Extraordinary Pedigree.

Chapter 886 Cooperation (Repair chapter, refresh more often)
Saint Bumaro listened quietly, without interrupting or getting angry.

He slowly raised his head and looked at the dark golden light simulating the stars on the dome of the anchorage.

There was no anger in those old eyes, only some slightly complicated contemplation and sigh.

After a long while, he spoke in a low and slow voice:
"...We are not the Grand Master of Daeva."

"The bronze army has not yet been completed, the iron wall still lacks the protection of the Holy Source, and one of the drawings of the colossus has been lost..."

"Of course."

He turned around, and the mechanically embedded shoulder spine actually emitted an extraordinary metallic echo, like the sound of a bell:
“Even if it’s a fragment, it still carries on McCann’s legacy.”

"When the divine order rises again, I will awaken the structure of the past and weld the glory of the future."

"As for the bronze idol you mentioned..."

Saint Bumaro slowly raised his hand and pointed to the sky behind him.

"Perhaps you will be able to see it in person soon."

Xia Xiu looked at the Mechanical Saint, stroking his chin with his right hand, and said in a somewhat disrespectful tone:

"I can understand that the collection of the three blueprints has long been incomplete."

"Your bronze soldiers... are just inferior substitutes of the original blueprint gold figurines."

He turned his head slightly to glance at Buma Luo and said lightly:
"If you still have even a fragment or a fragment."

"I am willing to use... the first one I get out of the two 3.5 generation machines of the Soul Sucker Empire as an exchange."

"Of course, the prerequisite is that we take them away from our courtyard first."

“This is not a handout, nor is it a deal.”

"It is a just measure between allies in a sacred war."

Saint Bumaro's eyes moved slowly.

He did not speak immediately, but turned to look at Xia Xiu's side - the imperial guards standing like statues.

The pitch-black military boots stepped on the ground, motionless. They were tall, generally over three meters tall, and each of them exuded a "sense of structure" and oppression that was completely different from ordinary soldiers, as if cast iron and flesh were reforged by some extraordinary order. They wore courtyard standard armor, but their bones and spines seemed to be thicker than those of ordinary people, and every movement seemed to twist some special source of power.

The saint's mechanical eyes slowly swept among the imperial guards and finally landed on Xia Xiu.

"…You asked for the picture of the golden figurine."

His voice was as deep as a bell, but calm:
"I'm afraid it's to create... these people."

"These are not mortal bodies."

Xia Xiu did not deny it. He raised his hand to straighten his cape and nodded calmly.

"Yes."

"They are all the guards I created."

"I customized twenty-four organs for them, tempered their nerve reactions, power cores, and ether-adaptive structures—but the current armor and heavy weapon platforms are only transitional versions."

"And your golden figurine blueprint is the most suitable armed concept for the form of the Royal Guards I constructed."

He turned around and looked at the row of imperial guards standing like a mountain behind him, and said word by word:

“So I am willing to offer enough chips.”

"I will use the Soul Sucker Empire machine that my courtyard has seized in exchange for your… even if it is in tatters, blueprint of the golden figurine."

“Technology for technology, ideas for ideas. No one loses out.”

Saint Bumaro’s expression darkened.

That was out of dissatisfaction with [Om Messiah] trying to steal more machine god blueprints, but the Golden Warriors couldn't make them now, so they gave the courtyard blueprints in exchange for the future 3.5 generation machine...

After a long while, he spoke softly:
"The golden figurine...is indeed one of the three gifts from God."

"However, what we have now are only three pages of fragments and four fragments. Materials, motivation, and mental framework are all missing..."

He looked at Xia Xiu, his eyes calm but with a hint of fatigue and sigh:

“Even if you get it, you may not be able to practice it.”

Xia Xiu smiled, his voice light but powerful:
"Whether it can be built or not is my business."

"Whether you can change it or not is up to you."

Saint Bumaro pondered for a long time, looking at the black and gold machine [Morning Star Eyarendil] that was still standing solemnly on the platform.

He lowered his eyes again, as if thinking about the master of the courtyard's trump card and future.

Finally, he nodded slowly.

"I agree."

"After the first battle, if your courtyard can really seize the opportunity of the spirit absorber, I will order the head of the church to release the fragments of the golden figurine and transcribe them in three languages ​​as copies for your courtyard to study freely."

As he finished speaking, his gaze fell on the imperial guards again.

This time, it was not doubt, but a kind of recognition mixed with subtle uneasiness.

