The wind had died.
For the first time since he woke in this endless wasteland, there was an eerie stillness. No scorching gusts, no howling storm rattling his fragile shelter. The silence felt unnatural.
Like the world was holding its breath.
He didn't like it.
The last time the wasteland had gone quiet, the creature had been hunting him. But this was different.
And he had a good guess what.
The ruins.
Half-buried by last night's storm, their dark, jagged metal jutted out from the sand, stark against the pale desert. He had seen them when he'd first crawled out of his shelter that morning.
He had planned to spend the day fortifying his shelter further. Expanding his supplies. Maybe testing the new Soil Conversion feature the system had given him.
But the ruins had other plans.
And the more he looked at them, the more one undeniable thought settled into his mind.
There are answers down there.
Answers to what this place was. Answers to the system. Maybe even answers to who he was.
Because he still had no memories.
No name. No past.
Only survival.
And if there was even the slightest chance that those ruins held something useful—anything that could push him forward—then he had no choice.
He had to go in.
A Risk Worth Taking
Standing at the edge of the ruins, he exhaled slowly.
The entrance was a jagged tear in the metal, half-buried in sand, leading down into utter darkness. The structure itself looked ancient, weathered yet impossibly strong, as if time had forgotten to finish breaking it.
He didn't know what kind of civilization had built this, but one thing was clear:
This wasn't natural.
Something powerful had once existed here.
And something had destroyed it.
His fingers curled into fists. What the hell happened to this world?
He glanced at his System Log. The Machine Core he had used for his door had come from these ruins. That meant more of their tech could still be active.
Which meant danger.
System Notification:
[Environmental Hazard Detected – Unstable Structure]
[Proceed with Caution]
Well, that's comforting.
The system wasn't stopping him—it was just warning him. That meant there was something of value inside.
His heart pounded. Every instinct screamed at him to turn back, to stay in the relative safety of his shelter.
But he had come too far to let fear stop him.
He took his first step into the ruins.
Descent into the Unknown
The air inside was different.
Cooler. Thicker. Heavy with the scent of dust and metal.
The sand crunched softly under his feet as he moved, the dim light from the entrance barely stretching into the gloom. Beyond that, there was only darkness.
His fingers brushed the metal wall beside him, its surface strangely smooth, yet scarred with deep gashes. Claw marks? Blasts? He couldn't tell.
The deeper he went, the more the structure changed.
The walls became more refined, the architecture shifting from shattered wreckage to something more deliberate—smooth corridors, faintly glowing strips along the floor, as if power still pulsed through the veins of this place.
It felt less like ruins…
And more like a tomb.
A buried city, swallowed by the sand.
The thought sent a chill down his spine.
He wasn't just walking into an abandoned building.
He was trespassing in the remnants of something long dead.
After what felt like an eternity of cautious steps, he reached a doorway.
Or what was left of one.
It was torn open, its edges bent inward, as if something massive had forced its way through.
His pulse quickened. He didn't like what that suggested.
Something had been trapped here.
And it had gotten out.
Still, he had come this far. Backing out wasn't an option.
He stepped through.
And froze.
In the center of the room, half-buried under collapsed debris, was a machine.
A humanoid AI core, barely functional, its body broken, one eye flickering weakly.
And then—
It spoke.
A faint, static-filled voice echoed through the chamber.
"...terraforming… project… abandoned…"
His breath caught. Terraforming?
The system had given him a Terraforming Rank.
Had this AI… been part of it?
His heart pounded as he knelt beside it. If it still had power, maybe it had information.
Maybe it could tell him what the hell was happening.
"Hey," he whispered. "Can you hear me?"
The AI flickered again, its voice struggling.
"…data corrupted… project failure… containment breach…"
The words sent a shiver down his spine. Containment breach?
Before he could ask more, the AI's flickering eye dimmed. Its voice fell silent.
And a new System Notification appeared.
System Upgrade Acquired – Terraforming Rank F (5% → 10%)
New Feature Unlocked:
Basic Water Source Creation (Limited Purification)
His breath hitched.
Water.
A way to create water.
This changed everything.
He had struggled just to pull droplets from the air, but now… he could form an actual source.
The AI might be gone, but it had given him something. A new way forward.
And yet…
As he looked at its broken frame, a thought lingered in his mind.
What containment breach?
What had gone wrong with the terraforming project?
And more importantly…
Was it still here?
Something Stirs
A sound broke the silence.
A low, mechanical whirr.
Then another.
Then movement.
His entire body went rigid.
Something else was in these ruins.
A shadow shifted in the corridor beyond.
Red lights.
Multiple.
His mind screamed at him to run.
He didn't know what those things were. But he has a very bad feeling about it.
His feet slammed against the metal floor as he sprinted back toward the entrance, heart pounding like a war drum.
Keep running.
He didn't look back.
The exit was close now, light filtering through the jagged metal tear—
And then—
A flash of blue light.
The broken AI.
For a split second, its shattered core flared with energy.
A final, desperate action.
The walls collapsed behind him.
A deafening crash. Dust exploded outward.
He hit the sand outside hard, rolling into the open air.
Silence.
Gasping.
He had found the ruins.
And he had barely escaped with his life.
But he had also found water.
And a warning.
Something was still down there. And now—it knew he was here