CHAPTER 14: THE BLOOD OF THE DESERT AND THE GENERAL'S OATH
The western horizon was no longer a sunset of gold, but a crimson sea of marching steel. General Wei, the "Iron Wall" of the Iron Blood Empire, led a vanguard of fifty thousand elite heavy cavalry. Each soldier was mounted on a Black-Scaled Drake, their armor etched with runes of suppression. General Wei himself sat upon a War-Beast of the Void, his eyes like sharpened flint, fixed on the violet mist of the Sanctuary. He had come to answer the call of the Righteous Alliance, but in his heart, he felt a strange, nagging hollow—a thirst that no amount of wine could quench.
Suddenly, a streak of golden light cut through the sky, stopping a mere hundred meters before the thundering army. The Black-Scaled Drakes recoiled in terror, sensing a predatory aura that far surpassed their own.
As the dust settled, a woman emerged from the golden radiance. Lin Yue, the Empress of the Eternal Sword, stood alone against an army of fifty thousand. In her hand, she held nothing but a small, cracked, and sun-bleached flask.
"General Wei," her voice carried across the desert winds, cold and filled with a haunting resonance. "Stop your march. The Master has decreed that you shall not pass until you have tasted the water of your past."
General Wei pulled his reins, his expression darkening. "Empress Lin Yue? You, who have abandoned your throne to serve a demon? I respected you once, but now you are nothing more than a puppet. Move aside, or the Iron Blood Empire will trample your memory into the dust."
Lin Yue didn't move. She raised the old flask, her golden eyes reflecting a sorrow that made General Wei's heart skip a beat. "You speak of demons, General. But do you remember the sands? Do you remember the heat that melted the very skin from your bones? Do you remember the 'Brother' who lied to you in the oasis?"
General Wei froze. His hand, which had been reaching for his massive war-axe, began to tremble. Those memories... they were supposed to be his alone. The dreams of a parched desert, the chains of a slave, and the cooling sensation of water when he was supposed to die—they were the secrets of his soul.
"How... how do you know of the sands?" Wei's voice was no longer a roar; it was a choked whisper.
Lin Yue flicked her wrist, and the 'Simulation Manifestation' expanded. The surrounding desert didn't just look like a memory; it became reality. The soldiers of the Iron Blood Empire gasped as the air around them turned scorching hot, and the smell of dry death filled their lungs.
In the center of the vision, General Wei saw it: a younger version of himself, weeping over the corpse of a man who had withered into a husk. That man was Li Xiao.
"He didn't find another oasis, Wei," Lin Yue spoke, her voice echoing the Architect's cold truth. "He gave you his life, drop by drop. He became the sand so you could become the General. And now, you come to kill the soul that birthed your glory?"
The axe fell from General Wei's hand, crashing into the sand with a heavy thud. He looked at the flask in Lin Yue's hand, then at the violet peak in the distance where Li Xiao sat. The realization hit him like a physical blow—a karmic debt so massive it threatened to crush his very existence.
"Brother Xiao..." Wei fell to his knees, his heavy armor clanking in the silence. The General who had never bowed to an Emperor was now weeping like the child he once was in the simulation. "I spent my life searching for that oasis... I wanted to tell him I succeeded... I wanted to share my wine with him..."
"He doesn't want your wine, Wei," Lin Yue said, walking toward him. "He wants your loyalty. The Architect is rebuilding the world, and he needs the 'Iron Wall' to be his foundation. Do you accept the debt, or do you wish to die as an ingrate?"
General Wei looked up, his eyes bloodshot. "If he is my brother... if he is the one who gave me the desert... then my blood, my army, and my empire belong to him. I swear by the Crimson Sands, I will be the shield of the Sanctuary!"
[ Ding! The 'Iron Wall' has surrendered. ]
[ General Wei of the Iron Blood Empire has sworn the 'Blood-Soul Oath'. ]
[ Karma Harvest: 8,000,000 units. ]
Back in the Grand Hall, Li Xiao felt the massive influx of karma. His obsidian-winged Nascent Soul pulsed with power, its feathers becoming even more jagged and sharp.
"The fourth pillar is set," Li Xiao murmured, his violet eyes glowing. Beside him, Yan Feng and Han Xue watched in awe as the map of the continent in Li Xiao's mind began to turn violet, section by section.
But Li Xiao's gaze didn't linger on his victory. He looked at the system's hidden tab, the one glowing with a dark, terrifying crimson.
[ Final Simulation: The Devourer of Heavens. ]
[ Warning: This simulation contains the 'True Identity' of the Host. Accessing this memory may shatter the current reality. ]
Li Xiao stood up, his aura causing the hall to groan under the pressure. "The Empress, the Alchemist, the Saintess, and the General. They are all here. The world thinks the war is over, but they haven't seen the final act. The fifth simulation is not a debt... it is the reason this world exists."
He walked toward the balcony, looking out at the united forces of the Empress and the General. They were no longer enemies; they were the guardians of his sanctuary. But even as his power reached the Nascent Soul Level 7, Li Xiao felt a cold, ancient hunger awakening in his soul.
"Lin Yue, Wei, Han Xue, Yan Feng... you all regret leaving me," Li Xiao whispered to the wind. "But soon, you will regret that I ever came back. For the Fifth Simulation... I wasn't the sacrifice. I was the one who consumed the stars."
In that moment, the violet mist around the Sanctuary turned pitch black. The final harvest was approaching, and it would not be measured in karm
a, but in the very souls of the heavens themselves.