Episode 47: The Truth of the Blood-Sand Potion

On the iron-framed bed in the medical tent, the iron chains rasped against Anderson’s wrists, emitting faint wisps of white smoke.

The military doctor of the S Tribe was pinned to the mattress by Kam, his sand-crystallized left hand locked tight by specially crafted shackles. With every struggle, the anti-entropy runes etched into the shackles flared with golden light, burning into his flesh like red-hot irons. Su Qing held a syringe, the needle hovering right before his eyes. The transparent liquid within shimmered with an eerie silver glow—a specialized compound brewed from camel blood antibodies and Old Blade’s bone powder, engineered specifically to suppress the activity of sand crystals.

“One last time.” Su Qing’s voice was as cold as glacier ice, her eyes behind her lenses devoid of any warmth. “What is the complete formula for the sand-blood serum? What the hell did Williams add to it?”

A dry, rattling sound escaped Anderson’s throat, and his sand-encrusted cheeks twisted into a grotesque grin. “You can’t win… The serum has already resonated with the bone core. Even if you know the formula…”

“Click.”

Chen Yu abruptly turned the dial on the shackles. The anti-entropy runes instantly tightened, the golden light glowing so fiercely it threatened to melt Anderson’s wrists right through. The doctor let out a squeal like a slaughtered pig, the crust of his sand crystals fracturing to reveal the bloody, mangled flesh beneath. “Agh—! Stop! I’ll talk!”

Su Qing signaled Chen Yu to ease up, though she kept the syringe poised and ready. She knew the likes of Anderson; their bones were saturated with a fanatical devotion to Williams, rendering standard interrogation useless—Kam had already tried threatening his family earlier, only for the old bastard to laugh and say, “My family was already turned into fuel for the sand crystal furnaces long ago.”

Panting heavily, Anderson watched the beads of blood seeping from the crystal fissures pool into tiny puddles on the bedsheets. Abruptly, he lifted his head, his clouded eyes locked onto the detector pinned to Su Qing’s chest. “Do you know about the ‘Three Balances of the Ancient Curse’?”

Su Qing’s fingers froze mid-air. She had encountered the phrase before in her father’s notes, which described it as an ancient biological seal recorded by the Sand Keepers—a formula that achieved the effect of “enhancement without alienation” through the dynamic equilibrium of three distinct components.

“The prototype of the sand-blood serum is derived from that.” A bizarre excitement laced Anderson’s voice as his crystallized fingers traced three overlapping circles upon the sheet. “The first ring is the bone core extract, providing energy; the second ring is desert scorpion venom, activating cellular vitality; and the third ring is—”

He choked off abruptly. The rattling in his throat grew frantic, as if some invisible force were physically barring him from speaking further. With sharp intuition, Su Qing noticed the sand crystals pulsing wildly at the base of his neck, forming a miniature scorpion-shaped totem—the “silencing device” implanted by Williams, programmed to release a neurotoxin the moment any core secrets were divulged.

“Hold him down!” Su Qing roared suddenly, driving the syringe ruthlessly into Anderson’s carotid artery.

The silver fluid surged instantly into his veins. Anderson’s body convulsed violently, his sand crystal shell peeling away at a visible rate to expose normal skin underneath. He let out a shriek of agony, yet finally broke free from the totem’s control, his voice rasped in a hoarse shout revealing the final link:

“The third ring is the ‘Sand Keeper Serum’! It’s the key to suppressing consciousness erosion! Williams replaced it with sand crystal powder—he intentionally let the soldiers’ minds be devoured by the scorpion consciousness!”

The statement struck the tent like a thunderbolt.

Lu Chen violently clenched his fist, his knuckles turning white. No wonder the sand-blood soldiers lost their sanity; no wonder they became mindless puppets—it wasn't a side effect at all, but a deliberate plot engineered by Williams from the very beginning!

“Why?” Kam’s voice trembled as he recalled the brothers consumed by the crystals. “The enhanced soldiers clearly didn't need to have the serum removed. What on earth is he trying to achieve?”

