Chương 55: Chapter 56: The Resonance Chain Reaction

The high-pitched, glass-tearing shrill slicing out from Naktamim's weapon did not fade. It vibrated through the limestone bedrock of the northern boundary canyons like a subterranean lightning strike. Three kilometres away, tucked beneath a jagged mud-brick lean-to near a low-yield flint deposit, a Level 28 Vanguard named Yered was carefully binding a frayed leather strap around his wrist guards. His modified bronze blade rested quietly in its side-harness. He was one of the lucky ten.

He had been right there at the crossroads when the soot-faced scrapper laid out his initial test batch, snapping up a red insert before the crowd could even process the three-copper price tag. For the last two hours, the deep crimson tooth had sliced through desert vipers with absolute zero friction loss. Suddenly, a violent tremor shot straight up through the soles of his boots. Yered flinched, his hand dropping to his hilt.

The sword housing wasn't just shaking; it was humming with an intense, high-frequency kinetic thrum that caused the metallic rivets of his scabbard to rattle frantically. The light-absorbent mahogany glass core inside the bronze channel began to glow with a dull, sickly purple light. SHHHHHHK. Yered yanked the weapon free of its sheath. His eyes went wide behind his leather visor as a spiderweb of hairline white fissures shot across the smooth face of the crimson glass like ice fracturing under a heavy boot.

"Huh?" Yered fingers turned numb from the sheer frequency of the vibration. When Naktamim's blade screamed from the contact of innocent blood, the resonance shot through the ground spreading like wild fire. Every single one of those initial ten red obsidian inserts distributed across the valley paths heard the cry. The microscopic protein air pockets left behind by the ancient massacre underwent a sudden, synchronised thermal expansion.

Across the valley, the players who had bought the red obsidian blades simultaneously received a message from the system: [System Alert] Weapon State Changed: DMEI TZO'AKIM דְּמֵי־צֹעֲקִים (Bloods Crying Out) Note: The memory of the ground has been triggered by the blood of the innocent. Red obsidian blade inserts have become Universal Aggro Magnets. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. Total panic hit the ravine lands like a flash flood.

The metallic, screeching notes multiplied across the canyons, layering onto each other until the sound transformed into a massive, agonising chorus of screaming voices rising directly from the dirt. Each fracturing blade had turned into an independent, high-intensity magnet for monster hatred. From the dark, un-mapped caverns of the boundary cliffs, elite-tier dune-backs, horned vipers, and territorial scorpions broke containment simultaneously. They didn't calculate proximity metrics.

The invisible hatred meter of every predatory monster on the regional map completely inverted, locking their tracking systems onto the screaming frequency of the red glass like homing beacons.

"Drop the swords!" a skirmisher screamed across the public valley channel, his voice cracking with sheer panic.

"Throw them away! They're pulling the whole zone!" In the rocky gullies, a few of the desperate buyers frantically unbuckled their weapon harnesses, hurling the screaming, vibrating blades into the thorn bushes and wadi ditches. The abandoned weapons lay thumping in the gray silt, their glass cores screeching into the wind. The strategy worked for the abandoners.

The rampaging monster waves sprinted straight past their cowering, un-armed frames, their AI targeting vectors locked entirely onto the discarded, thrashing hilts in the brush. But for the runners who stubbornly held onto their weapons—unwilling to part with the cheap, high-sharpness steel substitutes they had scraped their coppers to buy—the nightmare was absolute.

Fleeing through the rocky passes, the remaining buyers sprinted hard toward the distant stone ramparts of Beth Shean, desperate to reach the protection of the city safe zone. Behind them, the canyon ridge swarmed with clicking mandibles and scaled tails. They were dragging massive, hyper-aggressive monster trains directly toward the trade outpost borders, and the first wave of the horde was about to break over the valley gates.