Episode 31: The Illusion Strikes Back

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The campfire in the X Tribe’s encampment had dwindled to a handful of half-glowing embers, like an eye struggling to remain open.

Lu Chen stuffed the last piece of compressed biscuit into his mouth and chewed as though he were gnawing on sand. Outside the tent came the warriors’ stifled coughs. Ever since the S Tribe had projected that massacre illusion, many of the new recruits from the Oasis had not enjoyed a single peaceful night. They dreamed of becoming the civilians in the images, cut in half by curved blades.

“Done!” Su Qing suddenly swept aside the tent flap and rushed in. Her face was smeared with grease, and her eyes shone like two stars. “The Oasis Eye AI successfully captured the mechanical vultures’ illusion frequency. The reverse-interference program has been implanted. Now we just wait for them to come and die!”

She pushed the holographic screen in front of Lu Chen. Complex waveforms flickered across it: the red lines represented the S Tribe’s original frequency, while the blue ones were the reverse bands Su Qing had designed, twisting together like two battling serpents.

“As soon as the mechanical vultures activate the illusion projection, the AI will automatically replace the images and turn their signal source into our flash drive.”

Old Saber crouched beside them, sharpening his blade. The bone knife scraped across the sand with a grating shriek.

“Now that’s a dirty trick! Let them taste what it’s like to be stabbed by their own people.” He suddenly lifted his head, his ears twitching. “Speak of the devil. From the sound of it, at least one reinforced squadron has arrived.”

Lu Chen seized his totem blade and dashed out of the tent. Sure enough, more than a dozen black specks swept across the sky to the northwest. The mechanical vultures’ alloy wings flashed with cold light in the morning sun as they plunged toward the area where the X Tribe and Oasis civilians lived side by side.

“All units, take note! Stay calm!” Lu Chen shouted into the radio. “Follow the plan. No one fires without orders!”

The Oasis civilian district had already erupted into chaos. The previous massacre illusion had left a deep scar. Some people clutched their children and ran toward the shelters; others trembled with hoes in their hands, muttering, “Don’t kill me.” Several X Tribe veterans tried to maintain order, but their voices had already gone hoarse.

The mechanical vultures circled once above the center of the camp. The instant their wings spread wide, familiar holographic images enveloped the earth.

But this time, the scene did not show X Tribe warriors slaughtering civilians.

Instead, it showed a cage of crimson sand crystals. Inside, more than a dozen sandblood warriors from the S Tribe were curled up, their skin peeling away like molten plastic to reveal writhing sand crystals beneath. Terror filled their eyes as they stretched their hands toward the camera, crying for help and shouting, “Chief, save me!” Their voices were shrill and hideous, like pigs screaming at the slaughterhouse.

“What… what is this?” An old man from the Oasis rubbed his eyes. The walking stick in his hand clattered to the ground.

The X Tribe warriors were stunned as well. Su Qing’s reverse interference had gone far beyond expectations. Even the color palette of the images had become sinister and uncanny. A torn half of an S Tribe black robe hung from the bars of the crystal cage, soaked through with blood.

The image suddenly changed.

Williams’s face appeared. He stood beside an Evolution Pool while a mechanical arm shoved a struggling sandblood warrior into it. The sand-crystal liquid instantly began to boil, countless hands rising from within to drag the warrior into its depths. Only a string of desperate bubbles remained.

“They are merely expendable materials.” Williams’s voice came through the mechanical vultures’ speakers, cold as ice. “Once the Bone Core awakens, those worthless creatures will not even qualify as sacrifices. They will become nothing more than nourishment for the sand crystals.”

Alicia had risked everything to transmit that recording. Williams had been berating a military medic when she secretly recorded him. Now, paired with the horrific images, it struck with the force of a heavy bomb.

“Expendable materials?” A logistics soldier from the S Tribe, holding a child in his arms, suddenly widened his eyes. His elder brother was a sandblood warrior who had been sent to guard the energy zone three months earlier and had vanished without a trace. “My brother… Did he become nourishment too?”

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The images continued.

There were close-ups of sandblood warriors whose skin had crystallized. Their fingers had twisted into scorpion-claw shapes as they tore mindlessly at their own throats. There were warriors sleepwalking at night, their vacant eyes fixed ahead as they wandered toward the energy zone and were swallowed by blue light. Finally, the image froze on Jones inside a sand-crystal cage, his entire body bristling with crystal spines as he howled at the camera:

“Don’t trust Williams!”

“Lies! This is an X Tribe conspiracy!” An S Tribe overseer suddenly shrieked. Dressed in a respectable black robe, he pointed his whip at the X Tribe warriors. “They’re trying to sow discord! The chief said the sandblood serum was a blessing—”

“A blessing, my ass!”

A furious roar cut him off.