“Control.” Su Qing suddenly understood, her fingers flying across the detector as she pulled up the brainwave spectrum of the sand-blood soldiers. “Look at these waveforms. The brainwave frequencies of the consumed soldiers are in absolute synchronization with the bone core. Williams isn't trying to strengthen them; he’s building an army of puppets directly controlled by the bone core’s consciousness!”

Anderson slumped back against the mattress, his crystallized skin slowly regenerating while the fanaticism in his eyes was replaced by terror. “He said… pure obedience is the ultimate combat capability. Those soldiers who retained self-awareness were merely ‘imperfect, defective products’ destined to be completely replaced by sand crystal puppets sooner or later.”

He suddenly grabbed Su Qing’s wrist with startling strength. “I have the complete formula! And the method to brew the antidote! It’s in the recorder I carry on me! As long as you destroy the bone core, I’ll tell you everything!”

Chen Yu ripped open the doctor’s collar, instantly feeling a thumbnail-sized metal plate at the back of his neck. It was a military-grade S Tribe recorder—waterproof, magnetic-resistant, and unlockable only via a specific frequency. Su Qing swiftly connected it to her detector, and dense streams of data instantly flooded the screen, among which an encrypted folder was labeled: *Three Balances of the Ancient Curse - Revised Edition*.

“Decryption takes time.” Su Qing’s fingertips flew across the virtual keyboard, fine beads of sweat breaking out on her forehead. “This bastard used a twelve-tier dynamic password that shifts every single second.”

Outside the tent, hurried footsteps suddenly echoed. Wang Liu ripped open the flap and rushed inside, her face as pale as paper. “Not good! The western defense line has been breached! They’re the enhanced sand-blood soldiers—their crystal armor can deflect bullets, and they’ve already broken into the camp!”

Anderson burst into manic laughter, his crystallized lips splitting back to his ears. “It’s too late! Williams anticipated that you’d capture me; he sent the ‘Purification Squad’ to silence me! This unit uses the latest formulation—even camel blood can’t cure them!”

Before his words faded, the roof of the tent was abruptly torn open.

A grey-blue hand reached inside, the crystal nails gleaming coldly as they clawed straight for Anderson’s head. Reacting with lightning speed, Chen Yu raised his rifle and squeezed the trigger. The bullets struck the sand crystal hand, generating only a shower of sparks. Roaring, the soldier clawed its way inside, its entire body covered in translucent crystal armor, its eyes glowing with the deep blue of congealed venom—it was precisely the newly formulated enhanced type Anderson had mentioned.

“Grab him!” Lu Chen’s totem blade slashed out a golden arc, striking the soldier’s shoulder guard. The crystal armor fractured along a seam, yet failed to pierce the flesh beneath. The bastard’s regeneration speed was three times faster than that of ordinary sand-blood soldiers, and the crack was instantly filled by newly forming sand crystals.

Kam lunged forward to wrap his arms around the soldier’s legs, but the crystal spikes pierced deep into his back, soaking his combat uniform in blood. “Hurry up and decrypt it, Su Qing! I can’t hold on much longer!”

Su Qing’s fingers danced across the keyboard, and the progress bar for the encrypted folder finally crawled to 90%. A string of crimson characters popped onto the screen—the Sand Keeper serum formula deleted by Williams, accompanied by a line of fine print at the bottom: *“The antidote requires bone core secretions as a primer; this substance can only be produced by the host.”*

“A host?” Su Qing’s heart contracted sharply. “Williams? Or—”

“It’s Alicia!” Anderson’s hoarse roar was cut short by a blow from the soldier’s fist. He spat out a mouthful of blood-stained teeth, yet his eyes shone with eerie brilliance. “Only a host of royal bloodline can produce pure secretions! Williams is a mutant; his secretions would turn the antidote into lethal poison!”

The revelation fell like a thunderclap upon everyone present.

To craft the antidote, they had to secure the bone core secretions residing within Alicia. Yet Alicia was still kept within the S Tribe temple, guarded by Williams as a vessel, while she herself was steadily being eroded by the bone core’s consciousness, teetering on the brink of total loss of control.

