Chapter 398: Desert Crisis

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The scorching sun of the Death Desert suddenly froze at the vault, bronze‑colored light baking the sand grains into liquid glass. Ao Li's Dragon Scale reflexively curled, and between the scales seeped salt crystals formed from Golden Blood; when they fell to the ground they rang with the Abyss Return Ruler measuring time and space.

"There's a Quantum Oasis to the southwest!" Qinglin's mechanical prosthetic eye exuded black coolant, and the modified visual sensor pierced the mirage, revealing a horrifying truth—the so‑called oasis was actually a slaughterhouse formed by three hundred crystallized camels, whose spinal vertebrae were secreting Star‑sand‑like toxin.

####【Sand Scorpion Feast】

When the Mohist Mechanical Crossbow's armor‑piercing bolt struck the first sand scorpion, the shell burst not with bodily fluid but with boiling whale Brain Fluid. The splashed sand instantly transmuted into placental tissue, countless umbilical‑like tendrils coiling around the bolt to reverse‑control it. Gongxu Yue's mechanical arm launched a molecular saw, but it shattered under Quantum Resonance the moment it touched the scorpion's pincers.

"Their shells bear Abyss Return Ruler markings!" Zixiao Real Person slashed a scorpion tail with a sword, and Taiyi Qingguang burned twin palm imprints onto the poison spine. When the seventh sand scorpion was beheaded, the wound oozed not blood but black amniotic fluid laden with cognitive spores.

####【Crystallization Inferno】

Lín Jìn's Star Sand‑infused right hand plunged into the sand, and Nirvana Fire flowed upstream along the earth veins. The flames revealed a suffocating subterranean truth—the entire desert was an amplified ten‑thousand‑fold mother‑nest womb, each grain of sand a fragment of shed fetal membrane. The sand scorpion swarm suddenly knelt in unison, their shells cracking open to expose a tiny beating Celestial Sphere within their cavities.

"Watch for acoustic resonance!" Ao Li's Inverse Scale reflexively resonated, and the Edge‑cutting Blade split the forming quantum field. Yet three Lingxiao Pavilion disciples were struck by the resonance wave; their Golden Pill detonated in their chests, and the spray of fragments assembled in the air into the crying face of a black‑haired infant.

####【God‑Slaying Sweet Rain】

Gongxu Yue's mechanical box suddenly fell apart, and three hundred condensation tubes were driven into the sand. When the first drop of black amniotic fluid was distilled and purified, the liquid instantly quantum‑leapt, turning above everyone's heads into a Blood Rain that fell. Qinglin's God‑slaying Crossbow switched to focused mode, and its bolt cluster, bearing condensate, pierced the resonance nodes of the sand scorpion swarm.

Ao Li seized the chance to leap into mid‑air, and the Inverse Scale jet thruster ran at overload. Golden Blood mixed with sweat into a pale gold mist, which condensed above the sand scorpion swarm into a temporary oasis. Clear Breeze Valley disciples instantly formed a formation, and wind blades sliced the mist into sweet dew, only to reveal that each droplet curled a shadow‑demon embryo.

"Do not drink!" Zixiao Real Person slashed the water sac with a sword, and Taiyi Qingguang evaporated the poison about to be ingested. The hem of his Daoist robe suddenly elongated, transforming into a talismanic chain that bound two mutated sand scorpions—whose tail stingers were secreting living text from the Gui Xu Fetal Treasury Sutra.

####【Fetal Movement Finale】

When the last sand scorpion carbonized in Nirvana Fire, the desert trembled like a uterine contraction. The quicksand beneath everyone's feet collapsed into a birth canal, and three hundred black stones erupted from the earth's core, assembling in the air into a complete Celestial Sphere. At the sphere's center, the phantom of a silver‑haired infant toyed with the scorpion tail stingers, each tip bearing a crystallized eye of an Allied Forces warrior.

"Cognitive irrigation complete~" the babble of the black‑haired infant echoed from the Celestial Sphere's scale. Ao Li's newly formed Inverse Scale suddenly fell off, assembling in the air into a replica of the Abyss Return Ruler. When her fingertip touched the ruler's body, the truth of the Death Desert exploded in the spiritual platform—this place was not a battlefield at all, but a cognitive womb forged by the Twins for a New God.

The bronze‑colored scorching sun suddenly swelled, branding everyone's shadows onto the sand. Each shadow sprouted a Compound Eyes structure, controlling its body's movements in reverse. Lín Jìn's Star Sand‑infused right hand suddenly clamped his own throat, and Nirvana Fire reflected in the depths of his pupils the mirror image of the Polaris Tower—its apex's Celestial Sphere had, unbeknownst when, pointed to the 100% mark, and newborns across the continent were opening the compound eyes between their brows, collectively humming battle songs.