Episode 12: AI Warning

“Beep — beep — beep —”

The piercing alarm stabbed into their ears like needles. The Oasis Eye AI’s holographic screen abruptly turned a glaring red, lines of white data scrolling frantically. In the center, the three-dimensional energy field model was visibly expanding, its edges glowing with red tendrils that stretched outward every second, as if alive.

“What’s happening?” Lu Chen sprang up from the ground, his right hand still pressed against the burning-hot jade pendant. That thing hadn’t stopped heating since last night, like clutching a scalding pebble, especially near the container holding the silver liquid—it was so hot it could scorch the skin.

Su Qing’s fingers flew over the virtual keyboard, cold sweat dripping down her temple and cheek, splashing in tiny droplets onto the device. “The bone core energy field is expanding! At an absurd speed—three kilometers per hour! At this rate, by dawn it’ll cover the entire Black Wind Pass!”

She suddenly pulled up a live feed from the edge of the energy field—a miniature drone’s footage. The sand in the lens was moving strangely: a desert lizard crawled over a dune, and behind it, the grains of sand slowly piled up, replicating another lizard’s form, mirroring its movements, posture, even the frequency of its tongue flicks, but in an earthy yellow hue.

“The sand… is learning?” Xiao Chen held his rifle, eyes wide as copper bells. He instinctively raised his arm, and sure enough, the sand at his feet moved with him, shaping into a crooked but recognizable imitation of his raised arm.

Old Dao suddenly uttered a sharp “Hmm,” crouching to draw a horizontal line in the sand with his bone knife. Strangely, immediately after he finished, the sand on either side of the line automatically gathered toward the center, thickening and deepening the mark as if retraced carefully with a carving knife.

“What the hell…” Old Dao’s brows knitted tightly, the characters “Listening Bone” on his bone knife faintly glowing. “Is the sand helping us?”

Su Qing suddenly screamed, pulling up a set of comparative data. “No, it’s not helping—it’s memorizing! This sand has memory!”

She pointed at the analysis report on the screen. “The structure of the sand grains at the energy field’s edge has changed. They contain magnetic markers similar to those secreted by the bone core, capable of replicating the movements of anything they contact, even… fragments of consciousness!”

Lu Chen suddenly recalled the sand-bone snake from last night. Its joint movements resembled the sand skeleton beasts they had encountered before—then thought of as instinctual behavior from the same species. Now, it seemed more like mimicry of previous combat moves.

“So that means every trace we leave on the sand is remembered and copied?” He picked up a stone and drew a simple defensive totem in the sand—the ancestral “shield pattern” of the X tribe.

Sure enough, the moment the stone left the ground, the sand grains began adjusting themselves, filling in the totem’s lines more deeply. Tiny sand pillars sprouted along the edges, forming a jagged border far more precise than his own drawing.

“Is this… the desert helping us?” Su Qing’s voice trembled with disbelief. The waveform on the infrasound detector suddenly stabilized, even showing a gentle undulation. “The energy field’s infrasound frequency changed—it’s no longer the harsh, attacking frequency from before. It’s almost… synchronizing with our consciousness.”

Old Dao was not so optimistic. He slashed the enhanced totem to pieces with his bone knife. The scattered sand instantly reassembled into the totem’s shape, but this time added a small scorpion-shaped mark in the center.

“Don’t celebrate too soon,” Old Dao’s voice was heavy as if weighted with lead. “The sand doesn’t distinguish good from bad. It can remember our defensive totems, but also the attack patterns of the sand skeleton beasts. Look at this scorpion—”

He pointed to the mark in the totem’s center. “That’s the S tribe’s symbol, which means the energy field contains more than just our memories.”

Lu Chen’s jade pendant suddenly burned fiercely. He instinctively glanced at the container of silver liquid. At some unknown moment, it had begun to glow; its surface was covered with a dense layer of bubbles. Each bubble burst, spraying a few silver-glinting grains of sand that transformed into miniature energy field models on the ground, identical to those on the Oasis Eye display.

“It’s resonating with the energy field.” Lu Chen’s fingertips lightly touched the container’s wall and immediately recoiled as if scalded. The skin at the contact point shimmered faintly with silver light, intertwining with the golden sand marks on his pendant like two entwined serpents.

