Episode 25: The Phantasm of Slaughter

The camp, still heavy with the lingering scent of blood, fell into a sudden, terrifying silence.

Lu Chen had just finished bandaging the wound on his arm; the gash torn by the bone shards of a sand-skeleton beast was still seeping blood. Yesterday’s battle had cost the X Tribe seven warriors, and now, fewer than thirty remained capable of lifting a weapon. Su Qing was calibrating the final infrasonic transmitter, while Old Dao crouched in the corner, cleaning his bone blade. The nicks along the edge looked like jagged scars in the morning light.

"Click."

A sound of grinding metal echoed from above. Lu Chen jerked his head up to see a dozen mechanical vultures emerging from the clouds. The alloy plates on their wings caught the harsh light, and they circled the camp like a swarm of metallic locusts poised to strike.

"It’s the S Tribe’s toys!" Chen Yu raised his rifle, his finger tightening on the trigger. "What do they want? We haven't even settled the score from last night—"

He froze before he could finish his sentence.

The mechanical vultures suddenly spread their wings, and countless beams of light shot from their tips, projecting a massive holographic image onto the sand in the center of the camp. The moment the picture lit up, everyone gasped. Su Qing’s hands froze over her equipment, and the infrasonic transmitter let out a piercing screech of static.

The image showed a familiar oasis, its spring water crystal clear. Children chased each other along the banks, and women sat before tents weaving wool rugs—it was the Crescent Spring Oasis from ten years ago, during the time of greatest harmony between the X Tribe and the oasis civilians.

But in the next second, the scene shifted violently.

A group of warriors clad in the leather armor of the X Tribe stormed in, their scimitars flashing with cold light. Without warning, they began cutting down the civilians. Blood instantly stained the spring water red. The wails of children were deafening, and women huddled on the ground shielding their young, only to be dragged away by force. As the scimitars fell, huge sprays of blood erupted in the projection.

"No... that's impossible..." A veteran from the oasis suddenly slumped to the ground. His lips trembled as he pointed at an elder being struck down in the image. "That’s... that’s my father... He died of an illness ten years ago, I know he did..."

Lu Chen’s pupils contracted. The X Tribe warriors in the image had red totems painted on their faces—the mark of the radical "Blood Sand Guard." But the Blood Sand Guard had been purged long before a decade ago, and furthermore, he had never seen such a massacre in the tribe’s records.

"This is a forgery!" Lu Chen roared, raising his totem blade. He slashed golden light toward the image, but it passed through like air. "Williams is trying to sow discord!"

"A forgery?" Williams’ voice suddenly emanated from the mechanical vultures, laced with a nauseating amusement. "Why deceive yourself, Priest Lu? This is the recording crystal your X Tribe hid at the base of the temple. I’m merely helping you 'make it public.'"

The image zoomed in, focusing on a severed head—the old chieftain of the oasis. His eyes were wide open, a half-swallowed piece of naan still in his mouth. The X Tribe warrior beside him was using the man's blood to paint a scorpion totem on the tent, his movements as practiced as if he were performing a ritual.

"Do you see?" Williams’ voice hissed like a viper. "This is the work of the ancestors you revere! They accepted the offerings of the oasis people while secretly slaughtering and sacrificing them, all to appease their so-called 'Lord Bone Core'!"

Two young figures suddenly began to tremble. They were oasis youths who had joined the combat unit only half a month ago. One was named A-He, the other A-Cao. Both were orphans, saved from the jaws of a sand-skeleton beast by X Tribe warriors. Now, they stared fixedly at the slaughtered children in the image, their faces pale as paper, their lips bitten until they bled.

"It can't be... the brothers of the X Tribe wouldn't..." A-He’s voice was choked with sobs, and his rifle clattered to the ground. "They saved me... they fed me..."

"Don't listen to his lies!" Lu Chen tried to grab them, but Old Dao held him back. Old Dao’s expression was grim. He pointed to a corner of the image, where a faint, blurred mark was visible—a communication sigil used by the X Tribe ten years ago. The possibility of such a detail being faked was extremely low.

