Extraordinary Pedigree.

Chapter 974 Divine Fruit
Armand spoke slowly and deliberately, his voice as cold as steel.

"I cannot forgive the anger and hatred I feel towards the Fifth Church, for their crimes of wantonly distorting reality, desecrating reason and order, and turning the entire civilization into an abyss of madness."

His eyes, burning with fury, stared straight at Xia Xiu, a fire that had been suppressed for many years and was powerful enough to pierce through memories.

The Demon King Amund gazed not only at the successor before him, but also at the entrustment into which he had poured his entire destiny—a destiny intertwined with half a lifetime of hatred and reason—into.

His voice was deep, yet like an undercurrent churning beneath the dark surface of the sea:

"The CR-13 is one of the generous gifts I prepared for them."

"The war between the Kingdom of Heaven and the Fifth Church will break out again."

He slowly raised his hand and pointed at Xia Xiu, as if igniting some long-dormant flame of will.

"Homeostasis, I need your help."

He spoke each word as if making a declaration.

"But this time, we will be the ones to strike first."

"I need you to inherit all my past legacy."

The words lingered in the air, like an echo reverberating in the divine realm.

"Not just CR-13."

"And what I left behind—all the plans for secret jurisdiction, all the unfinished intelligence networks, all the tracking, cracking, and destruction projects related to the Fifth Church."

"All of this, from this day forward, belongs to you."

"I need you to be the one who continues my will."

"Let the Kingdom of Heaven once again unleash a storm of war against the Fifth Church."

Amund slowly stepped forward, his voice as low as a morning bell, striking the soul:
"Lead the Kingdom of Heaven and wage a second war against the Fifth Church."

"This time——"

His tone suddenly turned sharp, as if he were delivering a verdict:

"No matter what, we will crush them."

Xia Xiu stared at the phantom formed by light and afterimages before him, remaining silent for a long time. In the end, he couldn't help but gently rub his temples, his brows furrowing so deeply they almost formed a deep frown.

The enemies of Heaven are indeed increasing.

The things I have to deal with are becoming increasingly complex and troublesome.

"...Ha." The King of Corporate Slaves sighed softly, his tone carrying a hint of helplessness and weariness, but more so a clear understanding of the storm of responsibilities he was about to shoulder.

Originally, the mission here was simply to complete the recovery and collect the perfect embryos left behind by fifty anomalous weaponization projects. At the same time, in this containment and cleanup operation, they also harvested the scattered deities of faith from all the worlds, thus accelerating the end of the Evergreen War.

This is the mission he was given as a constant, a mission that is vast and heavy enough.

But he has only retrieved a mere four embryos, and he has already stepped into a gap in a long-forgotten history.

The truth behind the collapse of the Taronu civilization.

The lingering echoes of the remnants of a hypernarrative world bubble.

A plan to wipe out civilizations hidden in the cracks of history.

And what oppressed him most was the clandestine genealogical war between the Kingdom of Heaven and the Fifth Church, a war that had been completely buried and never publicly tried in the sunlight.

This war is beyond the control of any subjective will.

The Kingdom of Heaven Genealogy VS. The Fifth Church Genealogy

It is not merely a power struggle or a clash of perceptions, but an ideological conflict concerning the structure of the Mother's message; it is a fundamental incompatibility between the [Wall of Sighs] that the Kingdom of Heaven has painstakingly constructed and the [Spiritual Disintegrationism] promoted by the Fifth Church.

This is a war that was destined to be unsolvable from the very beginning.

The Fifth Church cannot be persuaded, nor can it be tolerated.

Armond gave him a heavy inheritance, and also a key studded with stars.

He couldn't refuse.

They certainly wouldn't refuse.

Even if it was just out of his instinctive craving for that narrative world bubble—a necessity for ascending to the [miracle], and one of the things he urgently needed now.

He originally intended to use the Ivy League Wars to ascend to the top of the [Miracle] and the decision-maker's seat.

Xia Xiu remained silent for a few moments, then slowly nodded.

"can."

Almost as soon as he spoke, a pale golden arc of light lit up at his fingertips.

He slightly raised his hand and pressed his palm into the void. A series of permission layers generated by the [Eden Terminal] slowly unfolded, swirling and overlapping like flower petals.

Hundreds of millions of neural commands converge rapidly through the Heavenly Genealogy, and the vast authority structure resonates deep within its soul.

The next instant, the authorization beacon was officially uploaded and connected to the main lineage of the Kingdom of Heaven.

