Hikari marched.
Sand all around her.
The sandstorm creates a fog of war.
There was still solid ground below her.
The sound of loose stone cracking beneath the weight of her boot as she stepped.
An old road that hasn't been used in a long time.
She could still see scattered pieces of the road for her to find solid ground.
The sand itself could not support her weight that would allow her to take a stance.
Fortunately, it was a straight road most of the way.
She did had to kick off the piles of sand where it obscured the road.
Behind her a column of steam tanks rumbled, kicking up a sandstorm of their own as their clankering wheels plowed through the half buried road.
"Halt! Ok! ladies and gentleman, We reached the ambush point. Set up your formations as planned."
A megaphone voice came from one of the steam tanks.
The steam tanks stopped.
Hikari could hear the noise of gears grinding from their internal mechanisms.
The steam tanks formed up in a circle.
Their armoured tracks kicking up even more sand as they move off road.
The doors at the sides opened, infantry men sitting safely in the hold rushed out.
Cannons rolled off the ramp.
Steel pieces atop each steam tank unfolded, forming a steel umbrella over the infantry line below.
There were sand benders amongst them in their robes not armed with muskets.
They channeled their mana, hardening the ground around the steam tanks.
The riflemen then pushed picks into the hardened ground, fastening the steam tanks down.
Then, they pulled steel wires hooked onto the steam tanks across the clearing in the center, forming a mesh wire trap.
"Remember to stay under the steel umbrella at all times. Wait until they get their teeth stuck and then blast them. If the steam tanks get pushed off the ground, may Herda bless you. Your best chance of survival is still just to stay put."
The infantry completed setting up their formation.
Hikari stood on the outside, visibly impressed by the display.
No fancy magic or rare enchanted gear.
Just steel and gunpowder.
It appears that the general had survived more than one battle with the sandworms.
"Ok! Looking good! Now to the Lady Knight taller than a steam tank standing at the front. We are entering the lair of the sandworms now. If you want to cry and go home, now's your last chance."
"I'm in"
"Good! Looks like you got some gumption. Now, the sandworms are sensitive to vibrations in the sand. Bigger creatures have bigger hearts which means louder heartbeats which means you are the biggest meal they have ever seen in a while. Your Lady proposed an 80-20 split of the loot. So, I hope you don't mind being the bait. If you want to run away wobbling your tail like a Herdial bird, that's fine too. Then I'll just go back to your lady and haggle for 80 percent of the share."
"I'm in"
Hikari stares back at the steam tank where the megaphone voice was coming from.
"Now, I have given you some of our hearthstone scrolls. Pump some mana into them and smack them onto the ground and it'll crystalize the grains of sand into stone. It will even crush some of the smaller sandworms if you time it right. I gave you some acid bombs too, just drop them into the sandworm's mouth and it'll melt their insides. No need to light a fuse. We'll be back here too with cannons ready, so don't go back and complain to your lady that I sent you out to die."
Hikari nods.
She checks her gear.
The claymore of the former RazenHeir.
Her compliment of throwing daggers.
Her handcannon.
A pouch of hearthstone scrolls.
Acid bombs.
She's ready.
Hikari advanced.
The dessert was still.
Nothing but the sound of wind, blowing up clouds of sand, brushing across her wyvern skin.
She stuck to the road.
The sand on either side could ill support her weight.
It was quiet.
She stopped.
She was still within the range of the cannons behind her.
Nothing but swirling sand storms ahead of her.
Far In the distance above the sandstorm, she sees the massive stone columns of wyvern peaks protruding out of the earth.
The fog enshrouding the mountains.
A tall tower extending far above the clouds.
A faint rumbling in the distance.
Louder and louder.
Hikari draws her sword.
It flared with RazenHeir flame.
The ground below Hikari's feet shook.
She senses a massive body right below her.
Hikari grabbed a scroll and slammed it onto the ground, hardening it.
A ring of teeth emerged around her.
She leapt into the air just before the teeth closed. The hardened ground below her collapsed into pieces as the teeth closed up.
Hikari drew her handcannon and fired.
Her shot bounced off the teeth.
"A titan"
A titanic mass of brown hardened carapace gushed out of the ground, chasing after Hikari hovering in midair.
The massive teeth opened up again, revealing a dark bottomless abyss, filled with the glint of countless rings of smaller teeth, snarling away at her.
She grabbed her entire backpack of acid bombs and hurled it into the titan's mouth.
She hears the screeching sandworms housed inside the titan rip the bombs apart to their own deaths.
But the titan's momentum did not stop.
Hikari used her telekinesis to push herself to one side, pushing herself out of the titan's path.
Snap!.
The titan's mouth closed.
The force of its jaws would have crushed a steam tank made of steel.
She wouldn't have survived it either.
As the titan's carapace rushed past her like a speeding train, a barrage of cannons smashed into the carapace, breaking off pieces and releasing smaller sandworms stored within.
"The carapace is soft."
Midair, she was just out of range of the huge spikes along the side of the titan.
Hikari drew five of her throwing daggers.
They flared with RazenHeir flame.
She tossed them.
They pierced the carapace and embedded themselves in the titan's flesh.
She pushed onto them telekinetically, dragging them down with her as she descended and setting a strip of the titan ablaze.
She landed on the ground.
She falls to one side as her boot slips on the soft sand.
A scroll was used to harden the ground.
The titan's body was still going.
An endless train of carapace surging out of the ground.
The steam tank formation fired another barrage.