It seemed as if he saw something not so good beneath the cold masks of those soldiers.

It's an illusion. Why do I feel like facing a Sarkite...

A thought flashed through the saint's mind. How could there be flesh-worshipping believers in the courtyard under the Heavenly Genealogy? It must be that the Heavenly Kingdom's way of physical sanctification was too fierce, so that he mistakenly sensed the threat from flesh and blood from them.

The black and gold giant still stood silently, but the conversation between the saint and the angel had entered into substantive content.

Xia Xiu tapped the curved surface of the guardrail with his fingers, his eyes never leaving the slowly moving courtyard ships in the anchorage group in the distance.

"The next step is planning for war."

"Currently, our naval force consists of only thirteen 'Sword-class' frigates and one... 'Sword of Glory-class' cruiser that you have also seen."

He said this in a calm tone, without boasting, as if he was just reporting a string of transfer order numbers.

"These ships have their own unique structures, but overall they still focus on strategic mobility and medium-range projection. They lack multi-stage fragmentation, instant jump, or large-scale psychic interference capabilities."

He tilted his head slightly and looked at Saint Bumaro's face that looked like an old clock sculpture. "Your fleet is very interesting."

Saint Bumarou stood with his hands behind his back, nodded slightly, and spoke in a low voice, but with an extremely oppressive mechanical echo:
"Thirteen ships, all are Folding-class sacrificial ships."

"The structure can be broken down into forty-nine sub-ships, and the extension modules are counted separately."

"It has the ability to link the jump, isolate the spiritual source, and suppress the 'abnormal field'."

"It is the secondary army configuration in our sect's Riftland Shipbuilding System."

He paused as he spoke, as if examining whether Xia Xiu understood the meaning, but Xia Xiu just smiled.

"I understand your strengths, Saint Bumaro."

He spoke slowly.

"Your fleet is a sacred floating coffin forged in the sky; our courtyard's fleet is a burning sword with warriors as its core and defeating the enemy as its primary purpose."

"I don't deny that our ships are more suitable for precision assaults rather than comprehensive suppression."

“That’s why I invited you here.”

He turned his head to look at the saint, his tone light and steady:
"In this war, the enemy is not just predators, nor is it just the empire."

"Rather... it is a self-evolving, astral neural network."

Saint Bumaro was silent for a moment, his old mechanical eyes looking into the distance.

"We have heard about the Soul Sucker's Net for a long time."

"What they have built is not just a colony, but a realm of parallel consciousness." "If it is allowed to expand... the laws of heaven will no longer be reached."

He looked at Xia Xiu:
"Now will be the moment of trial."

Xia Xiu nodded without comment, he stretched out his hand and snapped his fingers.

Snapped--

The projection leaps.

A complex three-dimensional star map suddenly appeared in the air. Countless red pulse points were jumping on the map, like lesions spreading in the blood vessels of the star world.

Xia Xiu's voice was steady and clear:
"Currently, this is the information we have from the Assassin's Court."

"The Mind-Drainer Empire—their total number of active colonies is close to one thousand."

"Widely distributed: Inner Plane World, the Heart of the Astral Plane, Underdark Navigation Line, and even the border of the Material Plane."

“They are not an empire in the traditional sense, but more like a neural network.”

"Each colony has its own structure, with the 'upper brain' as the core, connected to the main brain pool, resonating with each other at low frequencies and being independent at high frequencies."

"As for their fleet..."

Xia Xiu raised his hand and the projection changed immediately.

An image of a giant ship that spiraled like a deep-sea conch shell emerged, its body armor embracing like tentacles, and in the center was a huge eye-shaped sensor cabin that was slowly moving.

"Their fleet - we call it 'Nautilus'."

“It’s not a purely mechanical structure.”

"They are a mixture of organic and mechanical organisms. We can even say that they are some kind of 'psychic organ' war life."

"Each Nautilus ship can autonomously travel through the material plane, the astral plane, and the etheric plane."

Saint Bumaro's eyes moved slightly, and he seemed to know about the troubles of the Soul Sucker Empire.

But Xia Xiu continued.

"The Nautilus is divided into three main fleets."

He raised his hand and put three fingers together:
"First, the reconnaissance fleet."

"They are responsible for exploring new life worlds, infecting the ecosystem with psychic parasites, setting up planting towers, and spreading spore sensors."

"Second, conquer the fleet."

"This is the most dangerous type. They use the Colonial Corps as their skeleton, carry multiple super brains on board, and can instantly deploy a 'deep brain cyber field' to cover the minds of an entire planet."

