Vonjo parked the sleek black car a block away from the dimly lit apartment complex, letting the engine die in a soft purr before stepping out.

The street here was silent, save for the faint hum of old streetlamps flickering against the concrete.

His reflection in the car door lingered for a second—a calm, faintly smiling face with eyes that glimmered in the low light—before he turned and slipped into the shadows, his coat trailing behind him in a whisper.

He had followed the robbers here out of sheer curiosity and the hunger for something more thrilling than handing money to a frightened thug or scaring petty criminals.

For a man like him, with a bloodline that thrived in darkness, life could grow dull without a little chaos. The way the group had rushed into this building without emerging for so long had caught his attention.

"Huh," he muttered under his breath as he strolled across the cracked pavement. "Maybe this is their hideout… or maybe you're just leading me to something fun."

As he reached the entrance, the musty smell of the building hit him.

Mold, dust, and something sharper—metallic, almost coppery—coiled in the back of his throat. He pushed the door open without a sound, and as soon as he crossed the threshold, Endless Doom unfurled from his core.

The air grew heavy around him.

Every creak of the wood, every rustle of his coat, even the faint brush of his boots against the tile disappeared into a soundless void. The building swallowed him like a phantom. He moved with fluid, deliberate steps, his breath slow and measured, as the world fell to silence.

A faint vibration in the floor reached his senses first—a thud, then another, as if something heavy had slammed into the walls or floor deeper inside.

He followed it through a corridor lined with doors half-rotted from age, the fluorescent lights overhead flickering.

Finally, he reached a turn in the hallway and crouched against the wall, peering past the corner.

What he saw brought a quiet flicker of intrigue to his eyes.

The sand man stood in the middle of a hallway painted with blood. His body was a living dune shaped into the vague silhouette of a human, every movement sending trickles of coarse grains sliding down to the floor.

His eyes were twin embers glowing from within a cracked desert mask.

Around him lay the broken bodies of men dressed in the same gang-like attire as the robbers Vonjo had trailed.

"IS THIS ALL THIS ERA HAS TO OFFER!?" the sand man roared, his voice booming like wind tearing across a canyon. His massive arms lifted, scattering more sand as his torso twisted unnaturally. "I WAS PROMISED WARRIORS—STRONG CURSE SORCERERS OF THE ERA OF PROPHECY!"

Vonjo's lips curled into the faintest smirk, a quiet murmur leaving him. "Another revived curse soul… like Lorthran, huh?"

The sand man continued his tirade, stomping through the hall and kicking aside a lifeless body with disdain. "THE ANCIENT TEXT SPOKE OF THIS AGE! THE FALLEN ANGELS SAID THE BARRIERS WOULD CRUMBLE, THAT HELL WOULD BLEED INTO YOUR WORLD, THAT THE CURSE USERS OF THIS ERA WOULD BE MONSTERS BEYOND OUR TIME! AND YET—" His arm whipped out, scattering sand that carved shallow grooves into the walls. "—ALL I FIND ARE RATS AND LAMBS!"

Vonjo stayed silent, blending into the shadows like water soaking into dark soil, but his gaze never left the unfolding scene.

A tremor of movement caught his attention.

One of the robbers—thin, jittery, his clothes soaked with blood not his own—had collapsed to his knees.

His shaking hands hovered over a limp body on the floor. His eyes were wide and glassy, and when he saw the face of the dead man before him, a strangled noise tore from his throat.

"B… brother?" His voice cracked, barely a whisper, as his trembling hands gripped the corpse's shoulders. Blood smeared his fingers, and tears welled in his eyes, spilling down his grimy cheeks. His voice rose into a raw wail that echoed off the walls. "BROTHEEEER!"

The sound twisted through the hall like a wound.

Vonjo tilted his head slightly, the faintest stir of amusement mixed with something quieter in his chest as he watched the man unravel.

The grief bled quickly into rage. The robber's teeth ground together audibly, his face twisting with hate. He snatched a dagger from his belt, his weak curse energy flaring in sputtering waves along its edge, and charged with a hoarse, wordless scream.

The sand man—Kharoth, judging by the aura that rolled off him like a desert storm—merely tilted his jagged head and rumbled with laughter. The dagger stabbed into his torso, and sand poured out in a thin waterfall before swirling back in place, the "wound" sealing itself instantly.

"Yes… yes!" Kharoth bellowed, lifting his other arm high as grains poured like rain. "Show me! Your RAGE!"

His arm lashed out, and sand wrapped around the young man's wrist with crushing force. The grinding sound of grains against flesh and bone made the robber scream in agony, but he refused to drop the weapon, stabbing again and again to no effect.

The other robbers finally snapped from their shock. Their fear, grief, and anger erupted in a desperate wave. Swords, pistols etched with weak curse marks, and a lone spear appeared in their hands as they charged together.

The hallway became a whirlwind of chaos.

Sand lashed out in thick tendrils, slamming men into the walls and ceiling. Blood splattered across the tile as Kharoth's laughter grew louder, almost ecstatic. "TOO WEAK! TOO WEAK! IS THIS THE FUTURE!?" he roared, his voice vibrating in the walls.

One robber managed to fire his pistol; the bullet whistled past, coated in flickering curse energy, but it barely scratched Kharoth's arm before being swallowed by the spinning sand. Another lunged with a spear, only for the sand to wrap around the shaft, twist, and fling the man into a corner with bone-snapping force.

Vonjo crouched deeper into his shadowed corner, the faint glimmer of interest in his eyes as he observed the scene unfold like theater meant for him alone.

The scent of blood thickened, mingling with the dry, suffocating air as sand scoured the walls.

The robbers screamed, cursed, and fought with the desperation of cornered animals, but their strikes were meaningless against a storm born of another era.

One by one, they fell or were flung aside.

Finally, as another man crumpled with a wet thud, the survivors hesitated. Their ragged breaths echoed in the hall as reality clawed at them—they were going to die here.

"This cannot be!"

"He's too strong!"

"We can't do anything against him!"!

Eyes wide, they glanced at one another, then at the lifeless body of their comrade on the floor. Slowly, almost in sync, they began to back away. Then one turned to flee.

Then another.

And suddenly, they all broke at once, their footsteps slapping against the slick tiles as they tried to retreat down the hall.

Vonjo leaned his head slightly, his smirk faint but unmistakable. He could feel the pulse of his own excitement stir as the night promised only darker fun ahead.