Extraordinary Pedigree.

Chapter 1089 [The Progenitor of the Beast School (Chaos Titan): Cerberus, the Three-Headed Hound]

"Tsk, why don't we just say hello and see if you're even here?"

Once the thought popped into Xia Xiu's mind, he couldn't suppress it.

He gently raised his hand, and the shattered embers glowed with a faint blue light, indicating that the [Horus Program] uploaded by the First Son had been activated.

Back in the world of Abelio, he had learned that the Four Lords' manifestation of the chaos transformation of Lupercal Abraham was in the [Horus Program].

Chaos is not simply a malevolent energy, but a cosmic phenomenon existing in the dimension of mind; and the Four Lords endowed Rupercal with the language ability of Chaos, enabling him to wield the power of Chaos.

These powers from the language of chaos were designed into programs by Lupercal in the world of Abelio.

This program was then uploaded to the local area network of his own information integration system through Xia Xiu's own [constancy ring]. He thus gained the power to read the language of chaos by means of the power of sharing, which means that he can also use chaos.

At this moment, Xia Xiu recalled the program structure that had long been engraved into the depths of his soul, and the familiar three-stage permission system rose from the embers like lines of dark runes.

—Horus Program—

×Transparent World

Hammer of Delay

Chaotic decompilation logic
-

Because he is not the true form of the First Son and does not possess the Eye of Horus, he cannot summon the [Spider-like Monster] to weave a complete web of perception within the Iron Fortress. Therefore, the entire set of omniscient map permissions of the [Transparent World] can only remain at the bottom and cannot be activated for the time being.

However, the remaining two are sufficient.

Xia Xiu's spirits lifted slightly, and with a thought as light as a fingertip touching the surface of water, the Seventy-Two Mechanical Laws - Intelligent Machine Chapter meshed in sync like precise gears. [Consciousness Flow] instantly opened the window at the front of consciousness, transforming into an invisible light curtain that spread out in the deep structure of the Iron Fortress Network, capturing every trace of information that should not exist.

Immediately afterwards, [Net Devourer] silently bit down, like a predator made of pure data, gently lifting the bottom layer of the background network, tearing the heterogeneous material hidden between the normal logic flow off the system's baseboard, and stripping it cleanly.

Above all, Xia Xiu invoked the deep privileges of the Horus program—[chaos decompilation logic].

Eden, with his calm supercomputing logic, stabilized the entire analysis process, preventing the chaotic code from intruding into the spark. Meanwhile, the Omnic Chapter's own connection protocol became a pin deep into the Iron Fortress's underlying network, allowing him to perform network searches as easily as breathing.

The three factors combined, and the anomalies deep within the Iron Fortress—which even [Erkdna] had deliberately ignored—like joints roughly torn from the shadows, gradually appeared before him.

Within the cracks of this deep logic, he caught a whiff of a familiar taste that made his teeth ache.

Xia Xiu had seen this smell before in Abelio; it was the Trojan Horse created by the Four Lords of Chaos that he encountered when he ordered the Son of the First to carry out a seventy-two-hour purge.

The Trojan Horse, a chaotic virus developed by the Four Monarchs, has four basic pathological variants: Berserker Virus, Paradox Program, Flesh-and-Mechanical Infection, and Sensory Signal Infiltration.

But now, the distorted texture that Xia Xiu touched, seeping out from the data layer, was not exactly the same as any of them.

This is the second type of Trojan horse—an advanced version of the paradox program.

A structure that no longer belongs to ordinary chaotic pollution, but is almost from the source of concepts, that source comes from [Xin Liezhi].

"Think long and you will want to know; know many things and you will thirst for more!"

The Type II paradox program in the chaotic network resembles a black flower that keeps blooming in reverse. The underlying code of the etheric subspace infects all logic stacks in the form of a non-material virus. It can bypass firewalls, spread through resonance, and even the weak electromagnetic waves in the air can become a carrier.

The logic of contamination materializes the content displayed on screens, metal surfaces, and even memory, as if a small rift in ethereal subspace has been torn open between the boundaries of digital and reality.

Within that gap between numbers and matter torn open by the Horus program, Xia Xiu's consciousness seemed to be pulled into a deeper, more fundamental structure. And in that distorted sea of ​​logic, he saw the progenitor of the Beast School—[Cerberus, the three-headed dog of hell]—standing guard there.

The Cerberus was so enormous that it almost filled the entire sunken platform on the seventh basement level. Its three mechanical heads drooped down, and black liquid seeped from between its tightly closed metal fangs. When the black liquid hit the ground, it made the floor creak as if it were being corroded by acid, and the metal layer was corroded into pits, leaving shocking holes.

On his surface, the symptoms of chaos had penetrated deep into his bones. Countless cannon barrels, sensors, and deformed nodes crawled all over his cervical spine, chest cavity, and even back. They grew wildly from his carapace like metal thorns, arranged in disorder, yet trembling gently with a kind of crazy rhythm.

