Neo lowered his blades and stared at the corpse.

The bastard lay twisted across the sand with one arm bent under him and blood soaking into the dune in a dark, ugly patch that the wind had already started to spoil at the edges. A few moments ago he had been smiling, talking, sliding around Dry Scar like the whole place had signed itself over to him. Now he was just meat cooling in the open.

Alice stood a few steps away, axe still in hand, breathing harder than she liked. She followed Neo’s attention to the forming Soul Core above the body and understood immediately.

"Go ahead," she said, voice low and rough from the fight. "You killed him. It’s yours."

Neo did not waste time pretending otherwise.

"Glad we agree."

He stepped forward and picked up the Soul Core.

It felt heavier than it should have, not by weight, but by everything packed inside it. Kills. Souls. A life built on dragging other people down into the sand and stripping them for whatever they were worth. Neo closed his fingers around it and consumed it at once.

The answer came like a floodgate breaking.

[Soul-Window]

[You have consumed Dune Sculptor - Vein Core.]

[+1036 Souls]

[1258/2500 Vein]

[New secondary class acquired.]

[Dune Sculptor - Saint]

[Description: A Saint-ranked class that shapes sand into weapons, traps, false bodies, and shifting terrain. In arid ground, its wielder becomes far more dangerous, turning the battlefield itself into a patient weapon.]

[Abilities]

[Sand Manipulation - Unlocked]

[Buried Spike - Unlocked]

[Shifting Ground - More mastery required]

[Sand Shell - More mastery required]

[Dune Domain - More mastery required]

Neo stood very still while the current ran through him.

The jump hit far harder than the number itself. Vein Core had already made him stronger than before, but this was different. His body tightened from the inside, muscles and bones answering with that same brutal honesty power always had when it settled properly. His breathing changed. The weight in his limbs changed. Even the dry air against his skin felt clearer for a moment, as though the whole desert had gained sharper edges.

’Holy shit. This is insane.’

He could feel it even without testing anything. More force under the skin. More pressure in the soul. A bigger presence filling him now that the number had leapt past a thousand. The man had killed a lot of people. Enough that their stolen progress had turned into this.

Neo let out a slow breath through his nose and shut the window before Alice could ask the wrong question in the right direction.

She was already watching him.

"Well?" she asked, shifting the axe in her hand. "How do you feel?"

Neo rolled one shoulder, then the other. The movement came easier than before. Stronger too. "Better."

Alice said nothing, waiting.

Neo gave her the rest because there was no reason not to. "He had a lot of souls stacked up."

That was enough.

Alice’s face barely changed, but he saw the understanding settle there anyway. A lot of souls did not come from killing a few beasts in the sand and calling it a productive morning. It came from people. Plenty of them. Both of them knew it. Neither needed a speech attached to it.

Her grip tightened slightly around the axe. "Yeah."

Neo glanced once at the corpse again. "Bastard was busy."

Alice looked at the body with the same cold reserve she gave most things. "He tried to kill us first."

Neo huffed a dry breath. "I’m not saying he didn’t deserve it."

The wind crossed Dry Scar again, pushing a stream of sand over the man’s boot and part of one hand. It had already started. The desert did not care much about names or intentions. Leave a body out long enough and the place would do the rest.

Neo turned back to Alice. "You want to keep going?"

She answered before he finished settling into the question.

"No." Her voice stayed quiet, but the weariness underneath it had stopped hiding. "I think that’s enough for today."

Neo gave a small nod. "Yeah. Fair."

Alice planted the axe head lightly into the sand, more for balance than display, and exhaled through her nose. Now that the fight was over, the cost showed more clearly. Her breathing was thinner than before. The strength in her posture held because she wanted it to, not because the reserve was still there.

Neo noticed. He said nothing about it.

His attention drifted once more to the corpse.

"What do you want to do with him?"

Alice followed the question back toward the body. She answered without decoration. "Leave him."

Neo lifted a brow. "I didn’t expect that from you."

She kept her gaze on the dead man while the wind crawled more sand around him. "The Soul Beasts will eat him."

For a moment, that was all she gave him.

Then she added, quieter, "He tried to kill us first."

Neo’s mouth twitched a fraction.

"There it is again."

Alice looked at him this time, tired and steady at once. "You asked."

He did not argue. He had no reason to. Dragging the corpse back meant explanations, questions, attention, and a long list of things Neo did not feel like feeding. Leaving it here made more sense. Dry Scar had teeth enough without help from either of them.

Neo dismissed the twin fangs back into his soul. Alice did the same with the axe a moment later. The space around them felt larger without the pressure of drawn weapons in it, though the place itself had not become friendlier. Dry Scar still stretched around them in dead trees, ruined stone, and ash-colored dunes that looked old enough to remember uglier things than this.

Neo glanced toward the path they had come from.

"We should get back before that old man decides we died and leaves."

Alice gave a small nod.

The return went quieter than the fight. They crossed the same rough stretch of sand they had fought over not long ago, passed the broken ruin, and left the body where it had fallen. By the time they reached the rise again, the driver was already there with the truck waiting under the pale light. He took one look at their condition, at the blood, at the dust ground into their clothes, and asked no questions worth answering. Neo and Alice climbed in, the engine started, and Dry Scar slowly receded behind them, taking the corpse, the ruined stones, and the whole ugly fight back into its wide dead mouth while the road carried them toward Arandom City.