Extraordinary Pedigree.

Chapter 1067 Player World
Xia Xiu's gaze remained fixed on the dazzling building, resembling a data corridor. The torrent of information on the screen seemed to transform into countless hidden and twisted threads, and he finally spoke:
"In other words, you had some kind of unknown collaboration with Eden."

This was not a question, but a statement. He didn't wait for the other person to deny it, but immediately followed up with:

"What do you know about Terra Chronicles?"

The three exchanged a glance. Then, Vajrapani spoke first, his voice ethereal and solemn, as if it did not come from his mouth but flowed directly into their ears through their consciousness:

"The mind is like a skilled painter, capable of depicting all of the world."

"We don't know much about it, only that its root may reside in the depths of the Alaya consciousness, a pan-consciousness cluster that is aggregated and nurtured by the endless subconsciousness of all beings."

"They are like waves in an ocean of ignorance, taking shape between arising and disillusionment, but they do not fall into reality. They are the collective karma and dream consciousness gathered together by trillions of spiritual fragments, reflecting reincarnation and illuminating destiny."

As he spoke, a hazy golden light surged around Vajrapani, and rune-like rays of light floated in the air, swirling around him like a six-path totem.

Sofia then spoke, her voice steady and gentle, like a whisper in the night:
"All we know is that this structure of consciousness involves multiple levels of the Alaya consciousness, is the intersection of 'existence' and 'non-existence,' and is the source where all fragments of consciousness and echoes of time intertwine."

"It is not subject to cause and effect, yet it influences cause and effect; it does not reside in the past, yet it constructs all the future."

"It is like the original information layer of the universe, one of the projections in the Alaya system - we call it the universal consciousness threshold."

“In the fragmented narrative template that Eden gave us, we repeatedly capture certain extremely similar individuals of the Dream God race.”

“These individuals are different from us. They are not attached to the sea of ​​dreams, but rather originate from the embryonic movement of another narrative logic... a law of existence that we cannot fully describe.”

Editika spoke up as well, looking down at his palm. A faint red orb of light appeared there, pulsating slightly.

"That's the crux of the problem."

"Terra Chronicles is not just a dream, not just a game, but a vast, enclosed, computationally constructed, and self-aware miniature world."

"It connects to a completely unfamiliar, yet terrifyingly similar universe—neither our world's past nor its future."

"We are unsure whether it is a parallel universe, a remnant of the past, a projection of the future, or a loop of some higher narrative structure."

"But what is certain is that it operates completely, maintains stable order, and is logically coherent, possessing operational rules similar to but not identical to those of the Gaia level."

"More importantly... it can also project backwards."

“Through it, we have deduced several realities within dreams, and thus realized that it is not at the bottom of the dream, but rather in the fault line between dream and ‘reality’—a kind of archetypal realm between ‘fiction’ and ‘revelation’.”

"Similar to a miniature garden world... but not at all."

Xia Xiu stood on the overpass, his fingertips gently stroking his chin, his eyes calm yet concealing a sharp intent.

He had a premonition that his arrival in Terra was related to the big boss's operations.

"Perhaps the Flesh and Desire side is also involved," Xia Xiu murmured to himself.

He suspected that he had been set up by the big boss and the second boss.

However, he immediately shook his head. Now was not the time to delve into the truth. Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily. The truth will eventually arrive, but not today.

Right now, what's more pressing is the lingering echo of the cosmic starfish—that threat that has yet to be eliminated.

He turned to the three Dream Cores, his tone calm and direct: "So, how do we now disprove the existence of the Cosmic Starfish?"

Vajra Rani was silent for a moment, and before he could answer, Xia Xiu's gaze had already swept around the surroundings.

In this city, the streets are like veins, the lights like blood, and the advertisements and information are like the whispers of civilization constantly circulating; and every person moving through the streets, every carriage gliding through the air, every individual living life carelessly... all gave him a strange sense of familiarity.

He spoke again:
"These people... they should all be residents of the world of Abelio, right? What's their situation now?"

He looked up at the sky, where, out of sight of others, the crimson moon hung quietly.

"Are they currently in a state of unconsciousness, their individual cognition has been replaced, and they have completely forgotten their true identities?"

