The wasteland’s collective panic was a living thing, a thrumming wave of fear and confusion that washed over the million souls. Kevin, his body a symphony of pain from his wounds, kept Olivia close, his eyes scanning the desolation for any semblance of a threat or shelter.

  "Dad," Olivia whispered, her voice tight with a fear that went deeper than the immediate shock. "What are we going to do?"

  Kevin looked at the vast, hopeless expanse, at the teeming, lost masses, and a profound, weary dread settled in his bones. "Bloody hell," he breathed, the curse a quiet admission of their utter powerlessness.

  It was then that the world dissolved into pain.

  A searing, piercing bolt of pure agony stabbed directly into their skulls. It was not a sound or a light, but a violation from the inside, a psychic spike that dropped people to their knees. A collective scream, short and sharp, erupted across the plain before being choked off by the overwhelming sensation. Kevin grunted, his vision swimming, his hands flying to his temples. Next to him, Olivia cried out, buckling against him.

  As suddenly as it came, the pain vanished, leaving behind a throbbing echo and a profound silence.

  And then, the impossible.

  A glowing, rectangular panel materialized in the center of their vision, translucent yet undeniable. It was framed in a soft, golden light, and elegant, serif script spelled out a message:

  Welcome to Yilheim. I am Yelleen, and I will be your guide.

  For a moment, there was only stunned silence. Then, the wasteland erupted.

  "Uh, Dad?" Olivia's voice was a thin thread of disbelief. "I'm... I'm starting to see things. A... a screen."

  Kevin stared, his own gaze locked on the same impossible text hovering before him. "You're not the only one, Liv," he said, his voice low and wary. "I'm seeing some kind of glowing white... thing."

  Tentatively, Olivia reached a hand out, her fingers passing straight through the ethereal panel as if it were a projection on smoke. "I can't touch it."

  All around them, a cacophony of reactions swelled, a million-person case of shared psychosis.

  "What the hell is this?" a man shouted, swatting at the air in front of his face. "Get it out of my head!"

  "Is this a hallucination? Did they gas us?" a woman shrieked, her eyes wide with paranoia.

  A younger man, perhaps a gamer, stared with a dawning, terrified fascination. "No way... It's a UI. A freaking user interface."

  "Yilheim?" an elderly academic murmured, ignoring the panic around him. "The nomenclature suggests a structured, perhaps even administered, environment. A guide implies a system..."

  For some, it was the final straw. The fragile grip on reality they had managed to hold onto shattered completely. A woman sank to the ground, rocking back and forth, laughing and sobbing hysterically. "The screen! The pretty words! It's all in my head!"

  Others saw a perverse kind of hope. "A guide!" a voice yelled. "It said it's a guide! Maybe it can tell us how to get home!"

  “Who are you?” Kevin yelled at the shimmering panel, his fear twisting into anger. “Did you do this to us?”

  The golden words shifted instantly, the response firm and unambiguous.

  I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR TAKING YOU FROM YOUR WORLD. I AM ONLY A GUIDE.

  “Then who did this?” Kevin demanded, his voice raw. “Why are we here?”

  The panel changed, its message final and frustrating.

  I CANNOT DISCLOSE THAT INFORMATION.

  Olivia, her voice trembling but clear, cut in. “You said you’re a guide. Why? Guide us to what?”

  TO PROTECT YOU.

  “From what?” she asked, the words barely out of her mouth before the ground beneath them exploded.

  A colossal worm, its segmented body the size of a freight train, erupted from the earth in a shower of rock and dust. Its circular maw, lined with rows of razor-sharp teeth, opened wide and swallowed a dozen screaming people in a single, horrifying gulp. The sound was a wet, crushing finality.

  Olivia’s eyes widened in pure, undiluted terror. The panel in her vision flickered, the words now a frantic, glowing red.

  THAT. RUN.

  “Olivia, let’s go!” Kevin roared, grabbing his daughter’s hand. They ran, joining a tidal wave of panicked humanity. The air was filled with screams as the ground became a living nightmare, more of the monstrous worms breaching the surface, each one claiming a bloody toll.

  As they sprinted, the panel updated, the message chilling in its simplicity.

  YOUR FIRST AND PRIMARY TASK: SURVIVE.

  It was a slaughter. The wasteland had become a feeding ground. Just as hope seemed lost, a new impossibility unfolded.

  Far in the distance, a worm of unimaginable size—over three hundred meters long, a true leviathan—rose against the sky, dwarfing the others.

  ---

  In a small, sand-blasted town on the horizon, an Aurellian man perched on a windowsill, sipping from a canteen. He had brown skin, a wild mane of white hair, and golden eyes that narrowed as he saw the titan emerge.

  “Those damn things are back,” he muttered. He snatched up his binoculars and scanned the plain, his composure cracking. “Whaaat? How are so many people there? How could they come to a place like this? Are they mad? Non-gifted idiots!”

  With a warrior’s grace, he drew two curved swords from his back. Mana, a visible aura of blue energy, ignited along the blades. “STELLAR UNBOUND!” he yelled to the empty air, a fierce grin spreading across his face. “TIME TO KILL SOME WORMS!”

  He leaped from the wall, a drop of dozens of meters, and hit the ground running. He moved in a straight, blinding line toward the colossal worm. As he closed the distance, he became a blue streak. With a single, fluid motion, he crossed the space beneath the beast, his swords carving a glowing arc. The leviathan shuddered, then split cleanly in two, its halves crashing to the earth with a world-shaking thud.

