The ground trembled beneath their feet, a deep vibration that sent loose sand cascading down the dunes. The team stood in their prepared formation at the edge of the oasis settlement, weapons ready, heat-resistant modifications gleaming in the morning sun.

  "It's coming," Elijah said, his voice tight with tension. The whispers had become a constant roar in his mind, a chorus of warnings impossible to ignore.

  Alexander gave the final check. "Positions confirmed. Remember your cooling retreats. No heroics."

  Fifty meters ahead, the rgest dune began to shift unnaturally. Sand flowed upward instead of down, defying gravity as it gathered into a swirling vortex. The temperature spiked abruptly, the air shimmering with heat haze.

  "Thermal shields active," Lyra called, activating the protective yers she'd integrated into their equipment.

  The sand vortex expanded, colpsing inward and then erupting upward in a towering column. As it rose, it took shape—massive limbs forming, a torso materializing, a featureless head emerging st. Where the creature stepped, the sand melted instantly into gss.

  The Dune Titan had arrived.

  It stood nearly ten meters tall, its body a constantly shifting mass of super-heated sand. Heat radiated from it in visible waves, immediately turning the battlefield into an oven. At its center, visible only in fshes when the sand shifted, a crystalline core glowed like a small sun.

  "Core confirmed," Alexander called. "Stick to the pn."

  The Titan moved with surprising speed for its size, covering ground in long strides that left gss footprints in its wake. It swept one massive arm toward them, sending a wave of super-heated sand racing across the ground.

  "Scatter!" Alexander shouted.

  The team broke formation instantly, each diving in a predetermined direction. The sand wave passed harmlessly between them, melting a swath of desert into gss.

  Riva was first to counter-attack, darting forward in the efficient movement style she'd perfected. She struck at the Titan's leg, her heat-shielded weapon slicing through the sand—only for the wound to immediately close as more sand flowed into pce.

  "Physical attacks ineffective!" she called, retreating before the creature could retaliate.

  "The core," Lyra shouted, already analyzing the Titan's movement patterns. "We need to hit the gss center when it's exposed!"

  Alexander circled to the right, drawing the guardian's attention. "Elijah—timing?"

  Elijah closed his eyes briefly, the whispers guiding him. "Three-second exposure during overhead strikes. Left side opens more than right."

  Alexander nodded. "Riva, Lyra—position for core strike when I draw the overhead attack. Valeria—maintain distance and watch for secondary threats."

  The Titan turned toward Alexander, its featureless head tracking his movement. The air around it distorted with heat so intense that small rocks on the ground began to crack. It raised both arms, exactly as predicted.

  "Now!" Alexander shouted, diving away as the massive arms came crashing down.

  Riva and Lyra struck simultaneously from opposite sides, their weapons targeting the momentarily exposed crystal core. Riva's bde connected with a sound like shattering gss, while Lyra's specialized tool emitted a pulse of energy on impact.

  The Titan recoiled, sand spraying outward from its torso. A high-pitched keening filled the air as it stumbled backward, leaving deeper gss impressions where it stepped.

  "Effective!" Alexander confirmed. "Retreat to cooling position one!"

  The team pulled back to a predetermined location where Elijah had prepared cooling supplies. The brief respite was necessary—already their equipment was showing signs of heat stress, protective yers beginning to degrade.

  "Sixty seconds to cool down," Elijah instructed, applying specialized treatments to minor burns on Riva's exposed skin. "Drink now."

  As they rehydrated and cooled their equipment, the Dune Titan recovered its stability. Sand swirled more violently around its form, and the temperature increased further. The ground beneath it began to glow dull red with heat.

  "Phase two incoming," Alexander warned. "It's escating."

  The Titan smmed both fists into the ground, sending a shockwave through the sand. Where the wave passed, the ground erupted, smaller sand manifestations forming—human-sized figures that immediately began moving toward the team.

  "Perimeter breach!" Alexander called.

  Valeria responded instantly, her long-range weapons taking down the nearest manifestations with precision strikes to their junction points. "I'll handle the small ones," she called. "Focus on the Titan!"

  Alexander assessed the battlefield, noting how the gss footprints left by the Titan remained cooler than the surrounding sand. "Use the gss patches for heat relief," he directed. "Lyra—equipment status?"

  Lyra was already making real-time adjustments to their protective gear. "Thermal capacity at sixty percent. We need to end this before complete failure."

  Alexander nodded, formuting their next approach. "Rotating strikes. Two-person teams. One attacks while the other cools. Elijah—what's the new pattern?"

  Elijah's eyes were distant, listening. "It's protecting its left side now. Core exposure during recovery after its spinning attack. Three-second window."

  The battle fell into a brutal rhythm—the Titan would attack, the team would evade and counter during vulnerability windows, then retreat to cool down as the arena grew increasingly hostile with heat. Gss formations spread across the battlefield, creating a complex terrain of super-heated sand and retively cooler gss surfaces.

  Twenty minutes in, they faced their first crisis. Lyra's monitoring equipment fshed warning signals as their protective gear approached critical limits.

