For an unknown amount of time, Brand walked nonstop in the scorching heat. He had crossed a few dunes, but he could see hundreds more to go around him.

"Will I be able to stand it?"

This thought popped up in his mind. Although he kept telling himself that he was taking the Test and that he had to endure, walking aimlessly in the middle of endless grains of sand made things very difficult for him to endure.

Because he was aware that he was in the Test, he thought that the Test had thrown him into the middle of a desert for a purpose. But on the other hand, in one part of his mind, he was unable to maintain his reasoning and awareness; the thought was growing stronger that he had said in vain in the desert and that the Test would do him no good in the future.

Brand kept moving forward, staying in the logical part of his mind. After climbing a few more dunes, he saw a pyramid quite far away.

He couldn't see the details of its appearance as he was so far away from it, but this pyramid gleamed white. The fact that it looked quite large even from the fairly large distance between them was a sign of its gigantic size.

When Brand was about to succumb to the irrational side of his mind, seeing this pyramid was very important to him, both to relax and to set a concrete goal to reach.

The fact that he would now walk towards a specific goal instead of aimlessly would undoubtedly increase his effort.

He was very thirsty, very hungry, and very tired, but he started walking towards the pyramid at full speed, clenching his teeth.

When he had passed a few more dunes, he realized that the sun was now close to setting. Looking at the pyramid ahead, he saw that even though he had gotten so far, it was still far away from him. It occurred to him that the pyramid might be just a mirage he had seen.

On the horizon, darkness fell as the sun disappeared completely. The full moon above and the countless stars illuminating the sky became evident. The scorching heat slowly began to give way to the coolness of the evening.

Brand started walking, his arm shielding his face from the wind that was starting to blow. Not far away, he saw a large boulder half sunk into the sand. He quickly walked towards the boulder and leaned against it. It was protecting him from the wind that was starting to get stronger.

Since it was completely dark, his field of vision was very limited, so he would pause his journey until it started to get light.

"How far do I have to go before I reach the pyramid?" When Brand sat down to rest after walking for a very long time without stopping, he noticed that every part of his body began to ache more and more.

He didn't know what the Test would bring him next. Frankly, he couldn't find a logical explanation for why he was in a desert.

Before his war with Thorn was over, he had found himself elsewhere.

What was the reason for this?

Brand felt his eyelids getting heavier as he wrestled with his thoughts. He certainly didn't want to sleep, but he had a hard time resisting the fatigue that was taking over him. First, his short but fierce fight with Thorn, and then his falling into the middle of a desolate desert began to strain his willpower.

Still, he resisted fatigue and did not succumb to sleep.

As the daylight began to shine a little, he moved to continue his journey.

Strong winds lifted a lot of sand, making the journey difficult, but at least the scorching heat was gone. When the sun rose overhead, the scorching heat would again dominate the desert, so he wanted to go as far as he could before this happened.

"Hmm?" Brand stopped at the strange jolt he felt under his feet. He took a glance around. There seemed to be nothing in sight, but the sand beneath it seemed to wriggle like a snake.

Suddenly, in a fairly large, circular area, the sand rose to meters of air, and the inside of the circle collapsed a little. Sand began to gush upward from various points in the area.

"Fuck!" As Brand started to run, the ground he was stepping on suddenly collapsed several meters, and a deep hole opened in the middle. The resulting vortex of sand began to engulf him, along with the sands.

No matter how hard he tried to escape, he couldn't move because of the pile of sand that suddenly accumulated on him. Although he could not see his surroundings, he could feel himself sliding down the tunnels that twisted with the sand.

After sliding nonstop for a few minutes, he found himself falling through the air. After falling for a few seconds, he landed softly on the pile of sand that had accumulated below. He tried to get out of the sand pile, using all his strength so as not to be crushed by the sand that continued to flow over him from above.

"What the hell was that?" Brand collapsed to the ground, out of breath, as he stepped away from the pile of sand.

His face was completely pale.

Looking around, the first thing that caught his eye was the large, luminous cube ahead. He thought he was inside some kind of cave. The recesses and protrusions on the walls and the stalactites on the ceiling showed that this place was a natural formation.

But what was the blue, glowing cube?

It certainly didn't look natural.

When Brand stood up, he gritted his teeth at the sudden pain that pierced his body, and slowly began to walk toward the cube ahead.

"Shit!" As Brand came within about fifteen meters of the cube, he roared in pain and threw himself back after feeling a devastating heat rush towards him.

He immediately got up from the ground and walked away from the cube. Looking at the back of the cube, he saw several tunnel entrances. He circled around without getting too close to it and, without thinking too much, entered one of the tunnels.

As he walked through the tunnel he had randomly entered, he saw that torches were lit at regular intervals on the walls of the tunnel. He remembered that the other tunnel entrances were also lit.

"Is there a tribe living here?" he asked himself.

After walking along the straight tunnel for a while, some kind of arena finally came into view. A sand floor was surrounded by hundreds of spectator seats, rising in layers. Just like in the tunnels, there were lit torches in various parts of the arena.

However, his earlier guess was apparently wrong; there was no living tribe here, there was a dead tribe.

The sand floor was filled with various weapons covered in dried blood. A skeleton was standing there, perched on a spear. Beside him, a few more skeletons lay on the ground with blades stuck in various places.

There were more skeletons on the spectator seats than on the sand floor. From their position, it was as if death had caught them in an instant as they were enjoying a show. There were no fragments, cuts, or cavities in the skeletons; it didn't seem like a physical cause was killing them.

Although Brand had seen much worse than these sights before, a feeling rose within him that seriously disturbed him. He closed his eyes and tried to slow his mind. First of all, he had to remember that what he saw was an illusion.

"If my will wasn't strong enough, I'm afraid I would have lost all awareness right now and started to take all this as real." Brand let out a shaky breath and started to move among the skeletons.

On the back of one of the skeletons, his longsword was still hanging.

He unsheathed the sword on the skeleton's back and swung it several times, checking its weight and balance. This sword really wasn't bad at all. He took off the sword belt from the skeleton's back and put it on himself. Then he put the sword back in its scabbard.

With the reassuring weight of the sword on his back, he descended from the layers and jumped onto the sandy floor. After briefly checking his surroundings, he walked toward the door ahead. Since there was no light coming from where he was about to go, he took one of the torches lit on either side of the door and continued walking.

All around was the gloomy sound of the air stream passing through the tunnels, the intermittent crackle of the torch, and the sound of his footsteps. This depressing silence was enough to make him shudder to the depths.

"This place... it looks like some kind of corridor." Brand frowned as he scanned the walls. The whole place was covered in cobwebs, strange dry grass, and streak-like abrasions.