This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Revenge… For many people, it's the fire that lights them from within, but when its target is too distant, it leaves only cold despair. Besides, revenge on who? Malzahir suspected that whoever killed his grandmother was likely acting on the behalf of someone far more powerful—possibly even Lord Sirakhim directly. And if not him, then one of the few figures capable of opposing him—another demigod. Not to mention as long as the person that did the action was even the weakest beast-tamer, he wouldn't be able to exact his revenge—he was 'crippled' now. Completely vulnerable to even the weakest of spiritual creatures. He didn't even dare dream of exacting his revenge on Himolker. 'It's only in delusional fair tales that an ordinary person would be able to take down a high-level warrior.' He saw no hope of ever achieving justice—therefore, he saw no reason to continue living in this world where he'd have to be confronted by his dismal reality. "Kain!" Malzahir's head snapped up at the sound of the frantic shout, his curiosity flaring for the first time in what felt like forever. Not because he was interested in answering those cries of distress and panic—oh no, he was more interested in seeing if there lay the answer of him being put out of his misery quickly and painlessly. He dragged himself forward, his limbs heavy, his body sore from new and old injuries. The wind whipped through the desert, carrying with it the frantic cries of the group beyond the dune. He crested the sandy hill just in time to witness a shocking sight. A group of somewhat familiar strangers—the same ones who'd healed and then attempted to torture him for answers previously —were gathered around a patch of sand that seemed to move and churn unnaturally. One of them, the same young man with dark hair who was responsible for trying to infiltrate his mind, was sinking helplessly into the ground, his body disappearing beneath the surface with terrifying speed. The others were shouting, pulling at ropes, and trying desperately to free him, but their efforts were futile. The sand seemed alive, coiling around the young man in a manner that reminded Malzahir of when his beloved Tyrant Boa would coil around and devour its prey whole. Malzahir watched in stunned silence as the young man—Kain, he assumed—was swallowed whole. The sand closed over him, leaving no trace of his presence. Soon, as if the single sacrifice had awakened some kind of ravenous beast, the sand began to tremble once again, this time beneath the feet of all the remaining members of that group. One by one, the rest of his allies followed. Arms flailed, and voices cried out, but the desert showed no mercy. In mere moments, they were all gone, vanishing beneath the surface without a trace. Malzahir remained still, his heart pounding in his chest. For a moment, he felt a flicker of something—fear, perhaps, or awe. But it was quickly drowned out by the familiar numbness that had settled over him. He had no strength left to feel anything, no will to fight or flee. He was already dead inside; the desert could take his body too. "It's fitting," he murmured to himself, his voice barely audible over the wind. "Born of the desert, bound to the desert, and now, to die in its embrace. The sands will claim me, as they claim all things in the end." What better place to die than in the arms of the desert? It had raised him, tested him, and now, finally, it would reclaim him. Just as natural and inevitable as the sun getting swallowed by the horizon each day, just as the dunes swallowed all traces of the past, he too would fade away. He took a step forward, then another, his movements slow and deliberate. The sand shifted beneath his feet, but he didn't fight it. He welcomed it. This was his fate, his final act of surrender. He had no more battles to fight, no more dreams to chase. The desert would take him, and he would finally be at peace. If the stories told by his grandmother were true, then waiting for him was the warm embrace of his long-gone parents and his beloved grandmother—maybe even his Tyrant Boa was with them, guarding his family before he could arrive himself to protect them in the afterlife. He closed his eyes, letting the sinking sensation wash over him. He did not struggle. He did not fight. The last warmth he would ever feel came from the sun above, burning mercilessly against his skin. Then, darkness took him. For a moment, there was nothing but darkness and the suffocating weight of the sand. And then, suddenly, the world shifted. Malzahir gasped as he was thrown into a world unlike anything he had ever seen. The desert was gone, replaced by an endless expanse of white. The ground beneath him was cold and hard, the air biting and frigid. He stumbled, his legs giving out beneath him, and collapsed onto a strange, hard surface—so different from the warm and soft sand that had cushioned his falls his entire life. He looked around, his breath coming in visible white puffs as he tried to make sense of his surroundings. The landscape was alien, covered in a thick layer of a strange cold white powder that crunched beneath his hands. The sky above was a pale, washed-out gray, and the air was filled with a strange, almost oppressive silence. Malzahir shivered, his body trembling from the cold and the shock of his sudden displacement. He had expected to die, to be swallowed by the desert and forgotten. But instead, he had been brought here, to this strange, frozen world. "What… is this?" he whispered, his voice trembling from his teeth chattering uncontrollably. He had heard tales of the afterlife, of places where the souls of the dead were sent to be judged. Was this it? A frozen wasteland where the damned were sent to suffer for eternity? The air smelled sharp and unfamiliar, the cold gnawed at his skin. His limbs, already weak, were beginning to fail him. 'So this is…hell?' That was his last thought before exhaustion dragged him into unconsciousness.