Chapter 499 — The Rules of the Gods

After returning to Xuanyao City, Gao Yang immediately sought out Camille, who was busy tinkering with a small arcane focus in the Magical Technology Research Institute, and then Nikolai Egg, who was studying transmission gears in the Mechanical Manufacturing Workshop. The three of them—strictly speaking, a satellite spirit, an LED spirit, and an iron-sphere man—gathered in the cutting-edge laboratory Rebecca had built to study the crystal left behind after Franz Bellanger's death.

The crystal still glowed faintly. Though it had been sitting there for several days, it still gave off a slight warmth, and when one held it to one's ear, one could vaguely hear indistinct sounds—as if some kind of resonance, or perhaps a murmur steeped in pain.

Camille raised the crystal into the air with a mage hand and carefully observed its form under the light, from time to time prodding its surface with a small burst of arcane fire to read the energy signatures it emitted.

Watching Camille at work, Gao Yang asked curiously, "Well? Can you make anything of it?"

"In form it's indeed very close to the crystal growths found on the failed early products of the godspawn... The energy response is somewhat different, perhaps due to interference from the Holy Light... " Camille set the crystal on the lab bench before him and began examining its fine structure with a crystal resonator. "In any case, I'll need to observe it more closely before drawing conclusions—the collection process was far too crude, and its internal mana balance has been severely disrupted."

Gao Yang looked a little embarrassed. "The collection process... may have been a bit crude."

Camille asked casually, "How was it collected?"

"Blasted off with a howitzer..." Gao Yang cleared his throat. "Ahem, strictly speaking, this little bit is all that was left after the blast..."

Camille's movements froze in midair, and Nikolai Egg, floating nearby, let out a gasp of astonishment: "Mother of—"

"The situation was special—it was a battle. The enemy isn't going to stand still and politely wait for someone to dig the crystal out of their body," Gao Yang said with a wave of his hand, then looked at the iron-sphere man. "You came into contact with godspawn back in the day. Does this crystal look the same as the ones on the experimental subjects from then?"

"Back then I was mainly the one being studied; I didn't have much contact with the project details," Nikolai Egg said, swaying his body, his tone rather solemn—but then he immediately added, "Still, if you don't mind losing part of the sample... I could perform a destructive analysis on it."

Gao Yang glanced at the crystal sample fixed in the center of the resonator—a little smaller than a palm, with jagged edges, and cracked in some places. "How much of the sample do you need?"

"A tiny bit. About the size of a fingernail."

Gao Yang looked back at Camille. "Will cutting this sample affect its stability?"

"You already blew it up with a howitzer and you're asking me that?"

Gao Yang: "...Then let's cut a piece off."

The crystal was not especially hard, and the laboratory assistants soon completed the cut. The small piece was then brought before Nikolai Egg, and under Gao Yang's curious gaze, the iron-sphere man first cautiously touched the sample with his round body; the sample was then directly drawn onto him and swiftly absorbed into his interior.

Not just Gao Yang—even Camille was taken aback. "You... ate it?!"

"Just analyzing its composition—and yes, that counts as eating it," came the buzzing voice from within Nikolai Egg. "Back when I was being studied, I tried most of the substances I could get my hands on in order to understand my surroundings, and by chance I also tried crystal fragments from godspawn. I can distinguish the tiny differences in their fine composition..."

The iron-sphere man said all this as though it were perfectly natural, and Gao Yang could only marvel inwardly—the world is vast and truly full of wonders. This was probably the most hardcore act of "tasting" he had witnessed in both his lives combined...

And just as he began to worry whether Nikolai Egg's habit of casually picking things up and eating them might give him a stomachache, the iron-sphere man finally spoke: "This thing... does appear to be a product of the godspawn. At the very least, the composition is completely identical."

The crystal left behind by Franz Bellanger was indeed a godspawn growth—that Bishop of Luan had actually activated the godspawn genetic factor within his own body?

Though he had more or less reached that conclusion himself, Gao Yang couldn't help but be somewhat surprised once the evidence was conclusive. He quickly reined in his surprise, however, and looked at Camille. "A Gondor descendant with stabilized genetic factors—under the right conditions, could they turn into an out-of-control godspawn?"

Camille had no facial expression, but his whole body had turned bright yellow, and his tone grew unusually grave: "Theoretically, impossible! It's true that we fused the divine cells of Amorn the Great Stag with human cells by rewriting genetic factors, but godspawn going out of control is not essentially a problem with the genetic factors—it's the precipitation and loss of control of divinity. Those crystals growing out of flesh are actually formed when 'divine' power that humans cannot control precipitates out, and that divinity contaminated the experimental subjects because, at the time, our technical level was insufficient and we could not completely filter out the divinity when splicing the genetic factors. Later we improved the filtering technology, thoroughly purging the divine power humans cannot control and producing a stable injectable, which ensured that the inoculated could survive reliably. In other words, as long as they are human descendants who survived, the genetic factors their ancestors were inoculated with must have been 'clean,' and so long as no divinity lies dormant within them, it is impossible for them to generate any divine power on their own in a mortal body..."

Camille's explanation was packed with technical jargon far too abstruse for the people of this era, but Gao Yang easily grasped his meaning—the reason godspawn collapsed physically and grew crystals was the presence of uncontrollable divinity within them; and any Gondor descendant who did not collapse but survived must be free of such "divine contamination," and with a mortal constitution it was impossible to generate such contamination on their own—not even with the genetic factors of Amorn the Great Stag inoculated.

Then... why had Franz Bellanger shown a state of "contamination"? Who had contaminated him? Or rather... where had the "divinity" that contaminated him come from?!

At the thought of the possibilities behind it, Gao Yang's expression could not help but turn grave.

"We have no way of knowing what exactly happened in the prayer room of the Frostgate Cathedral when the White Knights stormed the cathedral district, but one thing is certain: during that time, Franz Bellanger was subjected to divine contamination from an unknown source. The godspawn factor within him was activated, and he himself became a monster formed from collapsing flesh fused with crystal," Camille analyzed solemnly. "Considering that he was a fanatical worshiper of the God of Holy Light, and considering what he might have been doing in the prayer room, there may be only one answer..."

"The God of Holy Light cast a glance toward the Southern Border..." Gao Yang took up Camille's thought. "And that glance twisted Franz Bellanger directly into a monster."

Nikolai Egg summed it up: "...Mother of—"