Episode 23: The Father's Trap

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The blue light of the holographic projection flickered inside the tent like the final, labored breaths of a drowning man. Alicia’s fingertips hovered over the virtual keyboard, sweat trickling down her pale wrists and into her sleeves. Her father’s holographic diary lay splayed across her lap; the scorpion totem on its cover had faded, its edges frayed like a withered leaf. She had spent three agonizing hours trying to crack the hidden folder, exhausting every conceivable password—her mother’s birthday, royal encryption keys, even the serial number of Williams’ mechanical arm—only to be met with the cold, unyielding response: "Access Denied."

"One last time..." She bit her lower lip and entered her own birthday.

The holographic device suddenly emitted a harsh, electric screech. The garbled data on the screen scattered like a flock of startled birds, only to instantly reorganize into a line of ancient Qiang text: "Use the bloodline as the key to unlock the sworn secrets buried in dust."

A soft rustle of sand came from outside the tent—the patrol of the Sand-Blood Warriors. Alicia clamped her hand over the device, her heart hammering against her ribs until they ached. The black pattern on her side suddenly seared with heat, feeling as though a small serpent were slithering beneath her skin, resonating eerily with the device. The text on the screen distorted, swirling into a crimson vortex that pulled her fingertips into its depth.

"Hiss—"

A single drop of blood fell onto the device and was instantly absorbed. The folder unlocked with a click. Inside, there was only a solitary video file, its name a string of gibberish, with a creation date of July 13, 1999—the day before her father’s "death by illness."

Alicia’s fingertips trembled three times over the play button.

Since childhood, she had been told that her father died from a poison arrow shot by the X Tribe. Every time Williams mentioned it, his mechanical eye would glow a menacing red, vowing to make the X Tribe pay in blood. Yet, her mother, clutching Alicia’s hand on her deathbed, had whispered, "Your father... he was killed by his own people..." The sentence remained unfinished, her final breath leaving Alicia with a festering wound of doubt for over a decade.

The wind outside the tent tightened, sounding as if someone were eavesdropping. Alicia grabbed a dagger from the table, gripping it firmly in her palm while her other hand slammed the play button.

The moment the holographic projection exploded into view, a thick, metallic scent of blood filled the air.

In the frame, a man was shackled inside a cage of sand-crystals, his white robes soaked through with blood, making it impossible to tell if it was the red of his wounds or the light reflecting off the crystals. A gruesome hole gaped in his left chest, embedded with half of a glowing crystal—a piece of a Bone Core, identical to the one in her mother’s chest inside the blue light sarcophagus.

It was her father!

Alicia covered her mouth to stifle a sob. The gentle, refined father from her memories was gone; his hair was now a tangled mess of dead grass, his eye sockets sunken deep, yet his eyes burned on like two embers that refused to be extinguished.

"If it is Alicia seeing this recording..." His voice was as hoarse as if ground by sandpaper, each word pulling at his wounds, causing his body to shudder. "My little silver bird, do not be afraid."

The sand-crystal cage vibrated violently. The barbs on the cage glowed with a ghostly blue light, piercing into her father’s shoulders. He groaned, and droplets of blood fell onto the totem array at the center of the cage, sparking a flurry of embers. Alicia recognized it as a "Memory Stripping Array," identical to the one Williams was preparing to use on Jones, only far larger and infinitely more complex.

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"They lied to you, and they lied to everyone." Her father leaned closer to the lens, bloodshot veins spreading like spiderwebs across his eyes. "The Bone Core is no gift; it is a demon that devours souls. It reads your desires and manifests them into the totem you crave most—a merchant sees a mountain of gold, a warrior sees armor, an avenger sees the skulls of their enemies..."

He began to cough violently, the blood he spat out mixed with fine grains of sand. "But it is all a trap! Those totems take root in your blood and bones, consuming your memories and emotions bit by bit, eventually turning you into a mindless sand puppet. Just like... just like I am now."

The image shook violently, clearly the result of someone dragging the camera. Her father struggled to lunge forward, the chains biting into his wrists, revealing a greenish jade ring—the very one Old Blade had spoken of, one of the three rings used for purification!

"Williams! He is the one who locked me in here!" Her father’s voice rose to a dying roar. "He said my bloodline wasn't pure enough, that I was to be the first sacrifice for the Bone Core’s awakening! Little silver bird, do not believe his lies. He doesn't want the glory of the S Tribe; he wants to be the puppet king of the Bone Core!"

"Leader! It is time for the stripping!"

Williams’ voice, younger and sharper than it was now—like an unsharpened blade—came from outside the frame. Her father turned his head sharply, roaring at the camera, "Remember the jade ring! It is in..."

Before he could finish, the screen was obscured by a black-gloved hand. The final frame showed her father’s right hand turning to sand; as the grains slipped through his fingers, a smooth, polished ring rolled out—the Plain Ring! The one among the three responsible for communicating with the Bone Core!

