Episode 29: The DNA Labyrinth of the Bone Core

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The temple’s stone tiles were cold as ice. Alicia’s boots brushed across the floor with a sound so faint it was almost inaudible.

She clutched the stolen sampling needle, the sweat in her palm making its metal handle slick. The glass tank stood on a raised platform ten meters away. A ghostly blue light streamed through its walls, weaving a strange web across the floor. Inside, the Bone Core pulsed slowly. Vein-like patterns on its surface contracted with each beat, like the heart of some living creature.

“Three minutes until the guard rotation,” Lu Chen murmured through her earpiece, his signal crackling with static. “I’ve disrupted the surveillance. Move fast.”

Alicia drew a deep breath and moved along the shadows by the wall. The guard on the platform had just turned away when she darted forward like a startled gazelle. The sampling needle slipped precisely into a narrow seam in the glass tank—the weak point she had spent three days locating. It was wide enough for the needle’s tip to enter without triggering the alarm.

The instant the tip touched the surface of the Bone Core, Alicia felt as if she had jabbed a red-hot iron. Ghostly blue liquid climbed up through the needle, carrying a sweet, metallic scent like melted blood. She withdrew the needle at once. The tank gave a nearly inaudible pop, but the Bone Core’s rhythm abruptly faltered, missing half a beat. The vein-like patterns on its surface snapped toward her, all of them pointing in her direction.

“Done?” Lu Chen asked, his voice tense.

“Mm.”

Alicia slipped the sampling needle into a sealed pouch. As she turned, she nearly collided with the guard, who had suddenly turned around. Her heart stopped—but the guard acted as though he had not seen her and mechanically walked down from the platform. Lu Chen’s infrasonic interference had worked, temporarily blocking the guard’s vision.

Back in her tent, Alicia locked the door behind her, then slid to the ground with her back against the door, her heart still pounding wildly. She opened her hand. The Bone Core sample inside the sealed pouch gave off a ghostly blue glow, resembling a piece of frozen starlight beneath the lamp. Tiny particles writhed faintly within it.

“Let’s see what the hell you really are.”

Gritting her teeth, she injected the sample into a portable analyzer.

The instant the screen lit up, Alicia’s breath caught.

Under the microscope lens, countless genetic fragments writhed frantically, like shards of shattered stained glass. Some glimmered with the distinctive golden-sand hue of the X Tribe; others carried the crystalline white of the S Tribe. There were even several deep-brown fragments, resembling the genes of an ancient desert people long since vanished.

More disturbing still, a black pattern encircled each fragment. It was fine as a strand of hair, yet it kept contracting and tightening. Silver-white droplets seeped from the indentations carved into the fragments by the constriction—the exact same substance the Bone Core had secreted earlier.

“It’s a hatred sigil.”

Alicia’s voice trembled. She had seen this symbol in her father’s diary. In ancient times, the priests of the S Tribe had drawn it with the blood of living people. It could imprint hatred upon a creature’s genes, compelling those who were cursed to slaughter one another from generation to generation.

She suddenly remembered her mother inside the blue-lit sarcophagus, and the warriors encased in sand crystal.

Could the Bone Core’s energy have grown by devouring these genetic fragments infused with hatred?

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The analyzer suddenly gave a soft beep, indicating that the sample’s activity was declining.

Alicia panicked. This was her only chance. She could not allow the sample to become unusable.

In desperation, she seized the small knife on the table and drew it across her fingertip. A bead of crimson blood welled up.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Gritting her teeth, she let the blood drip into the sample container.

The instant the bead fell into the ghostly blue liquid, a strange transformation occurred.

The black hatred sigils faded dramatically, as though scalded. The genetic fragments that had been racing wildly about suddenly grew still, like migratory birds that had finally found their destination. Then they began to gather toward the bead of blood.

Layer by layer, they wrapped themselves around it, spinning and merging. On the analyzer’s screen, they slowly formed a blurred outline—first a high bridge of the nose, then tightly pressed lips, and finally a pair of eyes that always seemed filled with worry.

Alicia’s pupils contracted sharply.

It was her father’s face.

Though it was only a phantom formed from countless genetic fragments, though its features still wavered faintly, the expression between the brows and in the eyes was exactly the same as in the photograph of her father hidden inside her necklace.

“Is the Bone Core recognizing its own blood?”

Alicia’s voice trembled with disbelief. She extended a finger and gently touched her father’s cheek on the screen. A chill traveled from her fingertip.

“Or… is my father’s genetic material inside it too?”

Her father had “died of illness” ten years ago. Yet Williams had always said that he was “a sacrifice offered to the Bone Core.” At the time, she had dismissed it as the ravings of a mad uncle. Now, it seemed her father’s death had been inseparable from the Bone Core.

The analyzer suddenly blared a piercing alarm. Her father’s face on the screen began to twist. The black hatred sigils reappeared and coiled around it like vines. Under their corrosion, the face formed by the genetic fragments slowly became hideous and unfamiliar.

Alicia abruptly shut off the analyzer, her heart clutched by an icy hand. Staggering, she pulled out her father’s diary and flipped rapidly through the yellowed pages until she found the passage stained with ink:

“The Bone Core uses blood relatives as its medium. Royal blood can temporarily soothe its agitation and cause the genetic fragments to manifest residual images of memory. But this is not recognition. It is marking. It records the host’s genetic sequence and regards the host as the perfect vessel. Once the time is right, it will devour the host’s soul completely and take its place.”

“The perfect vessel…”

As Alicia repeated those words, the blood in her veins seemed to freeze.

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At last, she understood why Williams had insisted that she take part in the sacrificial ceremony, and why her mother had been made into a vessel for the Bone Core.

It was not because their bloodline was “pure.” It was because the Bone Core needed a host capable of carrying all its genetic fragments and hatred sigils. With both royal blood and the blood of the Sand Keepers running through their veins, they were the best possible choice.

That brief moment of “recognition” had not been tender at all. The Bone Core had been “tasting” her genes, confirming whether she was suitable.

Heavy footsteps suddenly sounded outside the tent. They drew closer and stopped at the entrance.

Alicia’s heartbeat leaped into her throat. Instinctively, she hid the sample inside her boot and tightened her grip around the miniature bomb in her pocket—the last safeguard Lu Chen had given her. If all else failed, she would perish together with the Bone Core.

“Niece Alicia.”

Williams’s voice came through the canvas, carrying a chilling hint of laughter.

“The ceremonial robes are ready. Would you like to come out and try them on?”

Alicia bit down hard on her lip, her fingertips digging into her palm. She could feel the sample inside her boot growing hot, as though it were answering the voice outside. The Bone Core knew that she had discovered its secret. Williams must have sensed something as well. Beneath this seemingly calm exchange lay a struggle between life and death.

Slowly, she rose and revealed a cold smile toward the tent flap.

You want me to be your vessel?

Then let’s see who devours whom.

The ghostly blue sample inside her boot suddenly brightened. Through the fabric, it cast the tiny shape of a scorpion, its stinger aimed directly at her heart.

Deep within the temple, the Bone Core contracted violently. Every vein-like pattern on its surface pulled taut, like countless drawn bowstrings aimed toward Alicia’s tent.

A wager with bloodlines as the stake had begun in silence.