“Progress bar at 100%!” Su Qing yanked the recorder free and shoved it into the inner lining of her protective gear. “Fall back!”

Lu Chen’s totem blade flared with blinding golden light, hacking forcefully through the soldier’s crystal armor as he dragged Su Qing toward the tent exit. Kam let go and rolled away, while Chen Yu’s rocket launcher was already shouldered. With a thunderous boom, it blasted through the rear wall of the tent, revealing an escape route amidst the billowing smoke.

Howling, the enhanced soldier pursued them, its crystallized arm suddenly shooting out like a venomous snake to wrap around Su Qing’s ankle. Twirling around, Lu Chen severed the crystal limb with a single slash, only to discover that instead of blood, a viscous, deep-blue fluid oozed from the stump, rapidly pooling upon the ground into a tiny scorpion that scurried in their direction.

“These bastards aren't human at all!” Chen Yu cursed as he ran, his rocket launcher’s ammunition exhausted as he resorted to his rifle for meager suppression. “They’re walking sand crystal bombs!”

The western defense line of the camp had completely collapsed. Enhanced sand-blood soldiers surged in like a tidal wave, their crystal armor flashing coldly in the sunlight. Wherever they passed, tents were ground to splinters, campfires extinguished by the sand crystals, and even the defensive barricades made of skeletal remains were steadily beaten back.

“Fall back toward the altar!” Lu Chen pointed his bone blade toward the central altar, where the anti-entropy array was still spinning, its golden light capable of temporarily suppressing the activity of the sand crystals. “Su Qing, what materials does the antidote formula require? How much can we lay our hands on right now?”

Pulling up the inventory list stored on the recorder, Su Qing’s expression darkened further. “Most components are in our medical kits, but the Sand Keeper serum requires the sap of century-old cacti from the Black Wind Pass, and… we need live scorpion venom, freshly extracted directly from the tail.”

Kam gestured abruptly toward the northwest. “There are wild scorpions in the rock piles over there! I’ve seen them when I used to travel with the herders!”

“I’ll go get the venom!” Chen Yu swiveled abruptly, slinging his rifle across his back. “You guys head to the altar to activate the defense array. I’ll definitely be back in half an hour!”

“No!” Lu Chen grabbed him by the shoulder. “Those enhanced soldiers are targeting us—operating alone is far too dangerous!”

“There’s no time to dawdle now!” Chen Yu shook off his grip, his face smeared with soot and blood, yet his eyes shone with startling brilliance. “My life was saved by Kam and the antibody; it’s time I paid that debt back.”

He wheeled around and sprinted into the stone maze, his figure swallowed swiftly by the swirling grains of sand. True to form, the enhanced soldiers split up to pursue him, the sharp crunch of their crystal boots upon the stones fading rapidly into the distance.

Staring at the direction where Chen Yu had vanished, Lu Chen tightened his grip around the bone blade. Wang Liu was busy bandaging the wounds on Kam’s back; the area pierced by the crystal spikes had already turned a dark, bruised purple, clearly laced with virulent poison.

“He’s right, we’re out of time.” Su Qing’s detector abruptly sounded an alarm, displaying a red countdown timer on its screen—forty minutes left until the bone core energy field completely enveloped the camp. “We have to reach the altar before then, or we won’t even have a chance to brew the antidote.”

Dragged along by Kam, Anderson maintained an eerie, twisted smile upon his crystallized lips. “Do you truly believe you can save those soldiers? Even if you make the antidote, anyone devoured by the scorpion consciousness for more than seventy-two hours becomes a hollow shell devoid of a soul… Williams has calculated everything long ago.”

Halting abruptly, Lu Chen leveled the edge of his totem blade against Anderson’s throat. “You know more than this, don't you?”