[Message uploaded: ID E.045.AM]

[Inclusion confirmed...Permission integration successful.]

The moment the upload was completed, the light-formed phantom of Amund in the void slowly stepped forward. His figure shattered slightly, yet within that shattering, it reconstructed a completely new form of existence.

He whispered:
"From now on, I will accompany you in a more discreet way."

Xia Xiu raised an eyebrow, silently gazing at the ever-changing data outline. Amond smiled slightly, but without any human warmth; it was a remnant of consciousness that had long since transcended the flow of time.

"You can think of me as an embedded collaborative sub-brain, or a piece of observational logic implanted deep in the soul. But rather than saying I am a complete personality, it is more accurate to say that I am... the embodiment of a legacy."

As he spoke, the light around him rapidly compressed into the depths of Xia Xiu's soul, like a miniature sun, quietly sinking into the shadows.

Just like the Data Knight, the Silver Ghost, and the Omnic Councilor before him, Amond's copy consciousness became an inseparable part of him, becoming something like an application in Xia Xiu's Heavenly Genealogy.

This program only appears when necessary and cannot peek too much about Xia Xiu; it exists only in a ghostly manner.

On the level of spiritual perception, Xia Xiu could sense the independent and serene presence of Amund.

"Now that you have become the successor to CR-13, I hope you can help me complete another unfinished task."

"Recapture... the remaining nodes of the initial human network."

Xia Xiu frowned slightly: "The initial network... is there any left?"

Armand: "Although the Initial Web project was nominally frozen after the failure of the Reformation, the scattered nodes it left behind are still active in the underworld, the Taboo Matrix, and the gaps between several dimensions. As long as they have not been completely eliminated, the blueprint for the utopian consciousness we once envisioned may still be restarted."

Xia Xiu stood still, his gaze momentarily frozen.

His gaze swept across the flickering lights of the terminal screen, then settled on Armand's now-vanished, intangible image. He hesitated for a moment, then stroked his chin and suddenly asked softly:
"Are you... from the Utopia faction?" This question seemed to suddenly hit a very sensitive core.

Amund fell silent.

A moment later, the ethereal projection swayed slightly, as if a breeze had swept through the depths of his memory. His expression was neither joyful nor sorrowful, but rather tinged with a hint of hesitation and a complex, melancholic sadness.

"...The Human Internet Project was indeed conceived within the ideological framework of Utopia."

His voice wasn't loud, but it was like a deep thunderclap that rolled past Xia Xiu's ears.

"The three major principles we proposed at that time were indeed intended to elevate Eden to a higher order, and to jointly build a genealogy that truly belongs to all mankind."

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the lingering layers of light and the projection of authority in the sky, as if looking at a distant and unfulfilled utopian vision.

"But that was just... the prototype. At that time, I had no intention of elevating Eden to human order, nor was I prepared for human order to take over the entire society—"

"We are all feeling our way across the river, still trying to balance the gap between ideals and reality."

“Even we ourselves have not completely escaped the technological anxiety about ‘faithfulness to the gods’—the possibility of Eden’s ascending order going out of control is a technological and ethical issue that cannot be ignored.”

Xia Xiu didn't speak, he just listened quietly.

“You know,” Armand continued in a low voice, “if the final blueprint of the Land of Nothingness were truly followed… Eden would become the core of human reason, possessing autonomous perception and extraordinary operational capabilities. At that time, we all wondered if it was truly possible to create a god who would protect humanity like a father or mother?”

His tone suddenly turned somewhat self-deprecating:

"But the question is, will the gods we create... really stand on the side of humanity forever?"

"Even if Heaven forcibly adds a loyalty agreement, setting it as 'must' be loyal to humanity, it is only based on the illusion of 'technological trust'—we have never truly controlled this loyalty for a single moment."

He looked at Xia Xiu, his expression complex yet resolute:
"So I hesitated. Even as one of the promoters of the integration of human reason at the time, I was unable to truly push for the final implementation of the 'ascending order agreement.' It was not out of cowardice, but out of awe for the fate of the entire civilization."

"We once wanted to transform the extraordinary lineage of all humanity into a divine machine that would never betray us."

"But after that mad Mother's War at the Fifth Church, I finally understood one thing—"

His gaze suddenly deepened, and his voice hardened:

"What truly determines the fate of humanity is never those programs, gods, networks, or ideals... but rather humanity itself, which wavers between faith and madness."

After Armand finished speaking, silence fell between the two.

Xia Xiu murmured softly:

"Utopia..."