"Ten years ago... a unit of the Blood Sand Guard did go missing at Crescent Spring," Old Dao said, his voice strained. "The tribal elders said they had defected at the time, but now it seems..."

The image switched to even crueler scenes: X Tribe warriors tossing wailing infants into boiling spring water, building altars out of civilian bones, and forcing an oasis medicine man to drink sand mixed with blood. Every scene was as clear as if it were happening right in front of them. The screams of children, the pleas of women, the sickening crunch of bone being shattered... all wove together into a symphony of hell.

"Ugh—" A-Cao suddenly doubled over and vomited. He looked at the X Tribe leather armor he was wearing as if it were something filthy. He tore it off, threw it to the ground, and began to trample it maniacally. "Liars! You’re all liars!"

A-He suddenly picked up the rifle from the ground, but he leveled the muzzle at his own temple. His eyes were bloodshot, and tears mixed with sand rolled down his cheeks. "My parents... they might have died like this... and I was helping the murderers..."

"A-He! Stop!" Lu Chen lunged forward, roaring.

But it was too late.

"Bang!"

The gunshot rang out in the silent camp. A-He’s body swayed and then slumped to the ground. Blood flowed from his temple, seeping into the sand. Eerily, the sand seemed to come alive, greedily sucking up the blood. The red color faded with visible speed, leaving behind only a pale mark, not even a trace of the scent of blood remaining.

"A-He!" A-Cao let out a desperate howl. He snatched up a bayonet from the ground and, without a moment's hesitation, slit his own throat. "Father! Mother! I’m coming to join you!"

Another pool of blood seeped into the sand, and it, too, was instantly consumed. Two young lives, like flowers snapped from their stems, withered in the face of this so-called "truth."

Williams’ joyous laughter erupted from the mechanical vultures: "Do you see? This is the consequence of having your lies exposed! Remnants of the X Tribe, your hands have been stained with blood for a long time. Now... are you prepared to face your retribution?"

The image suddenly vanished. The mechanical vultures, like messengers having completed their mission, flapped their alloy wings and flew into the distance, leaving behind a scene of devastation and a deathly silence.

The eyes of the oasis veterans changed; suspicion and fear wound around them like vines. They looked at Lu Chen and the X Tribe warriors, their hands tightening involuntarily on their weapons. The air was thick with the scent of gunpowder, ready to ignite at any moment.

"This isn't real." Su Qing spoke suddenly, her voice trembling. The screen of the detector in her hand was displaying complex waveforms. "The sound frequency in the image is wrong! Williams used memory-tampering technology. These images are real, but... but he spliced them together and inverted the cause and effect!"

Lu Chen picked up the rifle A-He had dropped; the weapon still held the warmth of the boy's body. He stared at the two pale marks on the sand, suddenly remembering the mummified corpses in the blue-light coffins, remembering the blood swallowed by the sand—Williams didn't just want to destroy their bodies; he wanted to shatter their spirits, to make the X Tribe and the oasis civilians slaughter each other.

"Prepare for combat," Lu Chen’s voice was cold as ice, his totem blade vibrating slightly in his hand. "Not against each other, but against those bastards who toy with memories."

His gaze swept across the wavering oasis veterans and finally landed on the pale marks on the sand. "A-He and A-Cao’s blood will not have been spilled in vain. Once we expose Williams’ tricks, we will show them who the real executioners are."

Old Dao suddenly pointed toward a distant sand dune. The sand there was shifting abnormally, as if something were waking up beneath it. More strangely, the sand that had been soaked in blood was flowing along the contours of the dune, gathering at the top into the vague shape of a scorpion's head, its stinger pointed directly at the camp.

"He isn't finished yet," Old Dao’s bone blade glowed a deep, bruised purple. "Williams wants the sand... to swallow all our memories."

The sand at the edge of the camp began to squirm, slowly coalescing into the shapes of the X Tribe warriors from the image. Their scimitars flashed with cold light as they closed in, step by step. And the eyes of the oasis veterans were becoming increasingly lost, increasingly... murderous.

The phantoms of the massacre had faded, but the true slaughter seemed to have only just begun.