'Life, Depravty, Death, such a saccharine fragrance!'
Malik, still midair, had his entire body flinch.
'Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!'
The voice wasn't anybody's.
'Let life's Jasmine bloom brightly in crimson.'
But the moment he heard it...
The air got even heavier.
Aether began to congregate all around him.
Just as he landed onto a dune, his feet dug deep into the sand.
There was no doubt about it... even breathing felt harder than before.
His limbs were sluggish, like someone had wrapped invisible chains around him.
Still, Malik pushed forward without hesitation.
But instead of soaring forward, he barely made it ten paces before dropping.
Redirecting himself a breath before he fell into the void below, he landed on a step of sand, his knees nearly buckling on impact.
'Fight, kill, die, a Magi is born to battle!'
The already extreme weight doubled.
If he was a mortal, such a weight would've crushed him to a paste.
Thankfully, he was so very far from that.
Malik gritted his teeth, muscles burning as he forced himself upright.
The whispers weren't stopping. And with every word, the world pressed down harder, squeezing the air from his lungs.
He jumped again, fire bursting from his hands—but again, it barely carried him.
Malik landed roughly, stumbling forward, legs screaming in protest.
Then the next whisper came:
'Walk, walk, walk, continue walking your path of corpses.'
Malik gasped, his body sinking.
His muscles locked, his breath short.
It wasn't just heavy anymore—it felt like the world itself was trying to pull him under.
His fingers dug into the sand.
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!"
He forced his fire out, letting it roar wildly around him.
Heat exploded, fighting against the pressure, allowing him to move.
And, as if he wasn't struggling enough, something wrong arrived.
It clawed at the edges of his mind, revealing hunger.
A hunger that wasn't his.
A hunger that belonged to the dead.
'It's so dark... I can't move...'
'Where did my legs go?'
'I was supposed to be king. I was supposed to be remembered.'
'It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.'
'No, no, I can't die here! Please, someone—'
'I should have never come here...'
'Mother, forgive me... I failed you...'
'End it, I beg you...'
'I don't... I can't see...'
'No... I... I don't want to die.'
'Save me, please, don't leave me behind, please...'
'Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please.'
'Oh... please, give me anything... I didn't eat for so long.'
'Why won't you do it?'
'Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?'
'It's all quiet... it's so quiet.'
'Baba, where are you?...'
The voices of those who had died here, their final moments echoing in his mind.
Malik clenched his jaw, forcing his feet forward, dragging himself through the sand.
The pressure was unbearable, but he refused to stop.
The whispers wanted blood? Wanted him to crumble?
They could go back to where they had come from.
'Let darkness flow; let it eat, slither, Corrupt.'
Malik's knees nearly gave out, but he used the last of his strength and fire to propel himself forward one last time—
And then, just like that, the weight vanished.
He crashed onto solid ground, panting, sweat pouring down his back.
The whispers were gone. The voices had stopped. And when he looked up, he realized why.
Malik had reached the end of the Shattered Dunes. And beyond what was not so far ahead of him wasn't land anymore. It wasn't sand. It wasn't rock. It wasn't anything.
The dunes ended abruptly, spilling into a sheer drop, an abyss that stretched beyond sight.
It wasn't just a cliff; it was a threshold—a place between places, where the world itself seemed unsure if it wanted to exist.
A darkness so deep it didn't just eat the light—it warped it, bent it, twisted it.
Above, the sky shimmered.
Not with heat—not just heat. Something worse.
The horizon repeatedly rippled, like a reflection on disturbed water.
It seemed to have forgotten what it was supposed to be.
Malik exhaled, slow, steady. His hands were shaking.
He hadn't even noticed at first, but…
The heat here was on a different level.
Not just bad. Not just unbearable.
The Shams was at its peak, sure. High noon, straight above, unblinking. But that wasn't the problem. The problem was here. This land.
The sky was too thin. The atmosphere itself had just given up.
There was nothing to stop the Shams's wrath from pressing down on him like a giant's palm.
A gust of wind screamed past him, dry, violent, like the breath of a dying God.
It carried the scent of burning.
His clothes—blackened. Curling at the edges, the fabric brittle, shriveling.
The heat wasn't just rising. It was devouring.
His lungs burned with every inhale.
His skin itched, stung, screamed.
His blood felt like it was boiling inside him.
His body had minutes, maybe even seconds.
He could've turned back. Could've searched for a cavern, like the ones further north, the kind that had kept him alive before. But there was no time.
There was only one place left to go.
To whatever waited beyond.
The ground under his feet was Hell.
Malik would argue that such a description was literal.
The dunes weren't dunes anymore—they were liquid heat, shifting, dragging him down like they wanted him buried. Like they wanted him to burn.
But he ran through them anyway.
Each step sank; each step burned. His soles were gone, the flesh beneath them screaming raw. His boots had melted into his skin—he didn't remember when. He didn't care.
He just kept running.
The sky above turned white.
Not blue. Not golden. Just a blinding, merciless white.
The world had been stripped of color, of air, of everything except the Shams.
He pumped his arms, forcing his legs to move, move, MOVE.
Every inhale was somehow even worse than the last, like swallowing live embers.
The cloth that once draped him was now gone completely.
A scream clawed up his throat, but he swallowed it down.
Kept going. There was no time for pain.
But oh, God, the pain.
It was beyond burning.
His arms, his shoulders—his entire body—felt flayed open, like he was being peeled alive.
Because stopping meant death.
Black spots crawled at the edges.
"STOP. CURL UP. LET IT END."
The black abyss ahead, yawning wide.
But... it was far. Too far.
Malik could not reach in time.
He gritted his teeth.
He wasn't going to make it.
With everything left in him—every single ounce of Aether—he let loose a beyond-final blast.
Flames erupted from his palms, sending him hurtling forward.
...His foot caught wrong.
He tumbled, rolling, spiraling, burning, falling—