“Look, AI!” Su Qing suddenly pointed at the screen.

At the center of the energy field model, a previously indistinct red dot sharpened into focus, revealing a heart-like structure. Each beat sent waves of energy rippling outward. More astonishingly, the sand grains around the heart were gathering to form countless tiny human shapes—some clad in the leather armor of the X tribe, others in the black robes of the S tribe, even silhouettes of ancient warriors—all kneeling and bowing toward the heart.

“This is… the bone core’s consciousness?” Xiao Chen’s voice trembled. “It’s absorbing all the memories it has touched?”

Lu Chen suddenly recalled the bone flute left by the Sand Speaker. The totem on the half-bone fragment overlapped faintly with the heart pattern at the energy field’s center. He pulled out the bone flute fragment he always carried—taken during the last night raid on the relay station—and it began to heat up. Fine grains of sand oozed from the flute holes, assembling in his palm the words “sacrifice.”

“It’s not absorbing; it’s filtering.” Lu Chen’s voice was as cold as ice. He grabbed Old Dao’s bone knife and swiftly sketched the reverse entropy formation totem in the sand. “Su Qing, have the drone project this totem at the edge of the energy field!”

“What are you trying to do?” Su Qing asked as she operated the controls.

“To see which side the desert really stands on.” Lu Chen stared intently at the screen. The drone projected the reverse entropy formation onto the sand. At first, nothing happened. But when the red glow of the energy field swept over the pattern, the grains of sand frantically gathered, piling the totem into a half-meter-high wall of sand. Upon its surface appeared the X tribe’s protective incantations, glowing golden, forcibly halting the energy field’s expansion.

“It actually works!” Su Qing was nearly jumping with excitement.

Old Dao suddenly pressed on Lu Chen’s shoulder, pointing at the edge of the energy field model. Although the red glow was blocked by the reverse entropy formation, it was quietly gathering into a massive vortex. At its center, grains of sand formed a gigantic eye, its pupil fixed firmly on their camp.

“It’s not being stopped,” Old Dao’s voice was unprecedentedly grave, the “Seal Evil” totem on his bone knife darkening to black-red. “It’s… observing our trump cards.”

The Oasis Eye suddenly emitted a shrill alarm. The energy field model on the screen shook violently; the heart structure at its center began pounding erratically. The human silhouettes surrounding it all turned abruptly, facing the camp, bowing in unison as if greeting something.

Suddenly, the container holding the silver liquid exploded with a “bang.” The silver liquid shot skyward in threads of light, bursting inside the eye at the energy field’s center and instantly merging with it. The energy field’s expansion accelerated sharply. The sand wall of the reverse entropy formation began cracking, its protective incantations fading rapidly.

Lu Chen’s jade pendant felt as if it were about to ignite. He clearly sensed something awakening at the energy field’s core—an immense, ancient consciousness, cold and scrutinizing, as if evaluating whether they qualified to become… some form of sacrifice.

“It’s waiting.” Lu Chen’s voice wavered, and illusions flickered before his eyes—countless fragments of memory flashed by: ancient sand guardians’ sacrifices, blood sacrifice rituals of the S tribe, even scenes of Williams injecting sand-blood serum—all drawn in like noodles by the energy field.

The Oasis Eye’s screen suddenly went dark. The final image displayed was the eye at the energy field’s center slowly opening, its pupil reflecting the entire outline of their camp, like a dish about to be served.

Su Qing frantically rebooted the device, muttering, “What’s happening? Has the AI been hacked?”

Lu Chen stared toward the energy field. The bone flute fragment in his palm had cooled completely. The words “sacrifice” carved on it were now covered by sand, revealing a deeper engraving beneath—a totem he had never seen before, resembling a scorpion with wings spread wide, silently roaring at the moon.

He suddenly understood: the desert was not helping them, nor was it aiding the bone core.

It was merely watching the show.

Watching them and the bone core battle until both were wounded beyond repair, then turning all their memories, all their bones, into part of the sand.

And that open eye was simply the desert yawning, ready to feast on this millennia-overdue banquet.