The sand beast towered over the dunes, mandibles snapping, tail thrashing like a wrecking ball with attitude. Its roar sounded like a blender full of gravel and regret. Echoers screamed, Rubblethump swerved like a drunk rhinoceros, and the sky decided it was totally okay with chaos today.
Grahilo hit the monster's leg like a meteor wrapped in sarcasm and green light. Gamma veins exploded through his arm as he struck—not just punching, but unraveling the molecules beneath his fist. The creature screeched and staggered sideways, slamming into a cliff face so hard the rocks apologized.
The Echoers stared. "That guy just unmade its kneecap."
"Yep," someone whispered. "That's the leg-splosion special."
But the beast wasn't down—it whipped its tail around, smacked the sand into airborne glass, and lunged. Grahilo didn't flinch. Instead, he raised both hands, gamma flaring outward in wild spirals. The ground bent beneath him. Not cracked—bent.
"Okay, Big Ugly," he muttered, dagger sliding into his grip. "Let's dance. I hope you like dramatic stabs."
He dashed up the creature's flank like gravity owed him a favor. Every step sent gamma pulses into its hide, weakening the shell, making it shudder. Near the head, he launched into the air again, spinning mid-flight—dagger forward, eyes blazing.
He landed the strike between its shoulder plates with a sound like a star collapsing. The green energy surged outward, slicing through nerves and bone like the dagger had opinions about how monsters should behave.
The sand beast wasn't just tough—it was annoyingly durable. Half-cratered, bleeding molten sludge, missing most of a leg thanks to Grahilo's gamma slam… and it was still trying to bite someone's head off.
"Okay," Grahilo muttered, eyes blazing emerald. "Respect the commitment, but you're officially on my nerves."
The monster lunged again, tail slicing through the air like a blade forged from angry rock. Grahilo dodged left—barely—feeling the wind pressure smack his ribs like a slap from a jealous hurricane. He flipped mid-roll, landed hard, and raised both fists.
Time to kick it up.
He focused.
The gamma energy surged violently, spiraling up his arms, coating his fists in green flame so thick it roared. The desert lit up like a rave held by angry astronauts. Echoers dove for cover, shouting things like "DUCK!" and "WHY IS HIS BODY SCREAMING LIGHT?"
Grahilo crouched, eyes locked on the beast's chest.
The creature reared up—roaring—mandibles spread—
And Grahilo launched himself.
Straight into the air. No step. No run-up.
Just gamma thrust.
He flew—flew—with both fists glowing, dagger tucked tight in his side. As he soared, sand swirled beneath him like a vortex, and the beast looked up mid-roar like wait what.
The impact was biblical.
Fist met carapace. Gamma energy erupted like a sun tantrum. The sound? Like someone detonated a lightning storm inside a volcano and threw in a dubstep drop for fun. Shockwaves rippled outward. The sand beast froze—shuddered—then cracked, green light tearing through its body like truth through a lie.
Its roar faltered.
Its legs gave out.
Its colossal bulk slammed to the ground, creating a fresh canyon that the local geography was definitely not ready for.
Grahilo skidded to a halt, panting, hands smoking with leftover gamma. Rubblethump snorted approvingly. One Echoer stood up and clapped slowly. Another muttered, "We should start a cult around him."
Grahilo looked back at the cratered monster, then at the crew.
"Okay," he said, brushing off sand. "Who wants lunch?"
As the sand beast's massive body collapsed into the newly carved crater, a strange silence rolled across the desert. Not the normal kind—this was the kind of silence that feels like something important just got unlocked. Grahilo, still sizzling with leftover gamma energy and confidence levels bordering on mythological, approached the center of the blast zone.
The creature's cracked chest shimmered faintly.
There, nestled between shattered plates and pulsing tendrils of scorched bone, was an object—no, a relic. It glowed softly with indigo light, housed inside what looked like a crystallized rib cage.
It wasn't large.
It wasn't loud.
But it hummed—like it remembered something.
Grahilo leaned down and lifted it free. A thin, disk-shaped artifact, made from a metal he didn't recognize, etched with spiraling glyphs that flickered green one moment, then deep blue the next. At its center, a recess shaped exactly like his dagger's hilt.
