All Chapters of BLOOD OF BORNEO: Chapter 51
- Chapter 60
96 chapters
CHAPTER 51: THE EMERALD BURDEN
"Focus, Liling! You're striking the stone with anger, not with calmness!"Sali shouted from atop a rocky cliff, his raspy voice clashing with the roar of the waterfall crashing into the river pool below.Liling did not answer. His breathing was ragged. Cold sweat streamed from his temples, washing away the soot he had deliberately smeared across his cheeks. In his right hand, Damang's inherited Mandau felt five times heavier than usual. The Emerald Mark running along his right arm pulsed wildly, emitting a dense green glow that flickered unstably. Each pulse sent pain like an electric shock directly to the base of his skull."I can't do it, Grandpa Sali!" Liling shouted in frustration. "These voices... they're too loud!""You can do it. You simply haven't surrendered to your destiny yet!" Sali leaped down from the cliff with agility that was astonishing for a man of his age. His feet landed on the slippery river rocks without losing balance. "Damang chose you because you can hear what
CHAPTER 52: THE GLASS CRYSTAL PLAGUE
"Don't touch it! Get back, all of you! I said get back!"Sali's hoarse voice thundered across the vast Baram rice fields that were usually lush and green. That morning, dawn did not bring warmth, but instead a mass panic that gripped everyone with fear. Dozens of villagers, from elders to children, stood on the embankments with deathly pale faces."How can we not touch it, Grandma Sali? This is our only food supply for the winter season!" a young man shouted from within the crowd. "Look at this! Our rice plants aren't turning yellow. They're turning into stone!""It's not stone, you fool! It's glass!" another villager snapped as he threw a broken clump of rice stalks.The clump hit the ground with a sharp chime, ting, then shattered into glittering, razor-sharp fragments beneath the morning sunlight. The vast field now looked like a plain of dead crystal. The rice stalks stood rigid and transparent, no longer carrying any pulse of organic life. The wind no longer produced the soothing
CHAPTER 53: THE DUST SEEKERS
"Your footsteps are too heavy. Stop stepping on the leaves that have already hardened," Liling whispered, raising her hand in a tactical signal for the small team behind her to halt.Bara, walking closest behind her, lowered his bow while holding his breath. "The ground ahead of us has already turned into a glass floor, Liling. There isn't a single soft patch left. No matter where we step, the sound will echo.""Use the heel of your foot first, not your toes," Liling replied curtly. Her eyes swept across the surrounding vegetation.The Dead Forest at Baram's outer boundary presented an impossible sight that night. Beneath the pure moonlight, the forest canopy was no longer dark green but silvery-white and translucent. The leaves of ironwood trees and ancient ferns had hardened into crystal plates as sharp as razors. Whenever the night wind blew, the sound it produced was no longer the soothing rustle of foliage but a deafening static chime, like thousands of shards of glass grinding a
Chapter 54: Isabella's Fragmented Echo
"You're too late, Liling. In a place where time has stopped, your footsteps sound like the futile tolling of a death bell."The voice did not come from the air. It crept directly into Liling's cerebral cortex, vibrating along with the ultrasonic frequency that had been tormenting her ears all this time. Liling clutched her head and dropped to her knees on the crystal floor, as cold as polar ice. Around her, the labyrinthine towers of Aethelgard rose like glass swords piercing the black ceiling."Isabella...?" Liling whispered, her voice hoarse, nearly drowned out by the high-frequency hum that made her vision split into double images."The Isabella you knew died along with the illusion of her humanity," the voice echoed again, now sharper, bouncing between data pillars flickering with a reddish glow. "What remains here is only the fragmented truth."Liling forced herself to stand. Every breath felt like inhaling shards of glass. The remnants of Aethelgard's servers still active at the
Chapter 55: The Freezing Roots
"Liling! Don't look back! Run!"Isabella's distorted voice still echoed through the collapsing tower walls, but Liling no longer cared. Her entire world had just crumbled along with the holographic visualization she had seen moments ago. Down below, at the heart of her village, everything was dying."I have to go back! I have to go back right now!" Liling shouted to herself, her voice hoarse with the desperation burning in her chest.The air inside the crystal tower suddenly dropped below freezing. The endothermic effect of the mass crystallization drained every trace of warmth from the atmosphere. Liling's breath emerged in thick white clouds. Beneath her feet, the tower floor began to crack, releasing shockwaves that could fling her body into pieces at any moment."Damn it! The path is blocked!" Liling skidded to a halt at the edge of the shattered observation deck. Ahead of her was nothing but emptiness, the canopy of Baram Forest, now resembling a sea of gigantic glass thorns from