This time, he was answered by Vajrapani's clear, bell-like voice, low and steady, like the gentle unfolding of French from a scripture:
"As you said, they are all trapped in a dream."

“Sentient beings are trapped in the cycle of rebirth in the six realms because of their deluded consciousness and self-entanglement. They create karma in their dreams and repay it in their dreams; forgetting their true self, they are swept away by karma, like passengers on a sinking ship, drifting with the current.”

"In this realm, they possess new identities, new memories, and new social structures. All their perceptions, identifications, emotions, and actions are illusions constructed by the dream core."

"Only the information integration body—that is, you, and a very few transcendent beings—can reflect their own nature in dreams, without being captured by the illusory wheel."

"This is why if there are sentient beings who are self-aware in a dream, they are called awakened ones; awakened ones are not deluded and can break through the illusion of Dharma."

"Dreams are the treasury of ignorance, but also the sword to dispel illusions. Dreams are not false; they merely reflect a deeper truth."

At this point, Vajrapani raised his eyes, looked at Xia Xiu, and said in a solemn tone:

"Therefore, the way to disprove the cosmic starfish is to use the mirror of dreams to see the pollution hidden deep in people's hearts and in the back door of the soul."

"We must find the tampered source code and corrupted will in this vast, ocean-like dream—they will no longer be human, but reflections of cosmic starfish."

"Only by defining it as non-self in dreams can we truly sever its projection index on Abelio."

Xia Xiu nodded slightly, realizing that the plan to disprove the existence of the Cosmic Starfish was never as simple as just "slumber" from the very beginning.

This was a large-scale consciousness cleansing project, a deep scan of the collective memory layer of the entire Abelio race.

Not only must humanity be put to sleep, but also, in the deepest recesses of their dreams, from the fragments of their original narratives, their conscious trajectories—contaminated, infected, and planted with alien catalysts, that is, the seeds of the cosmic starfish—must be identified, eliminated, and shattered one by one.

This plan, with the assistance of the Dream God Group, has only just begun.

He then asked another question: "Where is my son, Lupercal?"

Editika smiled slightly upon hearing this and casually snapped her fingers towards the information building behind her.

"Snapped--"

Above the sky, the giant holographic advertisement covering half of the building flashed and changed instantly, with neon lights intertwining and tearing the image apart like a torrent, revealing new content.

Load your hopes into the cartridge and defeat the boss of fate!

[The latest player system, "EX/Ω/Final Dominator," is being serialized!!!!]

The scene abruptly shifts to the battlefield, where a sci-fi battlefield composed of a silver tower and a circular electromagnetic rail suddenly lights up! A streak of light descends from the sky, and the young man leaps and lands, leaving a trail of light behind him like a streak of fire.

The transformation device "Final Core Belt · ΩLink" worn around his waist emitted a vibrating sound effect, and he was holding a holographic cartridge in his right hand.

【Ω Cartridge - Domination Mode】.

As he inserted the cartridge into the belt slot, a powerful transformation light effect erupted.

Horus, transform!

An electromagnetic sonic boom erupted, and a knight clad in gold and red armor made a dazzling entrance!

Then the advertisement featured a series of cool lines.

[Genius Player: Lupercal Abraham]

[Awaken the Overlord Mode in the End of Days expansion]

[Defeat the enemy of the Final Calculation and become the first Overlord-level Knight in the entire Terra Chronicles server!]

Xia Xiu stared at the towering information screen, his gaze pausing slightly.

The figure in the advertisement is still charging forward, with light and shadow, explosions, cartridge effects, battle transformations... it has everything.

It's number one in the entire server, features Dominator mode, the End expansion, and even comes standard with stunning sound effects and close-up shots.

His lips twitched almost imperceptibly, and he involuntarily thought to himself:
"...Did these guys pay the copyright fees?"

As if hearing his thoughts, Sophia, standing beside him, spoke softly, her tone brimming with confidence:
"In order to fight against the cosmic starfish, we decided to present the dream battlefield in a gamified way."

As she spoke, she raised her hand and waved it, causing the surrounding space to ripple like a fluid, projecting a massive structural image.

It was an extremely complex data system, with hundreds of millions of nodes scattered throughout, each flickering with the consciousness fluctuations of the beings of Abelio.