The logistics soldier who had been murmuring about his brother suddenly raised his rifle, the trembling barrel aimed at the overseer. His eyes were bloodshot, and tears mixed with sand as they rolled down his face.

“Before he was injected, my brother told me he would get married once he earned enough merit. And now you’re telling me he was expendable?”

“That’s right! My father was a sandblood warrior too!” another young logistics soldier shouted. He threw down the supply crate in his hands, spilling compressed biscuits across the ground. “I went to see him last month. He didn’t even recognize me anymore. All he could say was ‘sacrifice’!”

The mutiny spread like wildfire.

Eight or nine men out of every ten in the S Tribe’s logistics corps had relatives who were sandblood warriors. They had long resented Williams’s iron-fisted rule, but had been afraid to voice their anger. Now, with the images and recording laid bare before them, the last remnants of their illusions were torn apart. Fear and fury swept away reason in an instant.

“We are not expendable!”

“Overthrow Williams!”

“Let us go home!”

No one knew who struck first. A hoe slammed into the back of the overseer’s head. He collapsed without even a groan, blood splattering across Williams’s holographic face like a mocking red scar on that cold expression.

More than a dozen logistics soldiers seized whatever weapons they could find—shoulder poles, crowbars, even several rifles they had secretly hidden—and surrounded the remaining S Tribe overseers. The overseers were so terrified that they dropped to their knees and begged for mercy, but the enraged crowd dragged them to their feet and hurled them into the sand like dead dogs.

“Beautiful!” Chen Yu watched with his blood racing, nearly clapping in delight. “The S Tribe’s entire logistics line is finished!”

Lu Chen was not so optimistic. He stared at the sand-crystal cage in the holographic image, troubled by an instinct that something was wrong. Su Qing’s reverse program should have been capable only of replacing the visuals. Yet the expressions on those sandblood warriors’ faces were too real—so real that they seemed…

As though it were happening right now.

“Su Qing, check the signal source!” Lu Chen suddenly shouted into the radio. “These images don’t seem to be from our flash drive!”

Su Qing’s voice trembled with panic. “I’m checking! The AI says the signal source has been hijacked by a third party. It isn’t ours, and it isn’t the S Tribe’s either… It’s generating new images on its own!”

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Lu Chen abruptly looked up at the latest image.

It showed a familiar oasis, its spring water clear and pure, children laughing and playing nearby. But then the water began to bubble. Sand crystals surged up from the bottom, coiling around the children’s ankles and dragging them into the sand. The last child to disappear beneath the dunes wore a silver bird pendant identical to Alicia’s.

“Damn it!” Lu Chen’s heart clenched. “The Bone Core is controlling the illusion! It wants to drag everyone into this!”

The sand at the edge of the camp suddenly began to writhe, as though infected by the scene in the projection. It slowly gathered into countless sandy hands that seized the ankles of anyone standing too close. Those who were caught began screaming. Their eyes turned vacant, and they started walking toward the energy zone like the sandblood warriors in the illusion.

“The illusion has become real!” Old Saber roared, swinging his bone blade to sever a sandy hand reaching for a child. “Cut the signal!”

Su Qing’s voice broke with tears. “I can’t! The AI has been infected in return! It’s… it’s absorbing our fear and using it to make the illusion more real!”

The mechanical vultures continued circling. Their speakers poured out more and more cries of agony—voices from the X Tribe, the S Tribe, and even ancient tribes that had vanished long ago. The area covered by the holographic projection expanded steadily, until even the distant dunes were stained crimson.

Lu Chen’s totem blade suddenly blazed with golden light. He struck at an incoming sandy hand, only to discover that the blade passed straight through the projection, unable to harm the sand at all.

“It’s using our resistance against us!” Lu Chen finally understood. The Bone Core had been waiting for this moment. Through Su Qing’s reverse program, it had injected its own consciousness into the illusion. “Tell everyone to close their eyes! Don’t let the images affect you!”

But it was already too late.

More and more people began walking toward the energy zone with vacant eyes, muttering, “Sacrifice,” and “Sand scorpion.” The S Tribe logistics soldiers and the X Tribe civilians mingled together, indistinguishable from one another. Beneath their feet, the sandy hands writhed excitedly, as though welcoming their prey.

Within the mechanical vultures’ projection, Williams’s face appeared one final time. He stood atop a temple, smiling at the camera. Behind him towered a colossal sand-scorpion totem, its cavernous jaws spread wide.

“The game has begun.” Williams’s voice came through the illusion, carrying the Bone Core’s distinctive chill. “No one is getting away.”

Lu Chen tightened his grip on the totem blade. As he looked at those controlled by the illusion and at the ever-increasing number of sandy hands beneath their feet, he suddenly realized that their counterattack had been nothing more than a part of the Bone Core’s plan.

The chaos sparked by the illusion had only just begun.

And the true hunter had already bared its fangs.

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