The mini desert opened in front of Trafalgar like a stretch of land the world had forgotten how to keep alive. The last dying trees stood behind him with their pale trunks and empty branches, while ahead there was only heat, wind, and a broad expanse of sand broken by dark stone and long ribs of cracked earth pushing through the surface. Even the mana in this place felt different. In the forest it had moved with life, damp and restless, threaded through roots and leaves.

Here it felt drier, buried under the ground like something waiting rather than growing.

Trafalgar stepped forward without hurry, boots sinking slightly with each step. The sand shifted in soft whispers around his feet, the sound thin enough to vanish whenever the wind rose. He kept his eyes moving across the landscape, taking in the dunes, the exposed rock formations, the shallow depressions where something large might have passed not long ago.

’I’ve reached the desert, but what kind of monsters are in a place like this?’

The question stayed with him as he moved deeper. The forest had been straightforward in its own way. Claws, fangs, armor, numbers. The danger there was visible, immediate, the kind that rushed at you from the front and tested whether your blade was faster than its body. This place felt different already. Too open for ambushes from trees, quiet for packs and too empty for weak prey. A zone like this existed for one reason only.

It hid something worth fearing.

His gaze narrowed as he looked farther in.

The heat rising from the ground blurred the horizon enough to distort shapes at a distance. A few jagged pillars of stone stood scattered through the dunes like broken monuments. Near one of them lay the half-buried bones of some old creature, long stripped clean and polished by wind. That absence mattered more than noise would have.

’And from what Zafira said, Alfons and she seem to be aiming high as well. I suppose I need to find something on that level.’

The thought did not irritate him. If anything, it sharpened him. He already knew this exam was no longer just a matter of passing. Zafira would not settle for something average, not in a place like this, and Alfons, for all the things Trafalgar disliked about him, had enough pride to chase a target that would leave an impression. If both of them were pushing upward, taking first place with some forgettable desert beast would have no weight at all.

He wanted something that would matter when he dragged its corpse back.

The wind changed.

It came from the left this time, stronger than before, carrying a harsher grain through the air. Trafalgar stopped and turned his head slightly. Nothing moved on the surface. Only sand. Even so, the instinct running through his body had already shifted. His hand lowered a little, fingers relaxed, shoulders loose.

He began walking again, slower now.

A shallow ridge of sand stretched ahead of him, no higher than a man’s chest, curving around a cluster of dark rock. Trafalgar climbed it without rushing and paused at the top. From there, the terrain beyond unfolded in a broader sweep, and for a moment it seemed no different from the rest.

Dunes.

Stone.

Empty heat.

The sand moved but not with the wind.

The shift began in the distance as a low disturbance under the surface, subtle at first, no more than a wrongness in the way the grains flowed. A line pushed forward beneath the desert floor, cutting through the sand with the certainty of something that belonged under it. Trafalgar’s attention fixed on it immediately.

The thing was heading toward him.

The disturbance grew larger with every second. Sand lifted and spilled from the swell as if the desert itself had been forced upward from below. The line became a mound. The mound became a surge. By the time it reached the base of the ridge, the ground beneath Trafalgar’s feet was already vibrating.

And then it came out.

The head burst through the sand in a violent eruption, throwing a curtain of gold and dust into the air. What rose from beneath the desert was no ordinary burrowing beast. It was a worm, yes, but the word felt thin for something like that. Its body was thick enough that a man standing upright would have looked small beside only a single segment of it. Rings of plated flesh wrapped its length in layered ridges the color of old iron and dry bone, each section lined with serrated edges that looked capable of grinding stone down to powder. It rose higher, and higher still, until Trafalgar could finally judge the scale of it.

Fifteen meters at least.

Maybe closer to twenty.

Its mouth opened in expanding circles, lined with rows of hooked teeth curling inward toward a black center where no light remained for long. Sand poured from its body in streams. Its movement had weight in a way few monsters did, not quick and violent like a pounce, but immense, like the earth had briefly decided to stand upright.

Trafalgar stared at it and felt the corner of his mouth lift.

’Looks like it’s my lucky day. It came to me.’

The desert worm hung there only long enough to make its presence understood. Its body twisted once in the air, massive and grotesque, and crashed back down into the dunes. Sand exploded outward in a wave. By the time the cloud began to settle, it was already gone beneath the surface again, leaving only a broad depression and a low tremor running under the ground.

Maledicta materialized into his hand at once, dark-blue mana condensing into the familiar shape of the sword before the weight settled into his grip. At the same time, obsidian armor began to form over his body, rising from mana and locking into place piece by piece with such perfect alignment it felt less like equipping something and more like watching a hidden shape reveal itself. Black plates covered him in a smooth, predatory sequence, each section joining the next until the whole set swallowed the light around it instead of reflecting it. Nothing gleamed on its surface. Brightness vanished against it. Only the thin gold lines tracing the helmet remained visible after the final piece sealed over his face, pulsing once before fading into stillness.

Far above the hunting grounds, one of the projections shifted fully onto him.

Selara leaned forward first. "Well. That is not a small target."

Eryndor gave a low sound that could have been amusement or approval. "Now that looks more like something worth cutting."

Althea’s attention sharpened. "A sand worm."

Kaelen watched the image in silence for a breath, his expression changing just enough to show that even he had not expected Trafalgar to find something of that level so quickly. When he finally spoke, his voice stayed even, but there was no mistaking the weight behind it.

"So that is what he found."

His eyes remained on the projection, on the black armor, the drawn sword, the desert shifting under Trafalgar’s feet.

"Good," Kaelen said quietly. "Let’s see if he is as exceptional as everyone seems to think."