Hikari drew her hand cannon and loaded a cannonball.
Focus. Ignite.
Her searing shots pierced the titan's carapace.
She could sense the RazenHeir flame burning on the inside.
A sandworm suddenly appeared and lunged at her.
Hikari drew her sword out of reflex, tilted her body to dodge its teeth and sliced it in half.
Three sandworms appeared on both sides.
Hikari blasted the one with her handcannon, dodged under the high arc of the other two and sliced them in half.
More sandworms converged onto her.
She could sense the movements in the sand.
They surged out of the sand.
Hikari jumps.
The ground hardened by the scroll allows her to do so.
The sandworms sank their teeth into the hardened ground and got stuck.
Crunch.
They were crushed under Hikari's boot as she landed.
Another sandworm appeared.
A big one.
It more than matches Hikari in mass.
It opened its teeth.
It's mouth would swallow her arm whole.
Hikari sees the rows of smaller teeth on its interior ready to grind her into minced meat should she allow it to grab her.
It dove down and approached Hikari's from a low angle.
Hikari jumped to avoid it.
It curved up and around, aiming towards its prey in mid air.
Hikari turns and sees the teeth bared as its head surges towards her.
She raises her handcannon.
The bullet pierces through its head out the other side.
It knows it off its trajectory.
Hikari draws her sword.
She stabs it into the sandworm's body as she lands, pinning it into the ground.
The sandworm's momentum carried itself through the searing sword.
The shards of its carapace peppered Hikari's armour as it was ground to bits against the sword.
Its violet wriggling only dismembers its body against Hikari's sword.
Hikari got up.
The carcass of a giant sandworm split in half and being consumed by the Razenheir flames.
A scroll hardens the ground around her.
She found herself far from the road.
She takes stock of her surroundings.
In the distance, the steam tank formation was fighting off a horde of sandworms.
They held their ground.
A sandworm will emerge out of the soft sand and bite into the steel umbrella.
The high arc it makes leaves its body open to the infantry which stabs them with their acid tipped spears.
The sandworms screeched in pain as the acid melts their insides.
The bigger sandworms caught in the steel wire mesh.
Infantry men smashed it apart with their hammers.
There was a brief pause.
Hikari catches her breath.
The infantry let out a cheer as the sandworms retreated.
But their euphoria was short-lived.
The ground rumbled.
The rumbling got stronger.
The sand around them collapsed.
In an instant, the titan's teeth appeared, it gobbled up a whole steam tank, dragging the surrounding ones connected to it by steel wires off the ground.
The wire mesh that cut the smaller sandworms into pieces could not scratch the titan.
Men were hurled into the sky, disappearing into the sand as they landed.
Hikari drew her handcannon and fired.
The sound of steel being crunched inside the titan's body.
Two. Three. Four.
Hikari continued firing round after round into the titan's head.
The titan disappeared back into the ground.
She managed seven shots.
The titan had blown a hole in the formation.
The smaller sandworms reappeared.
The surviving infantry picked up their weapons and fought but the gap in their formation now makes them prey to the sandworms.
"They need my help."
Hikari bent her knees and leapt back towards the steam tank formation.
The sandworms bite into the men's arms and drags them back down into the sands.
Thud. Hikari lands.
She dashed around the perimeter of the steam tank formation, cutting through the smaller sandworms like butter.
The crunching sound of carapace beneath her boot.
"Hikari!"
The side door of a steam tank opened.
More acid bombs and bullets for Hikari's handcannon.
As she reloads, a steam tank starts its engine and makes a run for it.
"No come back!"
Before it could get far, a swarm of sandworms rips into it. Tearing out the hatch doors and dragging the men inside into the ground.
Hikari aims and shots the sandworms
But nothing could be done to save the men
There was a pause.
The sandworms still circled the formation.
Hikari could sense them below the ground.
The sound of the megaphone frantically barking instructions for the men to get back into formation.
"Cut the wires!."
The megaphone bellowed.
The wire mesh would only bring the whole formation down if the weight of the steam tanks could not stay the titan.
The men reloaded their cannons and muskets.
But it looked like it was falling apart.
"This won't do."
Hikari focused in.
She draws her sword.
It flared with RazenHeir flame.
The black steel and runic core ringed in response.
It flared even brighter.
The ground rumbled below her.
She could sense it.
The titan approaches for another.
"There!"
She grabbed the bag of acid bombs and tossed it over a steam tank.
The sandworm Titan emerged, swallowing the steam tank and the bag of acid bombs.
The smaller sandworms inside the titan screeched as they were melted by acid.
Hkari lunged at the titan.
It was the size of a clock tower.
With the strength of both arms and the thrust of her legs behind it, she plunged the searing sword into the titan's body.
Her elbow brushed against the rough carapace as the titan continued its climb up.
The titan's momentum carried her up into the air.
But she grips tightly to her sword.
It slices through its flesh using the titan's own momentum.
Incinerate.
Hikari pushes a burst of mana into the titan.
Incinerate.
The titan stops as it reaches the high point of its climb.
Hikari grabs onto her sword.
Her own weight dragged the sword through the sandworm titan's body.
She lands.
Incinerate.
Her sword's core ringed as she pushed more and more mana into it.
The titan recede.
Incinerate.
Hikari switches her grip as the wall of flesh drops.
Incinerate.
She kept burning the titan the way down.
Her sword hits a giant tooth out of its mouth just as the titan disappears into the ground.
Hikari senses the burning titan below the ground.
The rumbling got weaker.
The titan did not return.