The video cut off abruptly, leaving only the sound of electricity humming from the device.

Alicia’s nails dug deep into her palms. Blood dripped onto her lap, merging with the blood from her father’s image in the blue light. She finally understood her mother’s final words, and why Williams always emphasized the "importance of pure blood"—he wasn't grooming an heir; he was raising a second sacrifice!

The black pattern on her side began to writhe frantically, as if trying to tear its way out of her skin. Alicia pulled up her garment, and in the blue light of the device, she saw the full design: it was not a sand-scorpion totem at all, but a silver bird entangled in chains, its beak pointed directly at her heart, where the skin was already glowing with a faint blue light.

"It has already begun..." she whispered, her voice trembling. When the Bone Core sample fluid had seeped into her skin, it hadn't just been merging with her bloodline—it had been pre-drawing the totem of the sacrifice.

The sound of grinding sand outside the tent grew closer, accompanied by the metallic clicking of mechanical joints. Alicia realized instantly: Williams had been monitoring her! Her efforts to crack the folder had alerted him.

She moved to delete the recording in a panic, but her fingers stopped at the last second. The Plain Ring rolling in the sand in her father’s video reminded her of a detail she had overlooked: in the secret chamber on the third basement level of the temple, there was a smooth stone dais whose shape perfectly matched the ring.

"The Jade Ring is with Father... the Plain Ring is in the temple secret room..." Alicia shoved the holographic device into her bosom, her dagger spinning in her palm. "Then where is the Chain Ring?"

The tent flap was suddenly slashed open. A sand-crystal claw, glinting with cold light, pierced through, stopping just three inches from her throat. Williams’ laughter sounded like rusted gears turning. "My dear niece, one must pay the price for peeking at things one shouldn't."

Alicia rolled backward, and as she dodged the claw, she saw the scene outside: Williams’ mechanical arm had fully crystallized, with fresh flesh hanging from its barbs—he had clearly just finished off the "eavesdropping" patrol. Behind him, the Sand-Blood Warriors raised their energy guns, their blue beams forming a web of death in the darkness.

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"Your father was right," Williams stepped closer, his crystal boots crushing the bone dust on the ground. "The Bone Core manifests the totem of one's deepest desire. Guess, what is it that you want the most?"

Alicia retreated to the corner of the tent, her back pressing against the cold stone wall. She suddenly smiled. The black pattern on her side flared with a blinding red light, resonating with the dagger in her hand. "Do you want to guess what I want to do right now?"

She plunged the dagger into the pattern on her side. The moment the searing pain hit, the black silver bird totem came to life, tearing through her skin and transforming into a beam of silver light that shot toward Williams’ mechanical arm.

"Hiss—"

The silver light struck the sand-crystal armor, melting a hole straight through it. Williams shrieked and recoiled, smoke pouring from his mechanical arm to reveal the black curse mark wrapped underneath—identical to the one on her mother’s body in the blue light sarcophagus.

"This is impossible!" His mechanical eye flared with red light. "How could you..."

Clutching her bleeding side, Alicia’s fingers brushed against something cold and hard—it had fallen out of the wound. It was half of a shattered silver bird pendant, the other half of the necklace her mother had left her. Engraved on the inside of the pendant was a tiny character for "Lock," matching the Chain Ring perfectly.

A thunderous horn blast sounded from the direction of the temple. Williams’ expression shifted drastically. He glanced at Alicia, then toward the source of the horn, and finally gritted his teeth. "Lock her in the sand-crystal cage! Once the sacrificial ritual is over, we will deal with this restless silver bird!"

As the Sand-Blood Warriors swarmed her, Alicia tucked the half-pendant into her mouth. Using the momentum of being dragged away, she kicked the holographic device into a pile of sand. She knew there was a deeper secret hidden in her father’s recording—the gibberish filename, when read backward, clearly spelled: "The Chain Ring is at the Sand-Keeper’s Altar."

The moment she was dragged out of the tent, she took one last look at the device in the sand. The grains were gathering on their own, slowly forming the shape of the Plain Ring, glowing faintly toward the moon.

Deep within the temple, the Bone Core in the glass vat began to pulse violently, Alicia’s face appearing on its surface with a cold sneer identical to her own. In the blue sarcophagus, the fingers of her mother’s mummified remains twitched, pointing toward the direction of the Sand-Keeper’s Altar.

Williams believed he had laid an inescapable trap, never realizing he was walking step by step into a plot set by her father twenty years ago. The three rings were never keys to suppress the Bone Core; they were the password to unlock a much greater secret—a secret that could turn the entire desert upside down.

The bars of the sand-crystal cage glinted coldly in the moonlight. As Alicia’s blood dripped onto them, sparking a flurry of embers, she knew the true game had only just begun.