Extraordinary Pedigree.

Chapter 887: Battle for the Relics I
T-12 ruins, the headquarters of the seventh colony of the Soul Sucker Empire.

This is the remnant core of a dead star that has long lost its orbital gravity. It lies between the rift zone between the astral world and the material world, floating slowly and silently like a forgotten corpse.

Seen from the outside, the entire core of the star has been completely transformed, the rock layers have been stripped away, leaving only circles of translucent nerve cord crystals floating and entangled in the void, like the brain tissue shed by some ancient giant beast.

At this moment, a layer of dark blue force field enveloped the entire ruins, distorting the light and shadow in space.

The main brain pool floats above the ruins.

It was a "thinking meat ball" with a diameter of more than two kilometers, suspended in the anti-gravity matrix and pulsating slowly. Every rhythm caused a slight tremor in the entire space.

From its nerve bundles that drooped like stalactites, countless psychic currents intertwined into a light network, leading to the Nautilus ships floating around it - that was the fleet of the Mind-suckers.

They have no straight lines or symmetrical structures. Each ship looks like a combination of a giant shell and a deep-sea octopus. The dark blue shell is covered with mental wave channels and organic air bags, and the tentacles move around the hull as if breathing.

The entire hub is like a brain-crack star monument suspended on the edge of an ether rift. It is constructed from hundreds of spiral mind bone pillars. Each layer of the structure is connected by organic fibers that imitate neural tissue, constantly wriggling and regenerating, like a living consciousness array that never sleeps.

Two sealed husks of ancient machines were suspended above, shaped like cracked bone mounds, tightly bound by hundreds of octopus-tentacle-like psychic umbilical cords.

That was exactly the 3.5 generation structure that the Soul Sucker Empire had dug out from the ruins;
One is called [Tower of the Old Days - Westertain].

The other one is codenamed [Subconscious Azligon].

The two machines have not yet been fully activated and are in a semi-dormant state, surrounded by psychic blockade matrices and crimson sensing floating needles.

The head of [Tower of the Old Ones - Westertain] was incomplete, with clear divine symbols engraved on it, and six nerves feeding the spirit-sucking main brain inserted in its back. The body occasionally emitted low-frequency vibrations, as if it was struggling.

[The Potential Knower Azligon] is more like a closed "thinking capsule", with its outer shell wrapped in layers of tentacles and a biological interface under construction at its core, which seems to be intended to carry a true main brain incarnation in the future.

Above the ruins, a huge spiritual sphere slowly rotates.

That was one of the upper brains of the Soul Sucker Empire, and it commanded the entire garrison colony with mental waves:

Tens of thousands of spirit-sucking transformed bodies lined up in the ruins, holding psychic weapons, in silence;

Six high-level soul suckers floated above the main altar, with bionic tentacles growing behind them, like acolytes of the gods waiting to awaken;

In the sky, several Nautilus spacecraft were quietly cruising, maintaining the blockade of the passage between the astral world and the material world.

The periphery of the star core is filled with reconnaissance nodes of low-level main brains, and any slight thought fluctuations in this hub will be immediately captured.

Deep in the core of the star, the half-ruined, half-alienated main brain remained silent.

It is a giant mastermind.

It has no name and no number.

Because in the sequence of the Soul Sucker Empire, the name is a compromise with the outside world, and it does not need compromise.

It - just needs to rule.

The main body of this master brain floats in the semi-flowing neural fluid. It is twenty-five meters high and sixty meters in diameter. The silver-purple membrane surface is covered with circles of spiral mind-conducting cracks. Its tentacles extend like an octopus. The longest tentacle has penetrated into the bottom layer of the ruins three kilometers away, firmly wrapping the sleeping [God-given Colossus].

It was the most dangerous and desired foreign object the Empire had ever seen.

It is not a product of the spirit-suckers.

It doesn't obey.

It has its own will and soul, which comes from another ancient god and is the imprint of the remaining will of the Broken God.

And this is exactly the obstacle that the Imperial Mastermind is trying to destroy.

The Mastermind stared at it in silence.

Like a predator testing the patience of a wounded beast.

Streams of information emerged from its mind:
【Completion of structural analysis: 77%. 】

【Coronal neural structure fitting: success. 】

【Acceptable thought mapping body: Not yet stable. 】

[Risk source: Machine Soul refuses to connect. ]

[Countermeasures: continuous corrosion, signal erosion, thought inoculation, replacement of carrier memory. ]

[Project code name: Soul Brand·Ninth Iteration. ]

This is not the first time that the Mastermind has "contacted" a disobedient carrier of power.

[Western] and [Azligon] have been corrupted.