The doctor’s smile stiffened, and his crystallized pupils contracted sharply. “I… I don't know what you’re talking about…”

“The bone core secretions.” Su Qing spoke up suddenly, her fingertips swiping across the detector to call up Alicia’s energy spectrum. “You mentioned earlier that only a royal host can produce pure secretions, but you didn't say how to extract them. Does it require—”

Her words were cut short by an explosion in the distance. A column of dark purple smoke billowed from the direction of the rock piles—Chen Yu’s personal signal flare, signifying “extreme danger.”

“Chen Yu!” Lu Chen’s heart squeezed as if gripped by an iron hand, and he spun around to charge back, only to be held firmly in place by Kam.

“Don't go!” Kam rasped, his vision darkening from the agonizing pain in his back. “He’s deliberately drawing the enemy away! We can't let him die in vain!”

The roars of the enhanced soldiers drifted from the direction of the smoke, laden with triumphant fanaticism. Lu Chen clenched his fists so hard his nails dug deep into his palms, the metallic taste of blood blooming on his tip of his tongue.

Witnessing the scene, Anderson let out a low, mocking chuckle. “See that? That is the exact effect Williams desires—mutual sacrifice, while changing absolutely nothing. The antidote cannot save everyone, nor are the bone core secretions easily acquired…”

Leaning close to Lu Chen’s ear, he whispered in a voice meant only for the two of them: “Alicia is losing her suppression over the bone core. Her secretions are already tainted by the fury of the wildfire. The moment you extract them is the exact second the antidote turns into a bomb.”

Lu Chen shoved him aside violently, the golden light of his totem blade nearly descending upon him. Su Qing steadied his arm; the countdown timer on the detector had dropped to thirty minutes, and the enhanced soldiers were regrouping with a singular destination—the central altar.

“No matter what he says, we have to try.” A tremor ran through Su Qing’s voice, yet her resolve was unwavering. “Even if we can only save a single person, it’s better than sitting here waiting to die.”

Taking a deep breath, Lu Chen swept his gaze toward the crumbling wall on the eastern side of the camp. There lay an inconspicuous ventilation shaft, an emergency exit designed by Old Blade during his lifetime that led straight beneath the altar. He hauled Anderson up, the iron chains dragging a harsh screech across the sand.

“Lead the way. To the altar.”

The doctor’s laughter abruptly turned shrill. “You’ll regret this! Once you witness Alicia’s true state, you’ll understand what true despair is. There’s nothing left of herself in her eyes—only—”

His words were cut short by a sharp, piercing whistle.

It was the assembly horn of the X Tribe, yet pitched with an eerie, warped modulation. Lu Chen snapped his head up to spot a familiar figure standing atop the central altar—the elderly Sand Weaver, leaning on his serpent-headed cane, his black robes snapping wildly in the wind as he beckoned toward them.

Even weirder, the enhanced soldiers pursuing them suddenly halted, their crystallized heads turning in unison toward the altar as if manipulated by an invisible string.

“It’s the Sand Keeper’s sand-calling whistle!” Kam cried out in disbelief. “He’s controlling those puppets!”

Su Qing’s detector began to shriek frantically, the energy waveforms on the screen revealing that the frequency of the sound waves emitted by the Sand Weaver matched the “Three Balances of the Ancient Curse” found in Anderson’s recorder down to the letter.

Anderson’s face turned ashen white, and his crystallized skin began to flake off. “Impossible… How could he know the frequency of the ancient curse… Could he possibly be—”

Lu Chen’s heart hammered wildly.

The Sand Weaver had known the secret of the sand-blood serum from the very beginning. He could command the sand-bone beasts, understand the whispers of the dead, and now manipulate the sand crystal puppets—this final scion of the sand soul likely harbored secrets that dwarfed even those of Williams.

Atop the altar, the Sand Weaver raised his cane, pointing toward the western sky. The cloud cover there was twisting, vaguely revealing the silhouette of a massive scorpion, with dark-purple wildfire pulsing like blood vessels through the clouds.

“The time to harvest the secretions approaches.” The Sand Weaver’s voice carried upon the wind, laden with a penetrating resonance. “Yet remember—not every host can yield ‘pure’ secretions.”

The statement struck Lu Chen like lightning.