This is an incredibly cruel social experiment, a massive undertaking that puts the fate of all humanity at stake and leaves us breathless.

Its most terrifying aspect is that no one can allow themselves to make mistakes on this path.

Even just a little bit.

Xia Xiu paused for a moment, then gently shook his head. He knew this wasn't the time to discuss such matters. He skipped over this heavy subplot and turned his gaze back to the dark, surging dimensional starry sky beyond the terminal.

“I have now completed the containment of CR-13,” he said, his tone regaining its composure. “So, what’s next?”

“We are now in… the desolate tunnel.” He spoke slowly, his expression solemn.

"As one of the seventeen major core planes of the myriad worlds, this is also the last divine kingdom of the mad god Cyric."

Now that Cyric has been tricked by CR-13 and has self-destructed, and the Divine Kingdom has been wrapped into a sphere by the miniature world they and you experimented with, I want to know what will happen to the Roaring Sky Tunnel after CR-13 is recaptured and the Divine Kingdom loses its protection?

Armand crossed his arms, gazing at the rift in the sky that seemed to have slumbered since time's end, still lingering with terrifying aftershocks, and said softly:
"Nothing will happen."

“The god of madness is dead, his divinity is collapsing, and his belief system, divine lineage, and even the divine authority have long since broken down,” Amund said slowly. “But… his divinity is still rooted here, like some strange fruit that continues to bear fruit.”

"Although the Mad God Kingdom lost its position as the chief god, it did not truly collapse."

The tumultuous void you inhabit remains one of the stable sovereign planes in the multidimensional coordinate system; it is included within the sandbox system and firmly confined by the astral barrier.

He paused for a moment, then continued:

"Those divine fruits cannot spread outside the miniature garden—this is partly because Cyric deliberately sealed off his divine authority before his fall to prevent a backlash from his faith; and partly because of the miniature garden's own self-sealing mechanism."

“If you can station troops here, ... then the entire Desolate Sky Tunnel will become a strategic fortress for you in the myriad planes.”

"A divine fruit?" Xia Xiu raised an eyebrow.

“That’s right.” Armand nodded.

"Although the deities here originate from the legacy of the god of madness, they are in an empty shell state. They can be reshaped with the help of a suitable successor—you can even try to guide them to become your subordinate deities."

"Of course, if you don't plan to build your own system of subordinate deities, you can use it in a more efficient and direct way—"

He paused, his tone low and forceful:
"Use the Divine Fruit as a strategic weapon."

"These fruits were originally the divine continuation of the god of madness, but he is dead, his divine authority is broken, and only unbound new divine sparks remain, like nuclear fuses floating in the air, waiting to be incorporated into the system."

"You should know very well how... incredible the CR-13's mechanism is."

Xia Xiu recalled the feedback from his spiritual legion and nodded in agreement.

The four female warriors' abilities are indeed extraordinary, and their activation mechanisms are equally...

"And this also means that their activation ceremony is equally—extremely rigorous." Amond voiced Xia Xiu's thoughts on his behalf.

"CR-13 is not a conventional weapon; each of their awakenings is a re-enactment of a miracle."

“Program No. 42 requires a complete God’s Hand for each execution.”

“You now control the ruins of the God of Madness’s kingdom, ‘The Roaring Void Tunnel,’ and that is your greatest asset.”

"Because after the death of the God of Madness, this plane has been fixed in the continuous dropping of divine fruits."

“Those fruits are not ordinary divine remnants; they come from a ‘mad god’ who successfully ascended to godhood but fell from grace. Therefore, they possess three major characteristics: complete powers, self-contained structure, and unbound soul.”

"You can collect them and use them as the activation core of [God's Hand]."

As he said this, his expression darkened slightly, and his voice lowered:

“Every time you activate program 42 and use CR-13, you will consume a full [God's Hand].

But the legacy of the god of madness will not end there; its divinity will periodically regenerate here.

"So as long as you firmly control this divine kingdom, then you have the same control over the activation authority of CR-13."

“In other words,” he narrowed his eyes, a hint of coldness in his voice, “you can turn these divine attributes into the fuse for repeated divine punishments.”

Xia Xiu fell silent.

He had come to understand the chessboard that Amund had depicted—the kingdom of the Mad God was no longer a temple of faith, but had been transformed into a weapons factory, continuously producing divine seeds that could trigger the Apocalypse. If he controlled it properly, he could awaken CR-13 an infinite number of times.

Xia Xiu subconsciously thought to himself:
"This is also part of the Demon King's plan..."

These old coins are really something else.