Episode 54: Forced Sacrifice

The sand-crystal lamps on the temple's dome cast a chilling blue light, illuminating the altar so that it resembled a block of frozen ice.

Alicia was suspended by iron chains in the center of the altar, the wounds on her wrists still seeping blood. The crimson liquid trickled down the cold metal links, falling onto the stone surface engraved with scorpion totems, blooming into a series of eerie, blossoming flowers of blood. Williams stood before her, the fragments of the Requiem Bone Flute on his mechanical arm gleaming with a cold light, aimed directly at the core.

"You know? Your mother stood right here in this exact spot years ago," Williams said, lifting Alicia's chin with a bone flute fragment, a fanatical light flickering in his eyes behind his lenses. "She bled three times as much as you, and back then, the bone core was as excited as a newly weaned child."

Alicia's teeth clicked together as she clenched her jaw. The sand-crystal thorns had already spread up to her neck, but she endured the agony, refusing to utter a single sound. The fragments of her mother's bone hidden inside her collar were growing scorching hot—that was her last hope, something that must not be exposed unless absolutely necessary.

"Don't play dead." Williams suddenly exerted force, the bone flute fragment slicing open her cheek, a bead of blood rolling down to land on the bone core. "Do you really think hiding the 'Seed of the Sand Soul' gives you a chance to turn the tables? Let me tell you, once the forced sacrificial ritual begins, even if your mother crawls back out from the bone core, she won't be able to save you."

The bone core suddenly trembled violently.

The blue crystal that had been suspended above the altar now pulsed like a beating heart, its surface covered in black curses that flickered frantically upon contact with Alicia's blood. The sand-crystal cages surrounding the temple emitted a harsh, grating friction sound; the sand-crystal warriors imprisoned within grew restless, the chilling blue in their eye sockets intensifying beyond normal.

"See that? It's waiting for you." Williams took a step back, his mechanical arm pointing toward the groove at the edge of the altar, where twelve bone spears engraved with runes were planted. "This is a sacrificial array from a millennium ago. Each bone spear is tempered with the blood of the Sand Wardens, capable of forcibly stripping away your consciousness and allowing the bone core to take direct control of your body."

He pressed a mechanism on the wall, and the twelve bone spears suddenly rose, their tips aiming precisely at Alicia's limbs and torso. Blackish-purple liquid oozed from the points—a venom mixed with the bone core's calamity fire and the powder of the Requiem Bone Flute, lethal upon the slightest touch.

"Your mother refused to cooperate back then, which is why she was pinned to those bone spears for three days and nights." Williams's voice was like ice steeped in poison. "I'll give you one chance: walk into the center of the array yourself, and at least you'll die a quick death."

Alicia suddenly smiled, blood froth spilling from the corner of her lips, carrying a desperate, resolute madness. "You think my mother really failed? What she left hidden inside that bone core is far more than you can ever imagine."

Her mother's voice suddenly exploded in her mind, clearer than it had ever been before: "Right now! Pierce your heart with the bone fragment!"

Alicia abruptly lowered her head, clumsily groping toward her collar with her chained right hand, her fingertips grasping the small piece of her mother's bone. The excruciating pain of the sand-crystal thorns made her vision go black, but her mother's voice was like a thunderclap, instantly snapping her back to reality—

"Pierce it! Quickly!"

The moment the bone fragment broke her skin, Alicia let out a heart-wrenching scream.

It wasn't because of the pain, but because the instant the bone fragment touched her heart, the bone core burst into a blinding golden light! That radiance was purer than the golden hue of the Anti-Entropy Array, carrying a warm, surging power that flowed through her veins across her entire body. Wherever it passed, the sand-crystal thorns withered and faded away, revealing normal skin underneath.

"How is that possible?!" The red light in Williams's mechanical prosthetic eye flared violently. He stared at the golden radiance on Alicia's chest as if he had just seen a ghost. "Why would the Seed of the Sand Soul erupt right now?!"

Something even more terrifying happened.

The sand-crystal cages surrounding the temple shattered all at once!

They weren't destroyed by any external force—they exploded from the inside out! Countless ash-gray figures surged out from the debris. Their skin was already shrunken and withered, yet their eye sockets flickered with a golden light of the same origin as Alicia's—they were the imprisoned sand-crystal warriors. But at this moment, they were no longer puppets; they were the undead awakened by the bone core!

