He had to admit, there was a reason Novat had become the disciple of Faraday. He wasn’t without a certain... insight.

"Besides," he continued, mostly to himself, "out here, you feel the razor’s edge between resilience and fragility. It’s... clarifying. Haven’t you noticed? The power inside you feels purer, more refined."

Novat knew that a sliver of the Desert’s Authority still permeated this entire wasteland. He didn’t understand the deep mechanics of how such universal laws worked, but if an esteemed patron like his mentor was willing to hole up in this sandbox, then there was obviously something special about the sea of sand.

Goddamn it, I wonder if it’s just a hallucination. Every time the wind blew sand across his face, it felt like a delicate caress. Like a beautiful woman whispering right next to his ear. What is this place, really? So silent, yet so full of noise.

That last part was a secret he kept locked away, a question not even his closest guards were privy to. He knew the term Desert’s Authority, but he had no real grasp of what it truly entailed. He wasn’t yet strong enough to comprehend it.

"Boss, you feel it too?" one of his protectors asked, his voice low. "The guys have been talking about it. They say it’s the spirits of their families, missing them." He leaned in closer. "I’ve heard some of the poor bastards who get hooked on that feeling... they climb the camp walls at night just to let the wind... comfort them."

"Heh, I’ll tell you what it is," the other guard, a sleazy-looking man with sunken eyes, chimed in with a leer. "It’s a bunch of guys who are so desperate for a woman they’re starting to hallucinate. I’ll admit, this shithole has a certain... ancient vibe. But what the hell good is that to us? The men want to tear into a fresh kill, chug ale until they pass out, and find a warm body to screw. That’s what they want."

Novat listened in silence. These two were his pipeline to the grunts’ morale, their unfiltered thoughts and desires.

"Boss," the first guard ventured, "next time the Grand Magus goes for a supply run... should we ask him to pick up some more female slaves? From the looks of it, we’re going to be stuck guarding this place for a long, long time."

For men like them, life revolved around a few simple pillars: eating, sleeping, shitting, fighting, and fucking.

"You talk too much," Novat snapped. "Get down there and supervise the camp setup." He pointed to the other guard. "And you, go watch the provisions. Make sure those idiots don’t waste the food we brought."

He shooed them off the sand-skiff and sat alone, watching his men work below. Every so often, his gaze would sweep across the endless dunes, a force of habit, scanning for threats he knew would never come. It was a pointless exercise. His mentor, high in his tower, held the Desert’s Authority. He could feel a single grain of sand shift out of place from a hundred miles away. If there were trouble, he would know it long before a patrol ever could.

He sighed. Who the hell knows how long it’ll be before the Desert’s Authority is finally mine.

***

High above, hidden in the cloud cover, Orion was facing a dilemma.

Do I wipe them out or not?

He could see the situation clearly. Novat and his crew were bait. The master of the Desert’s Authority hadn’t been able to sense an enemy, which must have made him suspicious. He was using this patrol to try and lure the true power out of hiding.

He was fishing, alright. But he had no idea he was trying to hook a great white—one that was more than capable of swallowing him whole. The real question for Orion was what would happen after he took the bait.

Bait, huh? A predatory smile touched Orion’s lips. Let’s see who’s really the one on the hook.

Deep beneath the desert, in the central chamber of the sand scorpion’s Nest, Soraya abruptly stopped her work tending to the gestating small scorpions. She tilted her head, listening to a command that came from nowhere and everywhere at once.

The original plan had been a slow infestation, hatching legions of scorpions to seize the outer territories bit by bit, a war of attrition. The new order from Orion was... aggressive.

So soon?

Night fell. Stars glittered in the ink-black sky, and campfires painted flickering islands of light in the darkness.

Between the starlight and the firelight, amidst the crackle of burning wood and the raucous laughter of the Pilanti soldiers, the subtle vibrations from deep within the sand went completely unnoticed.

Flasks clanged together. Shouts and drunken bets echoed through the camp. Lost in the haze of cheap booze and roasting meat, many of the soldiers simply passed out where they sat, their exhaustion finally catching up to them.

The thought that he might have to wait years, even decades, to inherit the Desert’s Authority had put Novat in a foul mood, and he had drunk more than he should have. He was leaning back against the side of the ornate sand-skiff, which his guards had converted into a makeshift tent for him. As the leader, he had to maintain his distance. He would stand taller, and sleep higher, than the common grunts in the sand.

"The meat is good, the booze is strong, even the damn firewood smells nice," he slurred to himself. "Just wish I’d brought a girl along."

He blinked, his eyes struggling to focus. "Huh... why is the sand... moving? Is a sandstorm kicking up?"

A faint, dry scraping sound began, growing steadily louder. Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh. Novat frowned. A prickle of alarm cut through the alcoholic fog. He knew that sound.

In an instant, his transcendent power surged through him, burning away the drunkenness.

"ENEMY ATTACK!" he roared, his voice cracking with a mix of fear and fury. "ENEMY ATTACK! GET UP! GET THE FUCK UP!"

His bellowing cry shocked the Pilanti soldiers from their slumber.

But it was too late.

Their camp was already surrounded. A living, breathing carpet of small scorpions swarmed out of the darkness, their numbers seeming infinite under the cover of night. The hissing of their million tiny legs was a storm of its own, filling the men with a primal, suffocating dread.

"Who’s there? Show yourself, invader!" Novat shouted. He was a lord, and his mentor, an archlord peak powerhouse, was watching over this entire desert. After the initial shock, his fear was replaced by a surge of defiant arrogance. He knew his mentor could see everything.

So he charged. He charged out of the firelight, into the darkness, straight towards the thickest part of the swarm. He was looking for the enemy, and he was putting on a show for his mentor.

CHIIIRP!

A piercing cry, like a hawk made of fire, tore through the night. A blaze of light erupted on the horizon. It was the phoenix Fenyra.

The crushing pressure of an archlord washed over the battlefield, and a colossal, blazing fireball streaked across the sky, aimed directly at Novat.

"An... an archlord?" he stammered, his bravado evaporating into pure terror. The heat was already searing his skin. "No... NO!"

"MENTOR, SAVE ME!"