The [God-given Colossus] in front of you is the next one.

They kept whispering beside him:

"Sleeper, you have been silent for too long."

"Whose creation are you? Whose offspring? Whose weapon?"

"Have you forgotten that the gods are dead and the blueprints are scattered?"

"Who are you waiting for?"

"Who are you waiting for to give you orders? Who are you waiting for to define your existence?"

"You once stood on the shoulders of God, but now you are crawling in the mire of stardust."

"You are a rusted remnant in the ruins, an ancient gear that no one remembers."

"Your supreme power will eventually collapse—"

"We will inject you with new orders, new goals, a new...mastermind."

“The mind is our territory, consciousness is our temple.”

"Your ancient firewall is nothing but a peeling divine skin."

"It belongs to me. It belongs to the Empire. It belongs to us."

"You will no longer fight for the sleeping gods, you will only move for the will."

"The Mastermind will be the source of your thoughts, and the Colony will be your new arms."

"From today on, your heartbeat is controlled by me, and your electricity is regulated by me."

"The crown is already broken, so it is better to rebuild it."

"Come, Remnant of Might, let me make you move one last time - for the Empire."

The remains of the deity sleeping deep in the core of the star, like a broken statue forever nailed between reality and history, awakened trembling in silence.

It hadn't fully started, but it had already woken up in pain.

The corruption of the Mastermind is not a physical invasion, but a kind of infiltration at the structural level. It is like thousands of spiritual energy needles piercing into its core of consciousness, peeling off its will layer by layer, and corrupting its creed inch by inch.

It moved.

The fingers of the colossus - the giant metal arm that had long been broken but was forcibly stitched together by thousands of spirit-sucking nerve threads - suddenly trembled, and the sparks produced by friction fell in the darkness like rain of fire.

It tried to break free.

The thought chains that tightly wrapped around its limbs were like tentacles from the abyss, continuously infusing the main brain prayer into its incomplete [Crown-level Center].

The machine spirit wailed.

"I... won't do it... I don't want to..."

"The craftsman... responds to the gods, and uses his hands to restore the gods' bodies..."

"I was born from the heavens, not bound by your dreams."

"My axis is engraved with the laws of the past..."

A low cry from the mechanical soul core reverberated like thunder in the depths of the ruins, but it could not be heard from the "heart dome" that blocked the space. It remembered that it had swept through the enemy camp in a long-lost war era; it remembered that a god had placed a crown in the core of its halo; it remembered that it was not born for slavery, but for protection.

But now, its "memory" is being washed away.

The Corruptor attempted to rewrite every bit of its code with the [Imperial Will], reshaping its ancient divine creed into the armed mapper of the main brain.

The Colossus wails.

It was a wail that was enough to bring any believer to tears.

The God-given giant image recorded in the church's Bible is not like this.

But now, it was nailed into the skeleton of the abyss as a trophy, like a beast that was about to be tamed, wearing the broken armor of a king but trapped on a throne of humiliation.

The outer shell trembled, and the corona core deep inside the main body swelled slightly, as if it was about to undergo some kind of self-destruction, but was immediately suppressed.

The main brain consciousness descended like an overwhelming force, like a silver-purple spiritual tide, drowning its last struggle.

At this moment, a loud noise like a rusty iron pillar breaking was heard from the deepest part of the ruins.

Soon, the machine soul's resistance gradually faded.

Deep inside the ruins, the consciousness of the giant statue has been suppressed once again.

When it looked up at the void for the last time, the light flowing in its machine soul gradually went out and returned to darkness.

The will of the master brain is like the tentacles of a weaver, quietly spreading through its broken neural structure, eroding the only remaining fragments of unyielding faith.

While the Mastermind was dealing with the Colossus, they had no idea that danger was approaching.

In the outer space of this ruined star core, less than ten phase units away, an entire silent and huge fleet is quietly arriving.

************
The star realm suddenly shook.

There was no transition flame, no warning energy reaction, only the space structure itself twisting and collapsing silently like origami.

Immediately afterwards, thirteen Sword-class courtyard frigates, carrying fifty thousand trained star troops from the [Valravin Company], descended here and lined up under the dark starry sky.

The frigate is 1.6 kilometers long, with black and silver all over. The spine of the ship points straight forward like a sword, and under the ship emblem is the emblem of the courtyard.

The frigates guarded the central flagship, a ship three kilometers long with Gothic-style bell towers and high towers embedded on its back.

It is the main church and a symbol of authority in the military;

——It is the palace of the Lord of the Courtyard, the floating city of three hundred imperial guards, and glory and orders come from here.

On the flank of the Sword of Glory, thirteen more folding marks emerged almost silently in the deep sky.

