Episode 15: Night Assault on the Sonic Tower

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The sand grains crunched softly beneath their boots, sounding like countless insects crawling. Lu Chen pressed a hand on Chen Yu’s shoulder, signaling him to stop. The three of them crouched on the leeward side of the dune. What the night vision goggles revealed made Chen Yu’s Adam’s apple bob up and down—in the distance, about a hundred meters away, dozens of camel carcasses were strewn around the sonic tower like discarded rag dolls. Their bodies were shriveled to mere skin, limbs twisted and piled into an arc stretching from the tower’s base down the dune, resembling a scorpion’s tail.

“Damn, this is a sacrifice,” Old Dao spat, spinning his bone knife rapidly in his palm. “Feeding the tower with living flesh and blood; the S tribe are truly mad dogs, no fear of divine retribution.”

The sonic tower was a twenty-meter-high metal frame, its structure densely wrapped in cables. At its top, an emitter emitted waves imperceptible to the naked eye. In the night vision, a faint purple halo shimmered, like a moldy pustule. The camel corpses all faced the tower, their desiccated heads slightly raised as if gazing upward. The one at the front even had its mouth agape, with luminescent sand crystals stuck between its teeth.

“Su Qing said the core of the sonic tower is at the base,” Lu Chen pulled up a holographic map, tapping the red marker at the bottom of the tower. “Old Dao, you breach the defenses. Chen Yu, cover him with the Molotovs. I’ll dismantle the core circuits. Move fast—we have no more than three minutes before we pull out.”

Chen Yu tightened his grip on the canvas bag strapped to his back. Inside were six glass bottles filled with gasoline, their corks stuffed with alcohol-soaked cloth strips. “Don’t worry. I guarantee it’ll burn so hot they won’t recognize their own mothers.”

The three approached in a triangular formation. The closer they got to the sonic tower, the stronger the metallic scent of blood mixed with a sickly sweet rot, like spoiled cantaloupe. Chen Yu couldn’t help but cover his nose, but when he glanced down, he froze—half a camel’s tongue was embedded in the sand beneath his feet, its bloodied surface trembling faintly in sync with the sonic waves.

“Don’t get distracted,” Lu Chen whispered, drawing his totem knife. The blade gleamed coldly in the night vision.

Old Dao was the first to charge the tower’s base, swinging his bone knife in a wide arc. A sharp “clang” rang out; sparks flew half a meter high. The alloy plate at the tower’s base bore only a white scratch. Strangely, the “Demon Suppression” totem engraved on the bone knife suddenly glowed red, as if soaked in blood, and the hilt trembled with scorching heat.

“Something’s wrong!” Old Dao abruptly retreated. Before he finished speaking, the sonic tower emitted a piercing shriek.

It wasn’t the inaudible torment of subsonic waves, but a high-frequency screech capable of tearing eardrums, like countless steel needles stabbing into the brain at once. Chen Yu instantly covered his ears; darkness swirled before his eyes, and the Molotov nearly slipped from his grasp. More terrifyingly, the sand around the tower’s base suddenly erupted, coalescing midair into a pale yellow shield that enveloped the entire sonic tower. The shield’s surface shimmered with intricate totem patterns identical to the S tribe’s scorpion emblem.

“It’s a sand-grain defensive shield!” Lu Chen’s voice changed pitch amid the shriek. He swung his knife at the shield; the blade bounced off, sending a numb shock through his hand. “This thing absorbs the energy of attacks!”

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Old Dao’s bone knife still radiated heat. Suddenly realizing something, he swung again at the shield, this time deliberately scraping the blade’s totem along its surface. A sizzling sound cracked, and where red light met yellow, white smoke billowed as a fine crack appeared in the shield!

“Break it with the totem!” Old Dao roared, hacking repeatedly at the fracture. Every strike landed precisely on the crack. “This shield is sustained by the sand’s energy. My knife counters it!”

Seizing the opportunity, Chen Yu pulled out a Molotov and flicked his lighter to ignite the cloth strip. The flame lit his youthful face and illuminated the scene behind the shield—the gaps at the tower’s base were stuffed with grayish-white masses resembling crumpled paper. A closer look revealed they were camel entrails, writhing slowly with the sonic waves.

“Burn it!” Chen Yu threw the Molotov.

The glass bottle arced through the air and shattered against the shield. Strangely, the gasoline flames didn’t extinguish; instead, as if ignited by some unseen force, the fire leapt three meters high, shifting from orange-red to an eerie ghostly blue—eerily reminiscent of bone core energy.

The blue light pierced the crack in the shield, illuminating the tower’s interior.

Chen Yu’s breath caught.

The metal frame inside was hung with countless human faces—not sculptures or paintings, but living human skin peeled and stretched over the frame. Eyes and mouths had been cut out and filled with sand grains, opening and closing in time with the sonic waves, as if silently screaming. Some faces were unmistakably camel; others bore the distinct features of humans, with eyebrows and eyes clearly identifiable as belonging to the X tribe.

“They’re the missing herders!” Lu Chen’s voice trembled. He recognized one face—it was Old Ah Ye, who had gone grazing in the S tribe’s territory last month. “That bastard Williams stripped people alive and made them into sonic amplifiers!”

Old Dao’s bone knife glowed a deep purple. He hacked furiously at the shield’s crack, his roar drowning out the sonic tower’s shriek. “I’ll chop you to hell, you son of a bitch!”

The shield’s crack widened. Blue flames snaked through the gap, igniting cables inside the tower. Agonized screams poured from the hollowed faces—no longer human cries but a chilling blend of camels’ and herders’ wails that made one’s scalp crawl.

Chen Yu hurled two more Molotovs. The blue flames soared skyward, coalescing atop the tower into a gigantic scorpion shape, its venomous stinger aimed at the night sky. The tower’s shriek shifted pitch, sounding like a tortured moan. The sand shield flickered erratically.

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“The core circuits are in there!” Lu Chen seized the moment and dashed forward. He plunged his totem knife into the tower’s base along the crack and twisted sharply.

“Sizzle—”

Blue sparks flew. The sonic tower’s shriek abruptly ceased. The sand shield lost its energy support and collapsed to the ground with a rustle, revealing charred circuits within. The human skins, no longer sustained by the sonic waves, drooped like tattered rags. Sand grains spilled from their hollow eyes and mouths, forming small mounds on the ground.

“Got it!” Chen Yu shouted excitedly, but froze as he turned.

On the dune’s crest, silhouettes had silently gathered. Black robes fluttered in the night wind; their sand-crystal-covered arms glimmered with blue light. At the forefront stood Jones, holding a bone flute. Sand grains seeped from its holes, forming a massive scorpion tail in midair, its stinger pointed directly at them.

“Trying to run?” Jones’s laughter was sharper than the tower’s shriek. “Lu Chen, what you dismantled was just a secondary tower. The real main tower…”

He abruptly pointed at the tower’s shadow. Under the moonlight, the shadow writhed slowly on the sand, transforming into an even taller tower. Its emitter pulsed a dark red glow, its frequency more than triple the previous subsonic waves.

Old Dao’s bone knife trembled violently; the totem on the blade flickered wildly like a warning. Lu Chen glanced down—the sand grains that had fallen from the shield were regrouping into a scorpion shape, its tail aimed at their feet.

The blue flames still burned, illuminating the sand-blood warriors behind Jones. Their eyes glowed blood red, and their bone blades gleamed with a thirst for blood in the eerie light.

The three-minute deadline had long passed, and they had only just stepped into the true trap.