Episode 6: Death of the Blood Oath

The moment the massive bronze axe cleaved through the stone door, a harsh, grating screech—like fingernails dragged across glass—exploded through the empty temple. The veins on Williams’s mechanical arm bulged, and his alloy joints glinted coldly under the strain. As the "Three-Silent" totems were split in half, stone dust showered down; the humanoid figures, which had been covering their mouths, seemed to come alive, dark red grains of sand oozing from their eye sockets.

"Chief, let us go first!"

Three Blood Alliance warriors stepped forward, raising their riot shields. They were the elite force of the S Tribe, their chests marked with scorpion tattoos said to ward off the desert’s evil spirits. The lead warrior kicked the loose stone door open. A sweet, cloying stench, far more potent than before and laced with the faint scent of decay, billowed out—as if a thousand-year-old coffin had been pried open.

They had barely crossed the threshold when the horror began.

"Ugh!"

The lead warrior let out a muffled groan, his shield clattering to the floor. The others watched in terror as fine yellow sand began to pour from his seven orifices, as if countless hourglasses were turning inside his skull. His eyes, nostrils, and mouth were choked with grit, and his naturally dark face bloated into a bruised, purplish hue.

"Help... help me..."

He reached out, but as soon as he lifted his arm, he collapsed stiffly. His body twitched twice on the sandy floor before falling still. More disturbingly, his corpse withered at a visible rate; his skin lost all moisture, stretching tight over his bones. On his chest, where the scorpion tattoo had been, a new, nail-sized scorpion sigil formed, composed of countless fine grains of sand, writhing slightly.

The two men behind him scrambled back in terror, but it was too late.

The same symptoms erupted in them—sand bleeding from their orifices, bodies shriveling, their final falls sounding like dry bones being crushed underfoot. In just ten seconds, all three Blood Alliance warriors were dead. The three mummified corpses lay side by side, the tiny sand-scorpion sigils on their chests seemingly bowing toward Williams. It was a sight to make one's skin crawl.

"Useless trash."

Williams spat, his expression devoid of surprise, as if he had expected this all along. He stepped over the corpses and entered the temple, his mechanical eye engaging full scan mode. A pale blue beam swept across the rock walls, bringing the blurred murals into sharp focus.

They depicted countless soldiers in armor slaughtering each other in the desert: Turkic cavalry on camels, colonial soldiers with muskets, and modern armored vehicles. Their bodies lay in the sand, their skulls picked up by a giant hand and stacked into a pyramid, the skull at the very apex radiating a ghostly blue light.

"Eagle Eye, analyze the mural," Williams commanded.

The drone hovering in mid-air projected a holographic screen, data streams scrolling rapidly. The Eagle Eye AI’s electronic voice carried a strange tremor: "Energy residue detected. The mural records the formation process of the Bone Core—fused from the skulls of invaders between the 3rd century BC and the 20th century, containing genetic fragments from at least 17 civilizations. Energy profile: Amplifies the user's desires. Fear, greed, and hatred can all be converted into power."

"In other words, the more wicked the person, the better they can control it?" Williams sneered, nudging a corpse with his boot. "Those three idiots were just too afraid of death, so they were consumed by their own fear."

"This isn't power—it's a curse!"

Alicia had followed them in, her face pale as paper as she looked at the murals. The scene of the warriors’ deaths reminded her of a passage in her father’s diary: "The Desert Bone chooses a host, but it consumes them all the more. It doesn't want servants; it wants a vessel to contain all its hatred."

"A curse?" Williams spun around, the red light from his mechanical eye stabbing at her face. "That’s how your father justified being a coward! When he saw this mural, he was so terrified he tried to destroy the Bone Core overnight. He ended up being dragged into the sand, not even leaving a whole body behind!"

Alicia trembled. Her father’s "disappearance" had always been a thorn in her side. Williams had never spoken of the details, but his words today were like a blade twisting in her wound.

"You're lying!" She clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palms. "My father was trying to stop you—"

"Stop me?" Williams roared with laughter, the sound echoing through the temple and stirring up clouds of dust. "He couldn't stop his own greed! You think he studied the Bone Core for the sake of the tribe? He wanted to monopolize this power and become the only king of the Great Desert!"

He suddenly grabbed Alicia’s wrist and dragged her to the mural, pointing at the bottom layer. It showed a figure in priest’s robes secretly digging up the skull pyramid, with half a bone flute buried in the nearby sand.

"Look closely! That’s your father!" Williams’s voice was twisted and horrific. "He tried to steal the Bone Core, but it backfired, snapping his bone flute in two! That half-flute is probably sitting in the X Tribe’s camp right now, being treated like a treasure by Lu Chen!"

Alicia’s gaze locked onto the painting. The profile of the man in the mural did look like her father, especially the mole on his temple. She stumbled back, hitting a stone pillar, and suddenly remembered the diary she had hidden in the ancestral temple. The missing final pages—could they have recorded this?

Just then, the Eagle Eye AI issued an alert: "Abnormal energy fluctuation detected from the Bone Core. Coordinates located at the third underground level of the temple. It is approaching rapidly!"

The ground began to vibrate slightly, sand raining down from the ceiling. The skulls in the murals seemed to open their eyes, ghostly blue light flickering in their sockets. Williams’s mechanical arm began to click, and the same scorpion sigil from the corpses' chests appeared on the surface of his alloy skin, only larger and more distinct.

"It’s coming," Williams whispered, a look of fanaticism crossing his face. "It knows I am the most suitable host!"

Alicia looked at the glowing sigil on his chest and suddenly remembered another line from her father’s diary, written in red ink with handwriting so frantic it looked like a desperate warning:

"The sand-scorpion sigil chooses its master, but it does not choose a person—it chooses a sacrifice. When the sigil crawls over the heart, the host becomes a new skull, trapped forever in the pyramid."

Her eyes fell to Williams’s heart. The scorpion sigil had already crawled to his collarbone and was slowly spreading toward his neck. Deep within the temple, a clear "click-clack" sound echoed, like someone tapping bones against the floor, stepping closer with every beat.