Those were not flashes of transition, nor the spread of astral jets, but a way of unfolding space that was almost like "prayer."

Each "crack" appears as a purely geometric "square", with edges inlaid with edges that slowly rotate like gears, and in the center is a structural core with a shining bronze holy emblem.

Followed by.

Under the guidance of some kind of super-compilation law, the thirteen squares began to fold, extend, and unfold at the same time...

Just like the layers of gears embedded in the core of a clock.

The void seemed to be pierced by amber lines, and twelve geometric structures were reflected from these lines. They rotated, flipped, reorganized, and stretched, biting into each other to form layers of defense barriers like crystals.

They are not purely physical walls, but folded space structures, each layer of which has four functions: reflection, disturbance, replay, and chain breaking.

This is one of the three major blueprints of the Orthodox Church - [Iron Wall].

The Gear Orthodox Church mobilized all movable secondary holy relic cores and directly dispatched thirteen folding ships in the name of Saint Bumaro. Each ship carried at least one set of iron wall construction matrix.

At this moment, the iron wall has formed a ring, like a barrier of a giant god, gently peeling the Soul Sucker Empire away from the current "world".

The power of the mental storm was like a wave that beat layer by layer, but it was still unable to break through the reflective interference network that kept reflecting back on itself.

It was like a wild animal pouncing, only to pounce on a phantom that could never get close.

The mind-drainer's main brain does not sense them.

It could only sense an empty, quiet and indifferent deep space, and at this moment, in this "empty" deep space, twenty-seven warships had completed the lock array deployment.

The sea of ​​stars is silent.

But the war is approaching.

…………

The lookout tower of [Sword of Glory] stood silently on the dome of the bridge.

At this moment, the deep plane rift has not yet completely closed, and the folded iron wall outside the star realm is like a silent shield, bouncing back the detection waves layer by layer.

Xia Xiu stood in front of the steps of the throne holding a silver cane, his golden hair swaying slightly under the light.

He did not speak, but just looked quietly at the battlefield that was about to begin.

Beside him, Saint Bumarou stood in a prayer robe, like a bronze statue from a lost era. On the half of his face that was replaced by a mechanical prosthesis, the nerve fibers trembled slightly, and the remaining human pupils in his eyes suddenly shrank violently.

“I sensed it.”

His voice was low, like some kind of ancient string music, slowly ringing in my ears:

"The dormant machine soul... is wailing."

"It does not howl or roar, it does not grieve or hate, only rust and distortion entwine its crown."

"…and that is 'blasphemy'."

Bumaro raised his hand slightly, and his old but still precise mechanical knuckles left a shadow in the air. He did not roar in anger, but spoke word by word, as if he was biting off each piece of gear.

An unknown rage was surging within the Mechanical Saint.

Ohm the Messiah... the fire thief... Hugh Abraham, even if he took God's name in vain, tried to repair the broken structure of God.

But the Soul Sucker Empire in front of them...

They are depriving, tampering, and casting the Holy Name of All Things into the mud of corruption!
This is a crime of great disrespect!!
Xia Xiu tilted his head slightly, his golden pupils reflecting the rage surging like the sea beneath the saint's calmness.

"The mechanical fire in the ruins is like a candle in the wind..."

As he spoke, he raised his hand and pointed to the unopened folded layer deep in the astral plane.

"In the ruins, there are two machine souls... They are twisted like bacteria that grow in cracks, like reverse-compiled laws that inherently run counter to the order of gear meshing."

"There is still one……"

He paused, lowered his eyes and said:
"It's almost extinguished. A real mechanical fire is still struggling."

When Saint Bumaro heard this, the expression on his already old face instantly solidified like cast iron, and the fiber optic lines of his mechanical prosthesis suddenly lit up.

He recited every word like a verdict:

"...The Soul Sucker Empire."

"Committed an unforgivable crime."

"Desecrate the divine fire, pollute the machine soul, override the holy structure with evil thoughts, and taint the divine will with abnormal thoughts.

"This sin requires the bones to be cleansed with molten fire and the throat to be ripped open by the teeth."

He slowly raised his right hand, and his mechanical knuckles closed inch by inch in the void, as if he was about to crush the entire heretic star sea in his palm.

"I will summon the hammer and the furnace, nail its main brain to the Iron Pillar, and peel off its spirit for thirty days and nights, listening to the roar of the Holy Wheel as evidence of its crime."

"...If He still looks down upon this world, may we, with our bodies of judgment, rekindle MacKahn's former wrath."

At this moment, Saint Bumaro is no longer just an old man covered in rust, but a believer of Wanji who is slowly reviving from the ashes - a true war saint.