"Well," he muttered. "Either it's a really fancy coaster or I just found something ancient and emotionally complicated."
One of the Echoers stumbled closer, wide-eyed. "That's a Core Sigil," she whispered. "They're rare. Old defense tech. Rumored to power ancient bunkers—or bind weapons to… prophecy carriers."
"Please don't say prophecy carrier," Grahilo said, still holding it. "That sounds like it comes with dramatic expectations."
The disk pulsed once, faintly syncing with the dagger at his side. His gamma veins flared in response. Something inside the relic had recognized him.
"That's either super cool," he said, "or super cursed."
He pocketed it anyway.
Because when the desert throws you mystery tech from the belly of a sand kaiju—you don't ignore it.
With the beast defeated and half the desert still trying to decide if it survived a gamma-powered earthquake, Rubblethump stomped back toward the crater with a low grunt that clearly meant "I'm starving."
Grahilo stood over the massive carcass, dagger still pulsing faintly. "So…" he said, nudging a scorched chunk of thigh with his boot, "is eating giant desert monsters... a thing?"
The goggled Echoer grinned. "Totally a thing. The scorched-sand variety tastes like smoked jerky meets regret. We're not above monster steaks. Just make sure it's not venom-infused or cursed."
The woman with the hummingbird sword leaned down, touched the flesh, and gave an approving nod. "Definitely edible. Might even boost muscle recovery."
In record time, the crew gathered firewood (well… sand-soaked driftwood and glowing mineral shards that kind of count as firewood), and lit up a campfire like they'd practiced monster grilling every Tuesday. Spices came out of questionable pouches. Someone pulled out a mini spit. The meat sizzled.
Grahilo took a bite, then paused.
"Tastes like... victory."
"Seasoned with trauma," someone added.
They all laughed, huddled around the fire in a half-crater, steam rising off grilled beast steak, gamma energy fading gently in the background. No one talked about the danger. No one worried about the next attack.
They ate like survivors.
They ate like legends.
The monster was down. The steaks were sizzling. The air buzzed with laughter, spice, and the kind of exhaustion that tasted better than triumph.
Grahilo reclined against Rubblethump's side, chewing on sand beast meat that felt like protein and adrenaline fused into a meal. His muscles tingled with gamma recovery. His dagger lay quietly nearby, no longer pulsing, just listening.
He felt good.
Actually... he felt great.
Like he'd earned something. Like this desert finally stopped trying to erase him and was now setting the table.
And yet—
As the fire crackled and the Echoers swapped battle jokes and near-death anecdotes, a quiet ache crept into his chest. Not pain. Not fear.
Just absence.
He glanced at the stars. Distant. Flickering.
Lysca used to point out the constellations that didn't exist in maps. Said the sky could lie if you asked it wrong.
He missed that. He didn't know her well. He just saw her yesterday but it felt like this body was close with her.
Her voice—bright with sarcasm, soft when it counted. Her laugh like broken rules. Her calm in chaos. She wasn't there when the orb found him. She wasn't there when Kirigaar shut him out.
But she'd always made him feel seen.
And now, mid-feast and mid-legend, surrounded by people who thought he was a weapon or a miracle… all he wanted was someone who knew the before.
Someone who saw Grahilo, not just Gamma Grahilo.
He set down the meat slowly. Looked out beyond the canyon, beyond Nharos's distant glow.
"Bet you'd hate the sand beast stew," he murmured to the night. "But you'd try it just to argue about it."
The stars didn't answer.
He sighed and murmured to himself.
Grahilo shifted beneath the stars, the warmth of the fire fading into a soft ember glow. Rubblethump rumbled quietly beside the camp, snoring like a tractor with feelings. The last bites of sand beast stew had settled warmly in his stomach, and the air buzzed gently with the kind of stillness only earned after chaos.
He lay back on a padded coil of canvas, dagger at his side, gaze tilted toward the constellations Lysca used to name when she wasn't busy making everything more complicated in the best way.
His eyes fluttered shut.
And the gamma slept.