The wind howled through the shattered gates of the Land Cities, dragging with it the bitter scent of ash and rust. Morning had barely broken, but the sky already looked worn—colored in shades of fire and ruin. Beyond the city's decaying walls stretched the Wasteland: vast, unforgiving, and ancient in its violence.
Two figures stood at its threshold. One was Aryan—a young man with tired eyes and fists that knew hunger more intimately than comfort. The other was Kat, a warrior molded by survival, carrying the weight of loss behind every step.
They weren't just walking into the Wasteland.They were walking into a pact with death.
Aryan adjusted the strap of his satchel and narrowed his eyes at the dead earth beyond.
No more begging.No more running.No more fearing tomorrow.
It had taken him a long time to reach this point—too long. But something inside him had finally shifted. Maybe it was the way his hands still trembled when he thought of that sandstorm… or the face of the man who slaughtered a C-rank beast with bare hands. That glimpse of true power had awakened something.
A hunger.
Kat glanced at him, voice steady. "One last chance to turn back. Once we cross, the Wasteland won't let us leave the same."
Aryan didn't reply at first. His gaze remained on the horizon. Sand devils twisted in the distance like ghostly serpents. The silence between them lingered, but it wasn't hollow.
Finally, Aryan spoke. Quietly. Coldly.
"I'm not trying to leave the same. I'm trying to never come back as I am."
Kat smiled, thin and sharp. "That's the right kind of stupid."
They crossed.
The gates groaned shut behind them, heavy and final. The city was gone now. Forgotten. What lay ahead was a trial of blood, hunger, and ambition.
Their boots crunched over broken stone and bleached bones. The Wasteland was empty—but not silent. It was a place that listened. Watched. Waited for the moment when flesh grew weak and resolve cracked under thirst.
Aryan's thoughts drifted.To the taste of real food.To the weight of that crystal in his palm.To the way people had gathered in awe to see a dragon's corpse.
That man in the sandstorm… that monster-slayer…Aryan didn't know who he was.
But he knew who he wanted to become because of him.
He wanted to be someone who could change things.
Someone who didn't just survive the Wasteland—but conquered it.
After a while, Kat spoke again. "We stay out here for a year. No return. No breaks. We train. Hunt. Bleed. Learn."
"A year?" Aryan muttered. "That's all it takes to stop being weak?"
Kat shook his head. "It's not about the time. It's about what we do with it."
Aryan let out a slow breath, eyes scanning the ruins ahead. "Then I'll use every second."
They moved deeper.
The Wasteland opened its jaws. Cracked roads gave way to jagged stone valleys. The skeletons of long-dead cities dotted the horizon—swallowed by sand and clawed open by monsters.
No one lived out here.
Only the desperate, the damned… and the dangerous.
But for two souls with nothing left to lose, this desolation was more than a graveyard.It was a forge.
And what came out of a forge?
Only one of two things.
Steel.Or ash.