.
In that moment of distraction, the armor plating beside him was torn away. A colossal, muscular tongue, slick and pale, lashed through the opening. It coiled around the F-rank Chowol-in like a whip, and in the blink of an eye, yanked him out into the crushing darkness of the sand.
“Aaaah!”
His scream was sharp, then abruptly silenced. No one needed to see what happened next to understand his fate.
“We’re dead! We’re all going to die!”
“What do we do?”
“Sob!”
Sand began pouring through the new breach like a waterfall. It surged around their ankles, and another passenger was dragged under with a choked cry.
Yoon Ji-han bit his lip so hard he tasted blood, the pain a distant thing. The sand was already up to his waist, its weight a suffocating promise. Suffocation, or being devoured? Neither option was acceptable. His mind, normally a frantic hive of activity, went utterly blank, frozen by the sheer terror of it all.
With a deafening shriek of tearing metal, a final, massive impact split the bus in two. Screams and gurgles filled the air as half the remaining passengers vanished into the churning sand.
“Damn it!” Yoon Ji-han cursed, trying to look around. The sand had already reached his shoulders, and the forms of the people near him were just indistinct, struggling shapes.
He had to make a choice. If I stay here, I die.
With sudden urgency, Yoon Ji-han ripped a long strip from his shirt. He quickly wrapped the cloth tightly over his face, covering his eyes, nose, and mouth—a desperate, last-ditch effort to keep the sand out. Then, taking a final breath, he plunged himself into the crimson tide.
The pressure was immediate and immense. It crushed him from all sides, making it impossible to breathe, let alone move a single finger. Yoon Ji-han fought the instinct to struggle and instead surrendered his body to the suffocating embrace.
Faintly, he heard the final groan of collapsing metal—the death cry of the armored bus. He didn't need to see to know the fate of anyone left inside.
The sand around him began to surge and flow, displaced by something enormous swimming through it. It was coming.
Yoon Ji-han tried to wriggle, to squirm away, but the crushing weight held him fast. He was pinned, helpless, as the vibrations grew stronger. The sandworm was closing in.
I don’t want to die. I can’t die yet.
His heart hammered against his ribs, so violently he thought it might burst before the monster even reached him. Blood roared in his ears, a frantic, thundering pulse that surged toward his head.
Then, something inside his mind shattered. It was a silent, internal explosion that only he could feel.
At the same instant, seven lines etched themselves onto his wrist like a fresh tattoo. The lowest of the bars began to glow with a faint orange light. Buried in the sand, he couldn't see the insignia, but Yoon Ji-han knew, with absolute certainty, what had just happened.
It’s an Awakening.
The blessing that came to only a select few had found him in his final moments. He had no idea what his new abilities were; he couldn’t see the rank insignia that had just appeared. All Awakened Ones had one on their wrist—seven bars, like a military emblem, that denoted their power.
The moment it happened, his breathing eased. The immense pressure on his body vanished. The sand that had been crushing him now felt as gentle and buoyant as amniotic fluid. Though no one had told him, he knew instinctively that his newfound power was connected to the sand itself.
Yoon Ji-han swept his hand through the grit, and his body, which had been hopelessly trapped, shot forward. A colossal maw filled the space where he had been a heartbeat before. Rows of interlocking teeth, stained red with the blood of the other passengers, spun like industrial gears.
The sandworm’s jaws snapped shut on empty sand. If he had moved a fraction of a second later, he would have been ground to paste. A cold dread washed over him. Insane.
The Awakening had saved him from the initial attack, but the fundamental problem remained. He couldn’t possibly defeat a monster of this scale. The fate of the F-rank Chowol-in was proof enough of that. Right now, I just need to get out of the sand.
Yoon Ji-han thrust his hands forward and began to swim, the millions of grains parting before him as if to guide his way. He carved through the depths, aiming for the distant surface.
A powerful tremor pulsed from behind him. The sandworm was giving chase. Yoon Ji-han’s speed was impressive, but the monster was faster. It was gaining.