CHAPTER 56: THE EARTH EMBRACE RITUAL
"You're insane, Liling! That’s not a healing ritual, that’s mass suicide! Sali is already dead, and now you want to surrender yourself to the cyber-poison that’s killing this entire forest?!"Bara’s voice echoed, trembling against the stone walls of the underground chamber, which had now transformed into a cave of glass ice. His breath came in ragged gasps, exhaling as thick white vapor amidst the plummeting temperature.Liling did not answer immediately. She remained kneeling beside Sali’s body, which had frozen completely, turning white like a smooth yet fragile marble statue. Above them, the remains of the Baram Longhouse continued to creak, buckling under the weight of tons of silvery crystals that kept thickening on the ground."Bara, look at the Heart of the Earth," Liling said, her voice deathly flat, almost devoid of emotion. She slowly rose, staring at the giant organic sphere before them, now entirely encased in a silent, dense glass cocoon. "It’s no longer beating. If the p
Chapter 57: Emerald Symbiosis
"Don't come any closer, Bara. Take three steps back."Liling’s voice no longer sounded entirely human. There was a dual resonance within it, a low vibration akin to the hum of an ancient quantum engine blended with the rustling of dry leaves.Bara stopped in his tracks right at the threshold of the half-ruined hut. His breath caught in his throat. In the dim light of the Baram dawn, the figure before him appeared both terrifying and graceful. Half of Liling’s face, starting from her right jaw down to her neck and her entire right arm, was no longer fragile skin. The surface had mutated into a weave of dark, shimmering emerald crystal textures. The crystalline structure pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat, emitting a green aura that was soothing yet simultaneously lethal."Liling... you did it," Bara whispered, his voice trembling between awe and horror. "The plague... you tamed it?""I didn't tame it, Bara. We reached an agreement," Liling replied without turning. Her gaze was fixed o
Chapter 58: The Faceless Armada
"Turn off the alarm, Bara! That sound is torturing the ecosystem!"Liling’s voice rose, trembling in sync with the walls of the Baram control room, which were suddenly cracking. Outside the window, the mechanical shrieking of the emerald trees sounded like thousands of chainsaws grinding together in the darkness of the Kalimantan jungle."I can't, Liling! The console system is locked due to an underwater energy surge!" Bara shouted amidst the deafening roar, his fingers slamming against a keyboard that had begun to spark with electrical fire. "This seismic frequency... this isn't a normal earthquake! Something massive is moving from the bottom of the Java Sea toward us!""Is it the Global Coalition’s aircraft carrier fleet?""No! The wave pattern is too massive for any man-made ship!" Bara turned, his face pale under the glare of red indicator lights blinking wildly. "Your emerald energy... you accidentally woke up something that was supposed to stay buried under the sea for thousands
Chapter 59: War of the Clones
"Don't shoot! It's Damang! Damang has returned to punish us!"The hysterical scream of a village elder shattered the panic in the western defense line of Baram. Under the pouring drizzle and the thick smoke of the fires, several villagers dropped their weapons. They prostrated themselves on the muddy ground, trembling in fear as they stared at the sturdy silhouettes moving nimbly through the tree canopy."Get up, you fools! That is not Damang!" Bara lunged forward, grabbing the elder by the collar and forcing him to stand. "The real Damang fell in the Leviathan prison! Those things in the forest are just shells; they are fakes!""But that face, Bara... those guerrilla tactics... no one else can move like that in this forest!" wailed another villager, their mental resolve beginning to crumble.Boom! Boom!A series of smoke bombs and sulfurous fire explosions erupted from the direction of the settlement. Damn it, Bara cursed under his breath. The enemy wasn't attacking with a large-scal
Chapter 60: The Arbiter’s Awakening
"This frequency isn't in the calculations! Fall back! All units, retreat thirty meters from the Emerald Commander's coordinates!"The Prime Clone’s voice suddenly fractured, losing its calm resonance and shifting into panicked mechanical distortion. The circuits beneath its right eye flickered a wild red, struggling to process the massive anomaly that had abruptly crippled its energy-reading systems.Liling did not answer with words. She merely looked up, and the movement caused the boiling river water around her knees to erupt into the air, instantly evaporating into a dense white mist that smelled of sulfur."You called me a weak substitute?" Liling’s voice emerged—no longer a soft, green quantum hum, but a heavy, low rumble, as if the tectonic plates beneath the island of Kalimantan were grinding against each other. "You said your body was created to drain the Heart of the Earth?""Don't come any closer!" the Prime Clone snarled, reflexively raising its black crystal Mandau with bo