Outside the camp, everything was a dull, washed-out grey. Nothing could be seen past the immediate perimeter.
A lucid dream? It doesn't feel like it... Damian's mind felt perfectly clear. This wasn't the disjointed, floating sensation of being asleep.
Focusing his attention inward, he stretched his magical senses. The familiar, ring-shaped metal disc still sat anchored securely within his mindscape.
I'm not dreaming. A dream wouldn't have this level of precise detail, and I can still sense the disc. Damian confirmed he was definitely awake.
Checking the artifact also confirmed that its spatial crossing ability hadn't been blocked. That reassured him a little; he still had an escape route if things went sideways.
Wand firmly in hand, Damian carefully swept the entire campsite.
The rest of the expedition team was completely gone. Every trace of them had vanished, along with the personal gear they had been carrying. Yet, the camp's bottles, bowls, iron pots, and sleeping bags remained exactly where they had been left.
The Land Strider Birds and the Two-legged Pack Beasts tethered to the stumps had likewise disappeared.
Damian returned to the spot where he had been sleeping. The camp felt incredibly wrong, but he had no desire to go groping about blindly in that grey fog. In any horror film, that was textbook suicide.
He drew his white-rimmed Investigator badge from his pocket. He tuned it to Link's mana frequency and triggered it. The badge glowed briefly, then dimmed to a dead grey.
The long-range connection had failed. He couldn't reach Link.
Maybe I should just burn the disc's energy and cross back right now. The place was entirely too uncanny. With the danger level completely unknown, Damian preferred not to gamble with his life.
While he hesitated, the grey mist outside the camp began to shift.
A faint, warm light blossomed within the fog. It grew steadily brighter, bobbing as though it were approaching the camp.
Then, he heard familiar voices—Link's and Anna's.
Damian rose to his feet, his wand raised and ready, facing the direction of the glow.
Moments later, the silhouettes of Link and Anna rode out of the mist on a Land Strider Bird. The faint light he had seen was coming from a lantern held in their hands.
Link smiled warmly. "Awake?"
Damian frowned, saying nothing. A hard-to-describe sense of wrongness washed over him—and it wasn't coming from the clearing. It was coming from inside his own head.
At that exact instant, the metal disc in his mind quivered violently.
His Sea of Spirit lurched. A sudden, sharp flash of clarity shot through his brain, and his vision snapped from a dull haze to sharp, terrifying reality.
He realized with a jolt that he had somehow walked out of the camp and directly into the mist!
The figures standing before him weren't Link and Anna at all. They were a single Sandworm Monster.
Though it possessed humanoid arms and legs, no head sat on its shoulders. Instead, a dozen thick, worm-like necks sprouted from its collar. Each neck was as thick as a human thigh and ended in a gaping maw bristling with jagged fangs.
What had looked like fur covering its body was actually countless tiny, writhing worms. A single glance was enough to make Damian's stomach churn.
In its left hand, the Sandworm Monster carried a cluster of severed, glowing Lantern Monster Ape lanterns strung together. They gave off a dim, hypnotic light.
They were the exact same fleshy lanterns they had seen on the Lantern Monster Apes earlier.
Damian's face darkened as the horrific realization struck him. The Sandworm Monster was using the harvested Lantern Monster Ape lanterns to bewitch its prey and weave complex illusions. He had unknowingly fallen under the spell in his sleep and walked right out of the safety of the camp.
He flicked his wand. A translucent spherical shield sprang up in front of him.
At the same time, he began shaping his next spell, preparing to use a powerful Invisible Hand.
Several of the savage worm-necks slammed viciously against the shield. The surface rippled under the impact, nearly shattering, but it held firm.
The Sandworm Monster shrieked and drove even more of its fanged maws at the barrier.
Damian whipped a half-height, physical shield—a heavy magical artifact—from his undetectable extension charm pocket. With a sharp jab of his wand, he cast Invisible Hand, raising the heavy shield to float defensively in front of him.
Just then, his spherical shield shattered under the sheer force of the biting worms.
Unslowed by the broken magic, the fanged heads shot straight for Damian's throat.
The magically levitated physical shield interposed itself perfectly, blocking the dozen striking worms.
Bang-bang-bang! The fangs struck the enchanted metal with deafening clangs.
The artifact was exceptionally tough. The Sandworm Monster's teeth left no mark on its surface.
To stop the remaining heads from flanking him, Damian cast Mage Armor. A glowing, polygonal cocoon of magical armor formed a tight perimeter around his body.
He could feel the mental-protection effect from the metal disc in his mind fading fast. The hypnotic light was trying to pull him back under.
Unwilling to gamble his life on another timely quiver from the artifact, he pulled a vial of Invigoration Draught from his robes and gulped it down.
Ever since entering the Lantern Monster Apes' territory, he had kept the mental-resistance potion easily accessible in his pocket for emergencies. Now, it was desperately needed.
Absolute clarity flooded his mind as the bitter draught took hold, completely banishing the hypnotic haze.
With his defenses solid and his mind clear, he aimed his wand directly at the beast's center mass and snapped out the Killing Curse.
"Avada Kedavra!"
A blinding flash of rushing green light poured over the Sandworm Monster.
It had absolutely no visible effect.
Damian's brow creased in alarm. The curse's failure proved one terrifying fact: the Sandworm Monster was an unnatural construct. It had no soul to sever.
Unfazed by the deadly magic, the Sandworm Monster's next move was to pluck one of its glowing Lantern Monster Ape lanterns and hurl it directly at him.
Damian flicked his wand, casting a rapid Transfiguration spell at a nearby rock. A thick stone pillar shot up from the earth, intercepting the flying lantern.
The lantern burst against the pillar in a violent splash of golden flame. It was magical fire that would trap anyone it touched in an inescapable, burning illusion.
As the Sandworm Monster raised several more lanterns to throw, Damian cast a Swamp spell on the ground directly beneath its feet. The earth instantly turned into a deep, sucking bog, and the Sandworm Monster's heavy body sank rapidly.
While it thrashed and struggled to break free, the lanterns in its grip were dragged down into the thick mire, extinguishing their hypnotic light.
Damian followed up with a rapid volley of Wind Blades. The crescent-shaped severing charms sliced through the air, but they merely shaved a few tiny worms off the Sandworm Monster's thick hide.
Another thick-hided brute... Damian thought in frustration. Lately, every monster he encountered seemed to be built out of the same impenetrable stuff.
Reaching back into his undetectable extension charm pocket, he drew a sleek dagger coated in highly concentrated Basilisk venom. If magic couldn't pierce its hide, the deadliest toxin in the world would do the job.
Instead of risking close combat, he cast Invisible Hand once again. The invisible magical force gripped the hilt and drove the venomous blade deep into the Sandworm Monster's chest.
The poison ravaged it instantly. The dozen worm-necks whipped and thrashed wildly in the air, screaming in agony as the venom melted the Sandworm Monster from the inside out.
Moments later, the massive body collapsed, convulsing violently in the mud.
Basilisk venom—truly worth its weight in gold, Damian thought, watching the Sandworm Monster die. Even something this monstrously tough can't withstand it.
Soon, the Sandworm Monster's mana completely faded into lifeless silence.
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