The armor of Cerberus exhibits a state of undifferentiated solid and liquid in certain areas, slowly writhing like molten steel, and then suddenly solidifying into sharp-angled multifaceted crystals in the next second. The colors refracted by those crystals almost defy physics, allowing any observer to see different colors and structures simultaneously, and even making them doubt whether their visual system has been interfered with.

Xia Xiu quickly withdrew his spiritual exploration and confirmed something in his heart.

"As expected... these progenitors of the Beast School have all been corrupted by Chaos, and not in a forced way."

At this moment, Cerberus was dutifully guarding his territory, while he had to figure out how to get the big dog to sleep.

"There are only a few ways to get around Cerberus in mythology: hypnosis, seduction, invisibility, and head-on confrontation... I have all of those methods."

To be honest, Cerberus has always been quite embarrassing in mythology. Although it is called the three-headed dog of hell, it is always tricked into falling asleep by various schemes.

The most famous one didn't even need to use any tricks; he simply pressed down on the dog's head with his hand, forcing it to submit.

Xia Xiu could have easily subdued the other party by pressing down on its head, but that would have been too noisy. So he opted for the safest approach: entering the prison to find the three founders of the Mind Machine faction.

"Let's hide it from the sidelines for now..." Xia Xiu murmured.

The next moment, his figure seemed to be automatically erased, blending into the environment. [Presence-weakening element] spread across his metallic skin, like a silent, invisible, yet highly decisive barrier, systematically erasing his existence from perception, vision, sound waves, and logic.

Then, he raised his hand, and three mechanical crowns appeared behind his head, simultaneously activating the newly acquired [Planet Module].

wow——

The metallic air vibrated slightly, and layers of transparent logical fluctuations rippled out around his feet.

[Current Ethereum floating-point operation efficiency: 1×10⁻¹⁰ times/second (hundred trillion level, third threshold)]

At this moment, all authority within the Heavenly Kingdom genealogy was overwhelmed, and computational streams poured like a waterfall into the structures within his Omnic Code, Horus Program, and [Broken Spark].

Xia Xiu closed his eyes, and his mental domain instantly expanded into a dome covering the seventh negative layer.

Then, he began to deal with chaos.

He wasn't going to attack Cerberus directly; that would be too brutal.

All he had to do was combine the Horus program with the Omnic ability and then silently trigger the vulnerabilities and mechanisms of the Trojan Horse Paradox Program 2.0 within Cerberus.

That was the sugar-coated poison left by Xin Liezhi in the deep sea, a contradictory honey of logic and chaos.

Chaos itself is addictive. The Trojan Horse created by the Four Monarchs was actually a virus of four extreme emotions. Those forces that actively embrace chaos are the most likely to become addicted. Xia Xiu has only gently stirred that part of chaos, just like kneading honey, poppy branches, and sweet chaos cakes and then offering them to the mouth of a half-asleep monster.

There were no incantations, no fancy moves, just the manipulation of logic, the soothing of chaos, and the gentle poison that defied common sense.

Cerberus's enormous, mountain-like body trembled slightly at first.

Then——

Hiss... Boom...

The three mechanical beast heads exhaled a breath of turbid air almost simultaneously, and the black, oily liquid that overflowed from between their fangs began to rise into a hazy mist. The mist contained a kind of inducing frequency that deeply intoxicated the mechanical soul.

The behemoth's shoulder blades slowly relaxed, and the proliferating cannons on its back drooped like withered vines. The logical flames behind its three originally taut eyes gradually dimmed, as if covered by a layer of murmuring mist.

The breathing of the three enormous mechanical dog heads changed, from heavy to light, from alert to languid, from vigilant to...pleasant.

The next instant, Cerberus's massive body crashed to the side.

After a deafening crash that shattered the entire underground structure, the metal dog's body stretched out like a real living being, its three heads lying on the ground, a look of pleasure even appearing on its lips.

The three dog heads were having a blast sucking up the chaos, and they were now feeling—utterly delighted!
Xia Xiu looked at Cerberus, who was still immersed in the chaotic and sweet mist, and couldn't help but shake his head slightly.

Even though he considered himself to have witnessed countless distortions and corruptions of worlds, the scene before him still forced him to admit that chaos was actually more effective at corrupting mechanical constructs than at corroding flesh and blood.

After all, machines don't get tired, don't doubt, and don't run away. Once they're tainted by chaos, they're like a poisonous sweet syrup stuffed into logic. And Cerberus, the original progenitor of the beastly school with his simple and violent thinking, was completely powerless to resist the mental inducement from Sinliezhi.

The contaminated dog was now limp and weak, its logic core seemingly soaked in a sweet and numbing honey-poppy elixir, its machine soul completely lost in ecstasy.

Xia Xiu even suspected that if this continued, it might break through the device's throughput limit in its dream and crash itself.