"In this architecture, we recompile the genealogical forces of the Terra Chronicles into a cartridge-driven system."

Players need to use lineage cards to activate their potential and utilize the player driver as a connection interface to gain power within dreams.

As she narrated, a beam of light transformed into a demonstration model, showing a player inserting a cassette labeled "Lustful Lineage" into a device on his waist. The device activated, and he was transformed into someone covered in bright red, active armor.

"The other genealogy cartridges in the game are actually all products of the Dream God Group, but for the sake of game diversity, we chose to reskin them."

Xia Xiu muttered to himself, "Heh, you guys are really quite ingenious, you even put together a skin system for Abelio's players."

Sofia added:

“There are exceptions, such as you and So Horizon, who mostly rely on the power of constancy, like our genius player Lupercal Abraham.”

Regardless, most of the cartridges contained the core information program and virus immunity module of the Dream God Group.

Its driver is programmed to automatically respond to cosmic starfish seeds appearing in dreams and to generate a magical counter-field based on the player's own consciousness structure.

She paused, then slowly concluded:
"The speed at which we conquer the game is the speed at which we disprove the existence of the cosmic starfish. And this is precisely why the dream took twenty-seven years."

Xia Xiu raised an eyebrow slightly. "It's a game for everyone," he said casually. "In other words, every Abelio dream consciousness needs to participate in this game and personally defeat the 'monster'."

Sofia nodded, her expression serious:

"Yes, Your Majesty. Our design involves two-stage propulsion."

"Low-level cosmic starfish spores are defeated by individual players of Abelio. In this way, they build antibodies on their own in the dream, complete internal repairs, and reshape the causal chain of consciousness to achieve the purpose of falsification."

"As for high-level BOSS battles..."

She paused, then looked at Xia Xiu:
"That will be your personal involvement. You are the invincible player we have selected, and one of the main servers of the Dream Battlefield. You are the player with the highest authority."

"Only you can sever the narrative hostile individual within the deepest dreams."

"Playing games in a dream? How did you even come up with that idea?"

Xia Xiu stood in front of the towering curtain wall, looking at the flashing battle previews with a complicated expression, his tone tinged with helplessness and sarcasm.

The crimson moon hangs high, neon lights blaze, and the entire dream city continues to operate like an endless torrent of information. He is like the only being in this world who still retains a critical eye for reality.

After saying that, he turned his head and scrutinized him: "You also designed the fifth expansion? According to your version of Terra's development history?"

Faced with this question, Sofia simply smiled faintly, her expression unchanged.

“This is the historical inertia of Gaia consciousness,” she replied softly, her voice like a flowing stream. “Just think of it as… the natural generation of the underlying code.”

She raised her hand, tracing an arc in the air. With her movement, a data projection of the Moon Noema appeared in the void, its core a complex cluster emitting a red glow.

"This world is actually a backup of the Gaia consciousness's miniature world, copied from the moon of Noema."

“That world is now used by us as the main body of the Dream God Group’s consciousness, and this city is a dream subsystem derived from that backup.”

“But it must be noted,” her tone shifted subtly at this moment, “that although this world inherits some of the construction logic of Gaia’s consciousness, it has no real connection with the real Terra.”

"The background is just a framework, an empty shell. The content is a narrative layer that we pieced together at random. Our only purpose is to use this platform to bring together all of Abelio's consciousness and conduct a gamified simulation of defense against the cosmic starfish."

“In the end,” she said, spreading her hands, “it’s just a cheap shell of a world.”

Xia Xiu was speechless for a moment.

He had just praised the Dream God Group for its ingenuity and meticulous structure when he was told that the entire dream world he was in was nothing more than a cheap imitation game with a shell.

The background is copied, the settings are pieced together, the gameplay is a standardized template, and the only real content under all this packaging is fighting monsters and leveling up.

The strange thing is the cosmic starfish; the upgrade is to cultivate a spiritual antibody to resist its erosion.

Everything else is merely appearance.

"Tsk... You guys really should be more frugal and spend more wisely, not wasting a single penny of your funds."

Sofia responded with an expression of undeserved praise:
"After all, the Dream God Group is not as large as the Kingdom of Heaven, nor do we have the extraordinary abilities of Eden, so we will keep everything simple."