Chapter 397: Clue Tracking

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The quicksand of the Dead Desert suddenly solidified into a bronze mirror, reflecting three hundred twisted suns. The instant Ao Li's boot sole touched the sand and gravel, a putrid stench mixed with Brain Fluid seeped from the ground cracks—this was not ordinary scorching heat, but the bloody steam of a mother nest in labor.

"Quantum disturbance in the southwest quadrant!" Qinglin's mechanical prosthetic eye oozed black oil, the modified Godslayer Crossbow pointed toward the leeward side of the dune. As the group approached, the sand grains suddenly transformed into pages of the Shadow Demon Classic, each inscribed with the height markings of the twin children.

####【Black Stone Enigma】

Gongxu Yue's mechanical arm shot out molecular tweezers, snatching a faceted Black Stone. The stone's surface suddenly opened seventy‑two Compound Eyes, and within the pupils danced the phantom of the celestial armillary sphere atop the North Star Tower. "This isn't a stone..." her vocal cords suddenly quantum‑shifted, emitting a bell‑like child's voice, "It's a fragment of the cognitive placenta~"

Lín Jìn's Star Sand right hand pressed onto the Black Stone, Nirvana Fire seared out a hidden Gui Xu incision. From deep within the incision came the rhythm of a womb contracting; the sand beneath the group suddenly gave way, revealing a ring altar built of Black Stone—its troughs flowing not with blood but with memory fragments of allied soldiers corrupted.

####【Sand Sea Illusion】

Purple Sky Immortal sliced the altar with a sword, but the Taiyi Pure Light was absorbed by the Black Stone. Three hundred beams of primordial pure light shot upward, warping the desert into a massive Klein Bottle. The team suddenly found themselves inside a Crystallization Sanctuary, where three hundred forehead‑born babies with Compound Eyes were gnawing their own umbilical cords, each baby suspended behind a miniature North Star Tower.

"Visual contamination! Close your eyes!" Ao Li's Inverse Scale stress‑burst elongated, drawing Gui Xu coordinates in the void. But it was too late; two Lingxiao Pavilion disciples suddenly knelt, their Golden Pill rupturing from their bodies, arranging in the air into the lips of a black‑haired infant: "Cognitive synchronization commencing~"

####【Death Gift】

A sandstorm descended without warning, and mixed in the black wind were not grains of sand but crystallized Shadow Demon teeth. Qinglin's Godslayer Crossbow switched to a sweep mode; the moment the arrow cluster shattered the teeth, each fragment burst forth a quantum wave of infant cries. Gongxu Yue's mechanical box expelled a cognitive filter net, which, upon contacting sound waves, morphed into nurturing tendrils that swept the nearest Mohist disciples toward the altar.

"Sever the sound source!" Ao Li's Edge‑Cutting Blade split the sandstorm, its edge conveying the sensation of gnawing the Abyss Return Ruler. The chaotic spirit marrow suddenly swelled, reflecting the truth of the sandstorm's eye—there floated a gigantic womb composed of Black Stone, each stone pulsating and secreting Star Sand‑like cognitive spores.

####【Gui Xu Birthmark】

When the group broke through the sandstorm and reached the outer rim of the womb, Lín Jìn's Star Sand right hand suddenly performed a Quantum Leap. His fingertips pierced the Black Stone surface, pulling out a tangle of chaotic spirit marrow wrapped around an umbilical cord—at the core of the marrow, a silver‑haired infant's milk tooth bore Ao Li's dragon pattern.

"Mother's scent..." The Black Stone womb suddenly contracted, and the sand sea raised seventy‑two bronze umbilical cords. At the end of each cord was tethered a baby from the Crystallization Sanctuary, their Compound Eyes projecting everything they saw and heard in real time onto the armillary sphere of the North Star Tower.

Gongxu Yue's mechanical box suddenly self‑detonated, scattering vaccine forged from time‑whale teeth. When the vaccine touched the womb's surface, the Black Stone suddenly transformed into torn pages of the Gui Xu Fetal Treasury Scripture, the verses arranging in the air the new game rules for the twin children:

**1. The desert is a birthing bed**

**2. Black Stone is the amniotic membrane**

**3. You all are midwives**

Ao Li's Edge‑Cutting Blade suddenly softened, coiling around the nearest bronze umbilical cord. In the reflection of her newly formed Inverse Scale, three hundred desert oases were crystallizing, each spring gushing amniotic fluid laced with Star Sand.