I'm Trapped in the Block

A low rumble echoed as the hourglass at the center of the sand ship suddenly righted itself inside its glass sphere, letting out a steady hum.

The hourglass began to vibrate at a high frequency inside the sphere. The vibration traveled down a transmission conduit to the bottom of the sand ship and into the ground below.

On the surface of the dune, ripples suddenly emanated from the point where the sand ship’s base made contact. The ripples began to spread, traveling farther and farther.

Soon, these tiny ripples began to leap, vibrating the dune’s surface into rows of tall, uniform pillars of sand.

The vibrations didn’t stop. The pillars of sand seemed to be frozen in mid-air, but a closer look revealed the sand within them was still in constant motion.

The pillars grew taller, ring by ring, forming a rippling maze that encircled the sand ship.

At the center of this pillar-maze, the sand ship began to sink slowly into the shifting sands.

"Get ready."

"3, 2, 1..."

"Launch!"

At Captain He’s excited command, the hourglass stopped vibrating.

In an instant, the towering pillars of sand collapsed.

The collapsing rings of pillars stirred up violent waves of sand that surged toward the center. An immense amount of energy converged at the heart of the maze.

All the accumulated energy had been for this very moment.

With a muffled THUD, a pillar of sand larger than any before erupted from beneath the sand ship, violently thrusting it into the sky.

It was like the ripples created by a heavy object dropped into water.

The sand ship employed a clever principle, using the energy of the waves in reverse to propel itself, flinging the hull high into the air.

Riding the reverse waves, the sand ship soared higher and higher, accelerating as it went.

Yet the interior of the sand ship remained perfectly stable, completely unaffected by the force of the launch.

Mo Ling then noticed a thick layer of buffer fluid between the cabin and the outer hull, which was responsible for keeping the interior stable.

’What are they doing?’

’So this is what they call a sand wave?’

The violent pillars of sand had thrust the ship into the air, and sand continuously cascaded over it.

By the time it reached its apex, the sand ship was completely buried in sand.

Then came the rapid descent.

The sand ship was caught in the cascade of falling sand, plummeting toward the ground.

Just as it reached maximum velocity, an instant before crashing into the ground, the hourglass changed again—it suddenly flipped over inside its glass sphere.

The instant it flipped, the entire state of the sand ship changed.

The waves of sand around the ship began to repel, and the sand ship, carried by its downward momentum, plunged toward the earth’s depths.

Endless sand streamed past the ship at high speed.

The friction of the flowing sand created a high-pitched SCREECH. The sand ship was like a sinking stone, falling endlessly beneath the desert.

There was nothing but sand as the ship continued its advance into the depths.

After falling at high speed for some time, a glimmer of light appeared in Mo Ling’s vision.

’How can there be light?’

’It should be nothing but sand.’ 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

Mo Ling had to check several times to confirm he wasn’t mistaken. The light was indeed coming from within the endless sea of sand.

Just then, Captain He’s relaxed voice came over the intercom:

"We’ve reached sea level."

The sand ship began to slow down, and the sand in the hourglass had nearly run out.

As the last grain of sand fell from the hourglass, the sand ship came to a stop, dropping into a faintly glowing sea.

The light seemed to emanate from the far reaches of the sea.

The sand ship was now wedged between an inverted desert and the sea.

The desert and the sea were moving relative to each other at an incredible speed. The sand ship, propelled by the desert, advanced toward the light.

’So this is what it means to ride the sand waves to the sea?’

Mo Ling stared at the marvelous sight, utterly stunned.

The inverted desert, the constantly moving sand waves, the ship riding those waves, the placid sea below... everything was truly upside down!

While Mo Ling was still reeling from the shock, several creatures suddenly emerged from the desert sands around the ship.

They were Vortex Turtles!

But these Vortex Turtles were tiny, not even as large as the sand ship. They were heading in the same direction, riding the sand waves toward the light.

The small Vortex Turtles’ shells were polished smooth by the sand, a sign that they too had been falling through the desert for a long time.

’Could these be the Vortex Turtles from beneath the Oasis?’

Mo Ling remembered the eggs that one Vortex Turtle had laid beneath Oasis City. Perhaps these hatchlings came from that clutch.

A moment later, Captain He made an announcement over the intercom:

"We’ve run into a Vortex Turtle hatching. The outside is swarming with hatchlings, which will probably attract a lot of Hunters. But don’t worry. The Hunters won’t ignore those fragile little turtles to go after a big metal lump like us."

Captain He’s tone remained casual, completely confident in the sand ship’s safety.

Soon, more and more tiny Vortex Turtles emerged from the sand.

In a dense swarm, they rode the sand waves, rushing toward the light.

The sand ship was also crawling with the tiny turtles. They all seemed full of life, constantly adjusting their ’surfing’ posture to stay fixed on the sand waves.

However, Captain He was right. The Hunters were already lying in wait, watching hungrily.

In the faintly glowing depths of the sea, black shadows circled, waiting for the right moment to strike.

One little Vortex Turtle lost its footing and nearly tumbled from the sand wave into the sea below, its two tiny claws barely clinging to the edge of the current.

But the splash its body made as it skimmed the sea’s surface quickly drew the attention of the Hunters.

They rapidly closed in on the small turtle.

As the black shadows neared the surface, Mo Ling finally got a clear look. They were creatures resembling ichthyosaurs, except their fins were exceptionally large, like the wings of a bird.

One of the ichthyosaurs flapped its fins, closing in on the little turtle. With a sudden lunge, its sharp teeth severed the turtle’s flailing hind limbs.

Instantly, blood gushed out. The dark red blood spread into the sea, triggering the ferocity of the other ichthyosaurs. They swarmed in, descending upon the injured hatchling.

The little turtle could no longer hold on. It was knocked into the sea by one of the ichthyosaurs, and a brutal feeding frenzy began. A bloom of blood drifted away in the water, growing ever more distant.

The sand wave carried the ship onward, and soon, the cloud of blood vanished from sight.

As if signaling the start of a banquet, the death of this one small turtle made the Hunters that had been following beneath the waves unable to restrain themselves any longer. They surged toward the stream of sand.

In an instant, the small turtles clinging to the sand wave became easy pickings, brutally torn apart by the converging Hunters.

The tiny turtles were helpless. They could only try to hide their bodies deep within the sand wave, but it was no use.

Other Hunters lurking beneath the waves also began their attack.

One type of Hunter, resembling a sea urchin, had no visible means of propulsion. But they gathered in swarms, growing larger and larger until they formed a living ’roadblock’ on the sea’s surface, directly in the path of the sand wave.

Any little turtle that passed by was knocked off by this barricade of urchins.

The urchins’ long, sharp spines could even dig out the turtles hidden deep within the sand wave.

When a turtle fell among the urchins, it was quickly engulfed. Long, black spines pierced its body, draining it of its vital fluids.

In the end, all that remained of the tiny turtles was an empty shell, sinking into the depths of the sea.

These hatchlings had no way to fight back, nor did they possess the abilities of the adult Vortex Turtle Mo Ling had seen before.

They could only go with the flow, left to the mercy of fate.

With good luck, they might live.

With bad luck, they would sink into the sea, consigned to the abyss.