Damn it, is this all I can do? Just swim in the sand?
A shiver of terror traced its way up his spine. It was right behind him now. He could sense the shadow of its gaping mouth. An image flashed through his mind: the monster swallowing person after person. He felt a sudden, burning desire to shove all this sand right back down its throat.
As the thought formed, the flow of sand around him changed. It began to coalesce in front of his hands, gathering and condensing into a dense, swirling mass.
Staring at it, a name surfaced in his mind. Morae Po.
He hadn’t been taught it; the name was just there, as if it had been engraved in his soul from the very beginning, waiting for the right conditions to be read.
With a propulsive hiss, the condensed sand shot forward like a high-pressure water jet. The stream slammed into the roof of the sandworm’s open mouth. From the outside, it was a tiny wound, but inside, the Morae Po ripped through the creature’s soft palate like it was wet paper.
The sandworm let out a silent, agonized shriek that shook the desert. The colossal beast thrashed in agony, its convulsions churning the sand into a seismic storm. Yoon Ji-han seized the opportunity and surged upward, breaking free from the sandworm’s reach and bursting out into the open air.
“Puh-ha!”
He gasped, letting out the breath he had been holding. Fresh air filled his lungs, and with it, the exhilarating feeling of being alive.
Just then, voices cut through the air.
“Survivor! Look, there’s a survivor over there.”
“It was a sandworm, just like the report said. Everyone, get ready.”
Yoon Ji-han lifted his head and saw a small, rugged vehicle approaching. It was heavily armored, with massive wheels designed for desert terrain. The people inside showed no fear, only a grim readiness. As they drew closer, he could feel an unusual aura radiating from them.
They’re Awakened Ones.
He knew it at a glance. Only the truly powerful would face a sandworm with such calm confidence.
As if on cue, the ground ruptured. The enormous sandworm that had been hunting him erupted from the sand, its shredded mouth gaping.
A middle-aged man who seemed to be their leader shouted a command. “Pin it! Don’t let it get back under!”
“Okay, Captain,” a woman with hair the color of the desert sky replied, her tone deceptively sweet. She extended a hand toward the thrashing beast. An instantaneous frost spread across the ground, freezing the sand around the sandworm solid. Trapped, it could only writhe on the surface.
“It’s too big,” the woman said. “I can only hold it for a few seconds.”
“That’s more than enough,” the Captain said with a cold smile.
He drew a massive claymore and charged, his subordinates fanning out behind him. With a battle cry, he brought the greatsword down like a guillotine. The blade cleaved through the sandworm’s tough hide as if it were parchment, exposing the crimson flesh beneath.
As the beast twisted in pain, another of the Captain’s subordinates stepped forward, pressing a hand against its body. “A sandworm on the surface,” the man mused. “You don’t see this every day.”
A low hum filled the air as the man’s palm began to vibrate at an impossible speed. His name was Choi Min-jun, and his ability was Pa-gong-myeong. A moment later, the section of the sandworm he was touching simply detonated, erupting in a shower of gore.
The finishing blow came from a giant of a man, at least two heads taller than anyone else. He leaped high into the air, then dropped onto the sandworm’s head like a meteor. The impact was accompanied by a thunderous crack, and the monster’s skull imploded.
“Haha!” the giant boomed, laughing as he was showered in the sandworm’s blood and viscera.
Yoon Ji-han could only stare, his jaw hanging open. They’re monsters.
In a matter of seconds, the beast that had devoured an entire busload of people had been reduced to a mound of twitching meat. It was a display of power he wouldn’t have believed if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes.
The Captain cleaned his claymore on the sand and sheathed it before turning his gaze on Yoon Ji-han. A shiver ran down Yoon Ji-han’s spine. The man’s eyes were cold and deep, and they held a terrifying intensity.
“So,” the Captain said, his voice flat. “Out of everyone on that bus, you’re the only one who survived?”