“The process takes no longer than three standard hours.”

An inhuman "click" sound came from the saint's throat. It was the reaction of the vocal module embedded in his pharynx to vibration overload.

And Xia Xiu was still so calm:

"Third, recover the fleet."

"They are responsible for clearing out failed colonies, recovering runaway individuals, reprogramming rebellious mind suckers, and even clearing out planetary debris that are no longer suitable for spreading consciousness."

"These fleets have no emotions, they just execute."

He paused, his tone slightly cold:
"Even if an entire colony were to kill each other and the host planet were to collapse completely, they would not stop."

“Because that’s not the military.”

Saint Bumaro stared at the red-lit star map in silence for a long time. Those pulse points representing the "colony" seemed to have turned into every drop of soul fat that was swallowed in his old eyes, melting into the abyss that could not be extinguished one by one.

His voice finally rang out in the silence as heavy as an iron night bell:
"I used to think that such enemies were nothing more than wild creatures who had lost their minds and used their spiritual powers as weapons."

"Now I hear what you say... its form seems organic, but in reality it is like nerves."

"…But."

He tapped the scepter with his finger bones and paused, his eyes as ancient as the holy oil on the gears.

"If it is true as you said, there is no single brain behind this, and our enemy is actually... a conspiracy of brains?"

Xia Xiu nodded slightly, a faint and dangerous smile appearing at the corner of his lips.

"Yes."

He waved his hand, and a certain area on the star map was enlarged, revealing a structure that was almost condensed into a "vortex of consciousness", like a vortex of mind covered with tentacles, quietly sleeping in the ripples deep in the star realm.

"They call it the 'Mastermind Council', or in some ancient sources - the Grand Blueprint Constructors."

The saint concluded:
"Those who think together...are simulacra of the gods."

“As the name suggests, it is actually a meeting of many brains and a single soul.”

Xia Xiu nodded, and his voice slowly fell:
"A super-structure of consciousness created by the resonance of hundreds or thousands of master brains."

"I call it 'quasi-god', or the god of the mind."

"In the astral plane... they are the gods of the mind suckers."

Buma Luo heard this and couldn't help but say:
"The courtyard has a plan to kill this god."

Xia Xiu rubbed his brows with a headache and said:
"The Nautilus Fleet, dimension jumping, and the Mastermind Will Network are not real troubles."

"The real problem is that I suspect that there is already a fourth-generation machine that has "completed synchronization" within the Soul Sucker Empire."

"What they obtained from the remains of the Broken God would not be just the consciousness structure."

"You and I both know that the mastermind of the Soul Sucker Empire is not an ordinary consciousness, but the core node of an entire mental network."

"If they really uploaded the main brain to the fourth-generation machine, then it would be a war god with thoughts, beliefs, and a constant tactical model."

He stood up, and his tone became sharp and orderly, like a sword slowly being unsheathed.

"I want to hang it out."

The saint was slightly startled: "You said... you want to bring his 'divine brain body' into the game?"

Xia Xiu nodded, his eyes flickering slightly:
"We must find a way to lure it out. Only in this way can you and I disrupt it, hold it back, and test it in the center of the battlefield."

"We are not really going to seize the ruins this time."

"The ruins are just a 'bait'."

Saint Bumaro turned his head slowly and listened to him continue.

"There are currently two 3.5 generation machines controlled by the main brain core in that area. If we attack rashly, the entire mental network of the Mind Drainer Empire will be overwhelmed."

"So we have to give them a 'correct misunderstanding'."

He smiled softly: "We need to make the Mastermind believe that the combined fleet of the Courtyard and the Orthodox Church is for the ruins - not for this."

"I will be personally present in the middle of the battlefield, and you too."

"Our crown-level presence will stimulate it, and it will definitely take the initiative to invest resources to fight us."

"At the same time, your Folding Fleet will tactically disengage and cut into the heart of the Soul Sucker Empire."

"The Folding Fleet is highly maneuverable, and this is universally acknowledged. I don't need you to win, I just need to penetrate."

Saint Bumaro whispered: "Get into the heart of their nest... and induce them to lose balance."

Xia Xiu nodded: "When it realizes that its main body has been lost, the purpose of containment will be achieved."

"If the Mastermind sends the fourth-generation aircraft to the ruins, then we can test its limits."

"If it hides too deep, it means it is not ready yet, which will buy us more time to deploy."