  "Thermal failure imminent!" she shouted over the roar of the Titan. "We need emergency cooling!"

  Alexander made a split-second decision. "Elijah, deploy the water reserves!"

  Elijah activated their emergency cooling system—precious water released in a fine mist over their equipment, fsh-evaporating but pulling heat away in the process. It was a resource they couldn't afford to waste, but equipment failure would be fatal.

  The Titan seemed to sense their vulnerability, charging forward with unexpected speed. Its body morphed as it moved, arms elongating into bde-like appendages that glowed white-hot.

  "It's changing tactics!" Riva called out, barely dodging a sshing attack that melted a furrow in the sand where she'd stood.

  "Whispers changing!" Elijah shouted suddenly. "Everyone down!"

  The team dropped instantly—a fraction of a second before the Titan unleashed a circur wave of heat that passed over their prone forms. Had they been standing, they would have taken the bst directly.

  Alexander rolled to his feet, analyzing the new attack pattern. "It has a cooldown period after the heat wave. All-out assault on the next opening!"

  The Titan stood momentarily motionless, its sand body swirling slower as if recovering. The team didn't waste the opportunity, converging from multiple angles in a coordinated strike.

  Riva reached it first, executing a perfect leaping attack that penetrated deep into its torso, her bde seeking the crystal core. Lyra followed with a fnking strike, deploying a specialized tool she'd modified specifically for this battle—a device that momentarily disrupted the sand's cohesion where it struck.

  Alexander hit from the third angle, his weapon driving into the destabilized section Lyra had created. For a critical moment, all three weapons connected with the gss core simultaneously.

  A sound like a thousand breaking windows filled the air as fracture lines spread across the crystal. The Titan froze, its sand body suddenly motionless.

  "Fall back!" Alexander ordered, recognizing the warning signs of a catastrophic reaction.

  They retreated to safe distance just as the Titan's entire form began to glow with intensifying heat. The sand swirled faster, temperature rising beyond anything they'd experienced yet. In a final, spectacur detonation, the entire sand mass superheated at once, turning instantly to gss before shattering into countless fragments that rained down across the battlefield.

  Where the Titan had stood, a perfect crystal sphere remained suspended momentarily in the air before falling gently to the ground, intact amid the gss debris.

  Silence fell across the battlefield, broken only by the soft tinkling of gss fragments settling into the sand.

  "Is it... over?" Riva asked, breathing heavily, her heat-shielded armor smoking slightly.

  Alexander approached the crystal sphere cautiously, alert for any sign of renewed threat. When nothing happened, he knelt beside it, examining the object without touching it.

  "Guardian defeated," he confirmed, allowing himself the smallest smile of satisfaction.

  Lyra joined him, scanning the crystal with one of her devices. "Stable now, but this was the heat source. Remarkable energy concentration capacity."

  As they gathered around the remains of their opponent, the ground began to shift again—not with the violent eruption that had heralded the Titan's arrival, but a smooth, controlled movement. The sand between the gss fragments flowed away, revealing a staircase descending beneath the desert floor.

  "Floor 12 access," Alexander noted, peering down the newly revealed passage.

  Elijah was already treating the team's injuries—mostly heat burns and minor cuts from gss shrapnel. "We should recover before proceeding," he advised, applying cooling treatments to Riva's more serious burns.

  Alexander nodded, surveying their condition. The battle had pushed them to their limits—equipment damaged, water reserves depleted, physical exhaustion evident in everyone's posture. But they had prevailed.

  As they gathered their gear and collected valuable fragments from the guardian—including heat-resistant materials and pieces of the core crystal—Alexander reflected on their journey through Floor 11. They had entered as newcomers to the desert, vulnerable to its harsh conditions. They would leave as masters of this environment, having conquered every challenge it presented.

  "The oasis settlement for tonight," he decided. "We'll rest, resupply, and enter Floor 12 at full strength tomorrow."

  Lyra carefully collected the intact crystal sphere, securing it in her inventory. "This will be invaluable for future heat management applications," she noted.

  From the settlement edge, a crowd had gathered to witness the battle. As the team approached, murmurs of amazement spread through the onlookers. The Sage stepped forward, bowing his head slightly in acknowledgment.

  "In all my years, I've never seen the Titan fall so decisively," he said, genuine respect in his voice. "You have truly mastered the desert's lessons."

  That night, as they recovered in the settlement, preparing for the next stage of their journey, Alexander reviewed their performance with quiet pride. Every member had performed their role perfectly—Elijah's whisper-guided warnings, Lyra's technical adaptations, Riva's precision strikes, even Valeria's effective perimeter control.

  But more importantly, they had functioned as a unified team, adapting to extreme conditions through shared knowledge and perfect coordination. The desert had tried to break them with heat, thirst, illusion, and predators. Instead, it had forged them into something stronger.

  Tomorrow would bring new challenges in Floor 12, but Alexander knew they were ready. The lessons of the desert would serve them well, whatever y ahead.

  As for the fact that there were 100 floors in total and they were barely at the begin kept on the back of his mind.