Anderson had claimed only Alicia could produce pure secretions, yet the Sand Weaver had declared “not every host”—could there be a third bone core host besides Alicia and Williams?

Su Qing suddenly tugged at his sleeve, the detector flashing with a newly decrypted file. It was a fragment of a private audio log belonging to Williams, against the background of which a faint, distorted female voice screamed—sounding remarkably like Alicia, yet imbued with an age not her own:

“...The third vessel has been activated… within the Tomb of the Sand Keepers in the Valley of Lost Souls… She shall be the perfect…”

The recording abruptly cut off.

Lu Chen’s gaze locked onto the dark-purple clouds to the west, the very direction of the Valley of Lost Souls. The Sand Weaver’s cane remained pointed skyward, the sand scars exposed beneath his black robes glowing faintly like a living star chart.

The enhanced soldiers surged into motion once more, though this time they bypassed the heroes, forming neat columns and marching toward the altar. The rhythmic crunch of their crystal boots upon the earth echoed in uniform unison, as if welcoming an arrival.

Anderson collapsed completely to the ground, his crystallized body beginning to disintegrate. “So that’s it… He was actually—”

Before he could finish, he dissolved entirely into a mound of sand, leaving only the military recorder gleaming faintly upon the earth. Su Qing picked up the device, and the antidote recipe on the screen refreshed itself automatically, adding a line of fine print beneath “Bone Core Secretions”: *“Requires the voluntary sacrifice of the host; forced extraction triggers the detonation of the wildfire.”*

Gripping his totem blade tightly, Lu Chen stared up at the Sand Weaver atop the altar, finally grasping the true core of this game of chess.

Williams had never wanted an army of puppets; he was using the sand-blood serum to filter for “vessel candidates” capable of enduring the energy of the bone core.

And the Sand Weaver had been waiting from the very start for the awakening of the third host.

In the distance over the rock piles, the final wisp of smoke from the signal flare dissipated into the wind. Chen Yu had not returned.

Su Qing transmitted the antidote formula to Lu Chen’s terminal, her fingertip pressing heavily upon the entry for “Century-Old Cactus Sap.” “The cactus grove at Black Wind Pass was buried by sandstorms ages ago, we have to go to—”

“To the Valley of Lost Souls.” Lu Chen’s voice was frighteningly calm, his totem blade pointing toward the scorpion-shaped cloud in the west. “Not only is the Tomb of the Sand Keepers there, but everything else we need must be there as well.”

Atop the altar, the Sand Weaver chuckled softly, striking his cane heavily against the stone.

The anti-entropy array at the center of the altar suddenly shifted its axis. The golden light ceased its defense of the camp and instead stretched outward toward the Valley of Lost Souls, forming a golden corridor paved across the desert sands. The enhanced sand crystal soldiers marched in formation straight into the golden light, their bodies recovering human form at a visible rate, though their eyes remained empty.

“He’s purifying the puppets,” Su Qing’s voice trembled. “Using the energy of the anti-entropy array…”

Yet Lu Chen stared fixedly at the restored napes of those soldiers—upon the back of each neck rested a faint scorpion-shaped brand, akin to an invisible postal stamp.

This was no purification; it was branding.

The Sand Weaver was stamping every single individual eroded by the bone core, marking them just as a shepherd brands his flock.

The moment the golden corridor stretched all the way to the Valley of Lost Souls, a bolt of dark-purple lightning tore down from the western clouds, striking precisely at the location of the Sand Keeper’s tomb. Lu Chen’s terminal shrieked an ear-piercing alarm, the bone core energy index on the screen skyrocketing off the charts.

The third host had awakened.

And the antidote recipe in their hands had suddenly transformed into a burning potato—to save those branded soldiers, they had to venture into the Valley of Lost Souls and confront that newly awakened, unidentified third host.

Whether fortune or disaster awaited them, none could tell.

Only the laughter of the Sand Weaver echoed across the altar like an ancient prophecy:

“The sand scorpion chooses its master, the three paths merge as one. He who gathers the cure, is likewise the giver of the cure…”