"Kill him!" The foremost undead figure roared, charging toward Williams. A shattered half of an anti-entropy totem was embedded in his chest, clearly marking him as one of the Sand Wardens massacred back then. "Avenge Isabella!"

Williams's mechanical arm swept horizontally, the bone flute fragment slashing out blackish-purple calamity fire that instantly reduced the three leading undead to ashes. Yet more undead swarmed forward. Though their bodies were ignited by the calamity fire, they seemed insensible to pain, still hurling themselves madly at him, clawing at his black robes with withered fingers.

"A bunch of thoroughly dead trash dare to act so presumptuously?!" Williams's chainsaw sword suddenly snapped outward, the teeth whirring and spinning to mince the approaching undead into fragments. Yet when those pieces hit the ground, they coagulated back into new undead—smaller in size, but doubled in quantity.

Taking advantage of the chaos, Alicia used her blood-stained fingers to draw an energy totem on the iron chains. The energy of her mother's bone fragment flowed along her blood to her fingertips, causing the scorpion totems on the chains to melt with a sizzling sound.

"Mom, you planned this all along, didn't you?" Alicia's tears mixed with blood as they slid down. "You made me hide the bone fragment just to wake them up today?"

Her mother's voice carried a weary comfort: "These are all Sand Wardens murdered by Williams. I guarded the bone core for eighteen years just to instill a tiny fragment of consciousness into them, waiting for you to trigger the Seed of the Sand Soul..."

Before the words could fade, Williams abruptly abandoned his attack on the undead, his mechanical arm pointing straight at Alicia: "Stop right there!"

The blackish-purple calamity fire coiled like a venomous snake, bypassing the pouncing undead and shooting directly toward Alicia's heart. Her mother's voice shrieked in her mind: "Watch out!"

The golden light erupted once more, condensing into a shield before Alicia. The calamity fire crashed against the shield with a deafening roar, shaking the entire temple. The bone spears at the edge of the altar tumbled to the ground, and the light of the sacrificial array instantly dimmed.

Yet Alicia was also blown backward by the shockwave, slamming heavily against the stone wall as a surge of sweet-tasting blood rose in her throat. Lowering her gaze, she saw that the golden light on her chest was fading; her mother's bone fragment had turned ash-white, its energy clearly exhausted.

"Out of strength, are you?" Williams grinned hideously as he shoved away the last few undead, the jagged teeth of his chainsaw sword still hung with withered bone fragments. "I told you, resistance is futile."

He walked step by step toward Alicia. The Requiem Bone Flute fragments on his mechanical arm grew increasingly bright, their resonance with the bone core intensifying. The awakened undead suddenly halted their attacks, dropping to their knees one after another to bow toward the bone core, their golden eye sockets rapidly overtaken by chilling blue—Williams was forcibly seizing back control through the bone flute!

"See?" Williams's voice carried the pride of a victor. "In the end, they are nothing more than slaves to the bone core. Your Seed of the Sand Soul is merely an illusion giving them a few more minutes of life."

Alicia's vision gradually blurred; she could feel her mother's consciousness fading rapidly, like a dying candle in the wind. At that exact moment, she caught sight of a familiar figure mixed among the undead—the blind boy! The silver bird birthmark on his forehead stood out with crystal clarity in the blue light, reaching out toward her while his lips moved silently.

It was the child they had rescued during the raid on the sand-crystal furnace! What was he doing here?!

The boy's fingertips suddenly lit up with a golden glow—not the warm gold of her mother, but an earthy yellow carrying the aura of a suppression seal! That golden light crawled like a tiny bolt of lightning along the blood stains on the ground toward Alicia's wrist, resonating with the droplets of blood from her wound.

Alicia's heart gave a violent jolt.

This was... Lu Chen's power?!

Williams also noticed the anomaly. He kicked the boy aside and swung his chainsaw sword toward the golden light: "Where did this brat come from?!"

But it was already too late.

The earthy-yellow golden light burrowed through the blood into Alicia's heart, resonating with the remnants of the Seed of the Sand Soul. The already dim bone core suddenly erupted once more—not in gold or blue, but in a pure, blinding white, like the desert sun capable of melting away all darkness.

