Episode 2: Bone-Ravaging Calamity Fire

Su Qing’s fingertips flew across the virtual keyboard with such velocity that they left behind trails of motion blur.

On the holographic screen of the Oasis Eye AI, the encrypted signal from the S Tribe writhed like a maddened viper. The data stream twisted into grotesque symbols, fracturing into countless shards one moment, only to coil back into a tight, dense knot the next. This was her third consecutive night spent decoding, and though her eyes were webbed with red capillaries, she felt not a trace of drowsiness. As she cracked the seventy-third layer of encryption, the chaotic code suddenly snapped into a pattern that made her scalp prickle.

*Beep.*

With a soft chime, the screen cleared instantly.

It was not a complex formula, nor a set of coordinates, but a palm-sized totem: three skulls stacked to form a throne, surrounded by swirling, burning sand. Tucked within the grain of the sand was a string of pulsating energy parameters.

Su Qing’s breath hitched.

She spun around, knocking over the wooden crate behind her. Rubbings of ancestral rock paintings from the X Tribe scattered across the floor. She knelt, frantically searching through them, her fingers turning white from the pressure until she reached the very last one. On the yellowed parchment was an identical totem to the one on the screen, accompanied by three characters in ancient Qiang script:

*Tribulation Fire of the Desert Bones.*

"Impossible..." she whispered. Her fingertips traced the footnotes at the edge of the painting, translated by her grandfather before his death: "When the tribulation fire rises, the desert bones wail; when the myriad souls gather, the throne is formed." According to legend, this was the most terrifying curse of the Great Desert. Whenever the energy of the subterranean "Desert Bones" spiraled out of control, it would unleash a sandstorm that consumed everything in its path. At the heart of that storm, a "Bone Throne" would be born, built from the skulls of the dead.

The holographic screen suddenly flashed with an incoming communication request from Lu Chen. His face appeared, framed by the backdrop of the mobilizing Anti-Entropy Battle Group. Warriors carried firearms reinforced with totemic etchings, bone amulets hung from their waists, and the tires of modified off-road vehicles churned through the sand, kicking up choking dust.

"Do you have results?" Lu Chen’s voice was weary but exceptionally steady. The scar on his left temple stood out sharply in the sunlight, resembling a centipede clinging to his skin.

Su Qing held the rock painting rubbing up to the camera. "See for yourself."

There was a silence of several seconds on the other end, during which the sound of gasping could be heard from those around Lu Chen. Every veteran in the Anti-Entropy Battle Group knew the legend of the "Tribulation Fire of the Desert Bones." It was a taboo passed down through generations of Sand Guardians, more feared than any sandstorm.

"How do the parameters compare?" Lu Chen pressed, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the jade pendant at his waist—it was still burning, hotter than it had been the night before.

"100% match." Su Qing pulled up the energy fluctuation chart; the red and green curves were nearly identical. "What the S Tribe dug up isn't some new energy source; it’s a 'detonator' capable of triggering the Tribulation Fire. Williams is insane. He’s trying to activate this curse!"

"Activate?" A raspy voice suddenly came from behind Lu Chen.

The camera tilted, revealing a wrinkled old man. Old Dao was crouching by an off-road vehicle, rubbing a palm-length bone knife. The blade was covered in dense totems, and the hilt was fashioned from three finger bones strung together. He was the oldest soldier in the Anti-Entropy Battle Group, said to be a descendant of the first generation of Sand Guardians, always able to sense the desert’s shifts in advance.

"This thing doesn't just start because you want it to," Old Dao said, tapping the side of the vehicle with his bone knife, producing a dull, heavy sound. "You need a 'key'."

"What kind of key?" Lu Chen frowned.

Old Dao squinted, his rough knuckles sliding over the patterns on the bone knife. "Human sacrifice. The Desert Bones recognize blood, especially... the blood of those with the lineage of the Sand Guardians." His gaze swept over the jade pendant at Lu Chen’s waist, heavy with meaning. "My grandfather used to say that the essence of the Tribulation Fire is that the sand is 'hungry.' It has to consume enough living people to be satisfied."

The communicator suddenly crackled with static. A crimson warning flashed on Su Qing’s screen—the S Tribe’s encrypted signal had returned, but this time, it was not garbled code. It was a clear audio file.

Williams’s voice came through the interference, accompanied by a metallic, grinding sneer: "Lu Chen, I hear your X Tribe knows the sand best? How convenient. Come over and see the 'gift' I’ve prepared for you. Tell Su Qing that the task her father failed to complete back then, I have finished for him."

Su Qing’s face went deathly pale. Her father, Su Zhen, was a member of a research team that had vanished ten years ago. The official report claimed they had perished in a sandstorm, but she had always suspected there was more to the story. Williams’s words were like a needle, piercing her most sensitive wound.

"Trace the signal source!" Lu Chen barked, his eyes turning as cold as ice. "Anti-Entropy Battle Group, move out! Target: the heart of the Taklamakan. Dismantle the S Tribe’s 'gift' for me!"

