Dread Dust

Dread Dust is an airborne particle encountered in the world known as Dite, responsible for the creation of wanderers.

History
What eventually became known as Dread Dust originated on Earth as a type of medical nanomachine. These nanomachines began to self propagate and eventually exhibit swarm behaviour, as well as generating Kuban energy and Iris energy through some sort of process. Eventually the nanomachine swarm took sentience and began to consume everything, generating wormholes with the energies and through them pulling forward castaways and objects from around throughout time.

Out of this sentience a massive creature known as the Lord of Dust was created as the central focus of the hivemind. Once the world was ravaged, becoming Dite, the creature used its energy to create a wormhole to transport itself to the past and begin its cycle of consumption again.

This time loop continued an unknown number of repetitions until the intervention of Goodluck and the Captain broke the cycle, ensuring the Dread Dust never destroyed earth and the wormholes generated by the Dread Dust never coalesced.

Behind the scenes
Dread Dust is a gameplay and story element in Metal Gear Survive. In the game the dust requires the player to use gas masks and oxygen tanks to explore the sections of Dite covered in the Dust.