"No—!" Williams let out a despairing roar. His mechanical arm began to melt within the white light, and the Requiem Bone Flute fragments dropped to the ground with a loud clatter. "Is this... the ultimate form of the Sand Warden?!"

Alicia's body slowly levitated within the white light, the iron chains on her wrists completely dissolved into ash. She could feel countless streams of consciousness flooding into her mind—not just her mother's, but those of the awakened undead, and even... Lu Chen's!

The boy's voice suddenly echoed through the temple, as clear as if he were whispering right in her ear: "Brother Lu Chen told me to give this to you."

He opened his palm to reveal an earthy-yellow ring resting inside—the Sand Soul Envoy ring left behind by the Sand Whisperer! The totem on the ring was resonating with the white light on Alicia's chest, emitting a low, vibrating hum.

"The Sand Soul Envoy's ring..." Alicia's voice trembled with sheer disbelief. "Lu Chen..."

Williams suddenly snatched up the fallen Requiem Bone Flute fragments from the ground, charging desperately toward the bone core. "If I can't have it, no one will!"

He plunged the fragments fiercely into the bone core. The blackish-purple calamity fire instantly swallowed the white light; the bone core let out a pained shriek, and the entire temple began to collapse violently, sand-crystal fragments raining down like a storm.

"Go!" Her mother's final voice echoed in her mind. "Take the ring and find Lu Chen! Only when the three rings unite can..."

The voice was buried beneath the collapsing ruins.

Pulled along by the boy, Alicia dashed toward the side exit of the temple under the cover of the undead. Glancing back, she saw Williams's body merging with the bone core, blackish-purple calamity fire spewing from his facial orifices like a terrifying humanoid torch.

The awakened undead collectively turned around, forming a human wall with their bodies to block the falling boulders and buy time for their escape. Their eye sockets lit up with gold once more, bowing deeply toward Alicia before turning to ashes in the calamity fire.

"They..." The boy's voice was choked with tears.

"They are free." Alicia gripped the Sand Soul Envoy ring tighter, its earthy-yellow radiance weaving together with the white light on her chest. "Now it's our turn."

When the two of them burst out of the temple, the sky outside had turned an eerie purplish-black. The camp of Tribe S was in total chaos, with sand-crystal warriors slaughtering one another, evidently thrown into disarray by the bone core's anomaly, stripped of unified command.

Recognizing her bearings, Alicia grabbed the boy and sprinted wildly toward the direction of Black Wind Pass. She knew Lu Chen must be there; the secret of the three rings uniting was about to be unraveled, and the chance bought with the lives of her mother and all those undead must not be wasted.

Yet she failed to notice a faint mark on the palm of the boy's hand—not a silver bird, but an anti-entropy totem.

Nor did she notice that amidst the ruins behind them, a wisp of blackish-purple calamity fire was quietly tailing them like a venomous snake, waiting for an opportunity to deliver a fatal strike.

Amidst the rumbling collapse of the temple, Williams's maniacal laughter pierced through the dust and smoke, carrying a hair-raising excitement:

"Fusion... the fusion has finally begun..."

His body had completely merged with the bone core, transforming into a ten-meter-tall sand-scorpion monster. The six scorpion-tail bone spikes on his back flickered with blackish-purple light, each one engraved with a complete anti-entropy totem—he had not only absorbed the bone core, but had also seized the power of the Sand Wardens.

This forced sacrifice had ultimately been completed in the exact manner he had most anticipated.

Not long after Alicia and the boy fled into the distance, a massive fissure suddenly split open in the sandy ground ahead of them. Countless hands made of sand surged from within, grabbing their ankles and dragging them downward into the dark abyss.

From deep within the crevice came a familiar voice, carrying a mocking, chilling coldness:

"Found you, my good niece."

It was Williams's voice, yet slightly altered, sounding as though it were blended with countless other voices, including the roars of the undead he had murdered.

Alicia's heart clenched violently. She gripped the Sand Soul Envoy ring tightly once more, the earthy-yellow light flaring up to resonate with the anti-entropy totem on the boy's palm.

Yet this time, the sand hands did not retreat.

The blackish-purple calamity fire from deep within the crevice drew closer. Alicia suddenly realized that what they were facing might be an existence far more terrifying than a forced sacrifice—

A true monster, fusing the bone core, the power of the Sand Wardens, and the grievances of countless the dead.