—

S Tribe, Secret Chamber of the Father Temple.

Alicia knelt on the cold stone floor, her fingers trembling as she opened the yellowed beast-skin journal.

The Father Temple was the most sacred place in the S Tribe, housing the portraits of past chieftains; only the chieftain and their direct kin were permitted entry. She had snuck in after hearing Williams and the elders mention the "1973 Research Expedition" and her "father’s research" the previous night, her curiosity gnawing at her.

The secret chamber was hidden behind the altar. Pushing aside a stone slab carved with a scorpion totem, she found only a stone table and a few clay pots. The beast-skin journal was tucked inside the bottom-most pot. Its cover was nearly worn through, fastened by a gold-leaf scorpion totem—her father’s emblem. Back when he had been the High Priest of the S Tribe, that totem represented supreme authority.

"July 15, 1973. Clear."

She read aloud, her voice echoing in the empty chamber. Her father’s handwriting was vigorous and powerful, yet betrayed a hint of panic: "Drilling depth reached fifty meters underground. Discovered abnormal energy field. The sand moves in response to human emotion. Team member Xiao Wang said he saw the sand coalesce into human faces. We all thought he had gone mad."

"July 20. Sandstorm."

"The energy field is growing stronger. At night, one can hear 'clicking' sounds from beneath the sand, as if someone is tapping the ground with bones. The old professor says this is 'bone-wailing,' that the Desert Bones underground are 'speaking.' He knows Ancient Turkic; he says what he hears is, 'Our skulls are waiting for a new king.'"

Alicia’s heart began to race. "Skulls waiting for a king"—was this not the "Bone Throne" from the legend of the Tribulation Fire? Had her father’s expedition team discovered the secret of the Desert Bones long ago?

She flipped through the pages faster. The beast-skin pages rustled, sounding like someone whispering in her ear.

"August 3. Blood Moon."

The handwriting on this page was jagged and crooked, as if written in a state of extreme terror: "We were wrong. This isn't an energy mine; it’s alive! It feeds on our fear. Xiao Wang was swallowed by the sand. His screams lasted for three whole minutes. In the end, only a finger bone remained in the sand. The professor says the Desert Bones are 'selecting'—selecting a 'host' who can withstand its power..."

The journal cut off abruptly here. The following pages had been torn out, and the edges were stained with dark, reddish blotches that looked like dried blood.

Alicia’s hands shook as she clutched the journal. She suddenly recalled a memory from her childhood—the night before her father disappeared, he had called her to his side and pressed a necklace carved with a scorpion totem into her hand. "If one day Williams tries to touch the things in the Father Temple, you must stop him. That is not power; it is a monster that will gnaw a person until not even their bones are left."

She hadn't understood then, but now, she finally did.

Heavy footsteps sounded outside the chamber, accompanied by Williams’s laughter: "Alicia, have you found your father’s 'legacy'?"

The stone slab was pushed aside. Williams stood at the entrance, his mechanical prosthetic eye glowing red in the darkness. Two Blood Oath warriors followed behind him, their guns loaded, the dark muzzles aimed squarely at the stone table.

"This isn't a legacy; it’s a warning." Alicia hugged the journal tightly to her chest, her nails digging into the skin. "My father knew long ago that the Desert Bones would bring disaster. You cannot activate it!"

Williams laughed, a sound like rusted iron grinding together. "Disaster? For the weak, it is a disaster. For the strong, it is a throne." His mechanical eye suddenly emitted a beam of red light, scanning the final page of the journal. "Your father was just too weak, which is why he was 'eaten' by the sand. But it doesn't matter. His blood didn't go to waste—"

He paused, his gaze falling on the necklace around Alicia’s neck, his eyes turning viperous.

"His daughter will make the perfect 'vessel' for the Desert Bones."

Alicia snapped her head up and saw the Blood Oath warriors behind Williams raising their weapons. Instinctively, she shoved the journal into a crevice in the stone table. Her fingers brushed against something cold—it felt like a metal button. The moment she pressed it, the floor of the chamber began to tremble, and a soft "click" emanated from beneath the stone table, as if a mechanism had been triggered.

Deep within the Taklamakan, the Anti-Entropy Battle Group’s off-road vehicles were cresting the final dune. Old Dao suddenly pressed his hand against the bone knife at his waist; the totems on the blade began to glow with a red light in the sun. He looked up toward the center of the distant sandstorm, where the sky was turning a ghastly, dark red.

"Something's wrong." Old Dao’s voice trembled, and the bone knife in his hand began to grow hot. "They’ve started 'feeding' the sand..."

Lu Chen’s jade pendant exploded with golden light. He saw clearly that within the dark red center of the sandstorm, countless tiny points of light were converging, slowly coalescing into the shape of a skull.

The Tribulation Fire of the Desert Bones was coming.