He did not linger any longer. The invisible light membrane clung tightly to his metal shell, cutting away all traces of sound, weight, and heat. He passed through Cerberus's massive pulsed breaths, like the night slipping between the teeth of a beast, leaving not even the slightest echo.

……

……

When Xia Xiu stepped onto the metal threshold on the seventh basement level, the massive partition wall, cast in steel, seemed to devour all light.

There are no lights, no energy pulses, no ventilation currents, only deathly silence, heavy shadows pressing down beneath your feet.

The seventh basement level was like a forgotten graveyard inside the Iron Fortress's belly, filled with a high density of engine oil and gunpowder smell, as well as the faint sound of chains rubbing from the depths. The sound was deep and slow, like some giant life struggling to die in the darkness.

Xia Xiu's retina lit up with a faint blue light. He silently blocked out the information noise left by the chaos and, relying on the sensing at the level of the spark, moved forward along a nearly abandoned maintenance passage.

The further you go in, the more obvious the vibrations of that spark become—ancient, heavy, almost extinguished by suppression, yet still striving to maintain a minimum level of life.

Until he arrived before a massive iron prison. The prison seemed to be forged from the sins and fears of the entire Iron Fortress, so heavy it was almost absurd; countless thick alloy chains extended from the depths of the prison walls, binding the beings inside tightly to the metal base, as if afraid that if it loosened even a centimeter, the entire city would be torn apart.

Xia Xiu looked up and saw Titan inside the cell.

It was a colossal behemoth that made the entire underground space seem cramped. Its shape resembled a ravaged steel cathedral, forcibly pressed to the ground and forced to kneel; its heavy main cannon and structure had been dismantled and sealed off, with suppression wedges and energy locks inserted between its torso and limbs.

A multi-tiered, palatial architectural structure stands on its back armor—spires broken, armor melted, and the red and gold reliefs symbolizing majesty are riddled with cuts, like a robe torn apart by violence.

It should have been one of the oldest guardians of Ironforge, a pillar-level progenitor of the Omnics, but now it resembles a broken-winged icon being worshipped in the center of hell.

Its flame still flickers, weak yet stubborn, its light like a heart buried deep in chains, exuding silent obstinacy.

Xia Xiu stood outside the cell, the icy blue beam of perception landing on Titan's tattered mask.

The mask was dull and lifeless due to long-term neglect, but under Xia Xiu's gaze, deep within the mask... a beam of ashen light seemed to tremble slightly.

Xia Xiu stood still in the shadow of the iron cage. The invisibility effect, which was like a psychological filter, quietly peeled away with a thought. A faint blue light gathered at the edge of his outline, revealing a humanoid machine in the shape of a heavy-duty truck, spliced ​​together with red and blue steel armor and sharp, straight lines.

The planetary module in the center of his chest glowed faintly, like a heart kissed by a star. That light was like striking a dormant ember deep within the iron prison.

—Bang.

Extremely faint, yet enough to create a ripple in the deathly silence.

The massive Titan Machine Soul, which had been mired in stagnation, seemed to be awakened from the mire. The metal plate shaped like an eyebrow bone trembled slightly, and then the pair of huge mechanical eyes, as large as the dome of a palace, slowly lit up. A dark, cold blue light spread from the depths, as if the weariness of several eras had been overcome and the meaning of seeing had been remembered again.

It lowered its enormous head, and the chains creaked and groaned as they rubbed together.

"You are... Robert Bloom...?"

“No.” Xia Xiu shook his head and said to the somewhat sleepy Yuanzu, “I am an ally of Tantros and the new Pope Maxwell—Om Messiah.”

At that moment, his spark resonated through the iron cage, as if striking an ancient bell in a way beyond words. Then, he looked at the Titan's slightly clouded optical lenses, his tone slightly somber:
"tell me your name."

The giant shadow in the cell fell silent for a long time, as if undergoing a lengthy self-affirmation, before it slowly spoke.

His metallic vocal cords were hoarse from long-term confinement, and every word sounded like it had been dug out from under rubble.

My name is Jason.

As the name was uttered, his head drooped for a moment, as if to confirm that he had not been stripped of his last shred of dignity.

Then, he raised his huge eyes, which were shining with belated clarity, and stared at Xia Xiu, or rather, at the glowing spark in Xia Xiu's chest.

“Like Brom, you have… the Lord’s shards of fire within you, but you haven’t yet drunk the pustule of the Mech God… and you also have a strange aura about you, a very subtle aura, somewhat similar to those disgusting cancers of hunger.”

The giant mechanical shadow slowly moved backward, the chains humming as they were pulled.

"Sorry, I slept for too long. My brain module data needs a little time to reboot, but I can wake up my two other old friends as well... Now that you're here, it means it's time for us to emerge from the darkness again."

As Jason spoke, he began to awaken the other two progenitors of the Mechanic faction within the prison.

(End of this chapter)