  Kevin and Olivia watched, their mouths agape in a mixture of awe and terror. The warrior landed in a crater of his own making, and without a pause, he bolted again. He became a sonic tempest of death, slicing through the smaller worms one by one. He was a savior, but a terrifyingly indiscriminate one; his passing left not just worm carcasses, but tragic collateral damage—humans caught in the shockwaves or falling debris.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “Run!” Kevin urged, pulling Olivia away from the chaotic battle.

  Their flight was cut short as the earth before them erupted, not once, but nine times. Nine building-sized worms, each a hundred meters long, rose in a terrifying circle, blocking their escape. They were trapped, staring up at the monstrous ring of certain death.

  “Dad, dad, dad…” Olivia panicked, her voice a terrified whisper, clutching his arm.

  Then, they saw them: nine streaks of light descending from the heavens, each one aimed precisely at a worm’s head.

  BOOM!

  One of the lights resolved into the Aurellian warrior, who drove a flying kick straight through the skull of the nearest worm. He laughed, a wild, exuberant sound amidst the carnage. “You filthy worms!” He spun in mid-air, and his sword released a colossal wave of mana energy that cleaved the worm in two vertically. The energy continued downward, splitting the earth for two hundred meters—a fissure that swallowed dozens of screaming humans.

  Kevin couldn’t believe his eyes. It was power on a scale he couldn't comprehend.

  In moments, the remaining eight worms were beheaded, their bodies slumping to the ground. But the battle wasn't over. The ground began to shake violently, a deep, resonant tremor that promised something worse.

  “Dad, an earthquake!” Olivia yelled.

  “Stay close to me!” Kevin shouted back, pulling her tight.

  Then the ground split open directly ahead of them. Slowly, impossibly, a worm even larger than the first leviathan began to rise, its bulk beginning to float into the air.

  “Oh my God,” Olivia breathed.

  They watched as an Aurellian woman with dark skin and flowing white hair ascended into view opposite the beast. Her hand was raised, palm open. As she slowly clenched her fist, the gargantuan worm in the air was instantly compressed by an invisible force, crushed into a sphere of flesh and gore.

  Kevin and Olivia ran again, their minds reeling from the relentless parade of impossible power, only to skid to a halt at the edge of a newly formed, impassable chasm. They were cornered.

  BOOM.

  A figure landed directly in front of them, his impact cracking the ground at their feet. Slowly, he rose to his full, imposing height—seven feet, eight, nine, until he stood over ten feet tall. He had brown skin and stark white hair. His gaze was cold and assessing.

  “Well,” he rumbled, his voice like grinding stone. “What do we have here? A bunch of Earthers.”

  Kevin and Olivia stood frozen, consumed by a fear deeper than any the worms had inspired.

  The giant’s eyes narrowed with contempt. “You walking bombs.” He then turned his head and yelled, his voice echoing across the plain, a command that spelled doom for a million souls.

  “KILL THEM ALL!”

  The giant’s command tore through the chaos, a death sentence for an entire race.

  “You walking bombs aren’t going anywhere!” one of the Stellar Unbound echoed, his voice a cruel sneer. The slaughter began in earnest. These were not monsters driven by hunger, but soldiers following orders, and they fell upon the defenseless Earthers with systematic, brutal efficiency.

  The giant standing over Kevin and Olivia smiled, a cold, predatory expression. He cocked his fist, the muscles in his massive arm coiling like steel cables. The air itself seemed to compress with the gathering force of the blow. Kevin shoved Olivia behind him, a futile, instinctual act of protection. They were frozen, trapped not just by the chasm at their backs, but by the sheer, overwhelming aura of death before them.

  The giant’s fist began its forward arc, a punch that would vaporize them both.

  It never landed.

  A searing, blinding bolt of pure white lightning descended from the clear blue sky. It struck the giant with the precision of a divine scalpel. There was no scream, only a brief, intense CRACK that was more felt than heard. Where the ten-foot-tall warrior had stood, there was now only a smoldering patch of glassed earth and a fine, gray ash drifting on the wind.

  Kevin and Olivia stared, their minds refusing to process what had just happened.

  Then, the sky fell.

  More colossal bolts of lightning rained down, each one a lance of judgment. They struck the Stellar Unbound with unerring accuracy, turning armored warriors into momentary silhouettes of incandescent light before they were blasted into nothingness. The tables had turned in an instant; the hunters were now being exterminated.

  “Dad,” Olivia whispered, her voice trembling as she clung to him, “we’re going to die here.” It wasn't the worms she feared now, or even the warriors. It was this—this raw, uncontrollable power that scorched the heavens and earth alike.

  As if in response to the chaos, the weather itself began to rebel. Clouds materialized from nothing, swirling into a violent, dark vortex directly above them. The air hummed with a terrifying energy, the hair on their arms and head standing on end.

  Then, from the eye of the nascent storm, a single, final bolt descended. It was thicker than the others, a trunk of solid, roaring light that connected the sky to the earth with a thunderous BOOM that shook the very entire battle field.

  The impact point glowed, white-hot. Dust and debris billowed out in a concussive ring, forcing Kevin and Olivia to shield their eyes.

  When the dust settled, two giant figures stood where the lightning had struck.

  One was Kaelan, his clothes unruffled, a faint wisp of smoke curling from his shoulders. His expression was one of cold, detached assessment as he surveyed the carnage his arrival had caused.

  Beside him, Rodney stumbled, coughing and waving a hand in front of his face. "A little warning next time, man? I think I swallowed my tongue."

  Kaelan’s gaze swept over the terrified Earthers, the smoldering remains of the Stellar Unbound, and finally came to rest on Kevin and Olivia, who stood petrified a few dozen feet away.

  He glanced at the energy crackling around his knuckles, a slow, unnerving smile touching his lips. "Damn. I love this seed."

  ---

  To Be Continued...