Chapter 927: Chapter 927: How About We Talk About Having Kids?
As the saying goes, you don’t hit someone’s face when fighting or expose their weaknesses when scolding—just like I’ve never mentioned in front of Dingdang that I scored a hundred in my elementary school finals. But the Fallen Apostle in front of me clearly doesn’t understand this; he really dares to say anything and criticize everything. No wonder I went straight for the face…
“Ah Jun, honestly, looking at you now, you really resemble the back of a head.”
Sandora poked my arm with her big claw. Since I was still in Void Form, she directly touched my body. Although her Emperor Level strength meant she wouldn’t get harmed, it still felt uncomfortable, so she used her Void Giant Claw with greater defense to poke me. She’s got no psychological pressure about her Abyss Form now. I don’t know whether it was due to my earlier guidance or because she found a more awkward-looking guy standing in front of her, “But really, you look pretty intimidating like this, just like a villain.”
I didn’t know how to respond to Sandora’s compliment, so I could only exclaim that her sense of beauty might be a bit off, then turned my head to check on the still severely unconscious, blue-chain-suspended prisoner: “Hey, won’t that kill him?”
“Though you’ve almost wrecked the structure inside his head, he should recover shortly.”
Sandora confidently said, poking the prisoner’s neck with her claw.
I instantly felt a chill down my spine. It’s normal to go all-out against a Fallen Apostle, but hearing that I literally smashed his brain into mush is unsettling. Besides, can the structure inside a Xyrin Apostle’s head really bounce back so quickly?
“What’s so strange about that?” Sandora glanced at me, “The vulnerabilities of Xyrin Apostles don’t lie in the brain. In fact, our bodies have no vulnerabilities. Except for an all-out collapse of the Energy System and disconnection from the Thought Core, Xyrin Apostles aren’t considered fatally injured. Any part of our body can be destroyed without impacting life function. After all, we have plenty of spare components. Even if all components fail, the Thought Core can sustain with built-in energy reserves lasting hundreds of years. If you don’t believe me, I can show you my body structure when you have time. Although right now I’m simulating a human body, it’s only a temporary vessel. In battle form, my body’s essentially a cluster of light particles, all components combined at a microscopic level, endlessly backed up… Taville should have a similar structure, since we’re slightly akin in series.”
Sandora’s explanation left me dumbfounded—not shocked by the Xyrin Apostles’ body structure itself, but puzzled by the topic’s peculiarity. My girlfriend discussing how many pieces she could be cut into… Thank goodness I don’t have any hair right now.
In fact, concerning Xyrin Apostles’ Life Forms, I’ve been curious and have researched quite extensively. The Xyrin Apostles around me are always eager to tell me about these things. I know a lot by now and am utterly amazed by this one-of-a-kind mystical race.
Xyrin Apostle is broadly a race name, but unbelievably, you can’t treat all Xyrin Apostles as one race. Because these powerful beings are in fact composed of multiple entities known as “Clans” or “Subspecies,” each with completely distinct Life Forms and body structures, even soul structures. This makes a first encounter truly feel like you’re seeing many unrelated creatures at once. So far from my knowledge, the three major Hero classes—Armored Scorpions, Leader Bees, and Ravens—each have uniquely different body structures. Leader Bees have bodies partially made of Energy Crystals while partially composed of Heavy Elements. In combat form, Armored Scorpions’ bodies resemble machines, made of powerful, indestructible alloy components, almost capable of battling a warship. Ravens, however, are energy condensations. Essential energy beings distorted into “waves,” granting them authentic form in the material world. As for Sandora, Pandora, Sivis, or even that old bastard Sicaro—each belongs to different sub-species, none share identical body structures or Life Forms.
Of course, what I referred to above are the “true forms” of Xyrin Apostles in battle mode. If they wanted, they could simulate any creature—they’re still defined as Life in non-conventional senses, thanks to infinitely complex modular bodies and Super Space Switching systems. Beyond their combat bodies, they could have countless Life Forms.
To me, this sounded quite incredible. But to Sandora, it’s simply logical. And she frequently mocks the mundane nature of conventional creatures’ Life Forms: with such limited room for evolution, how do they adapt to infinitely changing warfare environments?
I can only say, Xyrin Apostles’ bizarre species composition isn’t something ordinary folks can imitate!
Unexpectedly, Bingdisi once researched this issue. Her knowledge of Xyrin Apostles is seemingly more profound than mine, despite me being an emperor who came in halfway. So that female hooligan’s insights are sharp: Xyrin Apostles are like robots with the same exterior yet different functions. They’re born with purpose, a purpose that designs their Life Forms and ultimately decides that, to evolve continuously as a species, they must develop into this complex racial structure.
However, why Xyrin Apostles developed such a racial structure, even Bingdisi didn’t know. In the Divine Realm, some records might exist, but it’s ultimately Empire’s private concern. The Divine Race can’t know much, and Xyrin Apostles themselves can’t access many historical records due to Old Empire’s database collapse. Early evolutionary moments are still just entrenched racial instincts, merely buried in apostles’ deep memories. Sandora only mentioned: Today’s Xyrin Apostles do indeed have “customized” evolutionary experiences. Their species didn’t begin this way; some event caused Ancient Xyrin People to fundamentally change their Life Forms, restructuring the species’ evolution timeline, but…
Those events are so distant—so distant that even the knowledgeable Sandora knows only bits and pieces.
But one thing’s unequivocal: the will of the Ancient Empire ancestors persists to this day, and this single-minded Evolution Road continuously extends, endlessly.
The fainted Fallen Apostle prisoner still hung mid-air, but at least now in a normal posture. I don’t have a particularly vile hobby to keep him hanging in a V-shape before me. His body’s self-repair mechanism seems to have kicked in. It’s apparent his chin and cervical spine are already reattached, even though I’m certain I broke his neck before.
However, he showed no signs of awakening yet, a little worrisome—not out of concern for an enemy’s well-being, but mainly over whether Taville’s analysis was mistaken. A long-standing hypothesis was validated today for the first time, and when the opponent awakens, it should confirm the speculation’s results. As the main figure of this speculation, I’m highly interested now.
“I believe the theory is correct. If it’s unsuccessful this time, it merely means operational errors,” Sandora playfully poked my dark Void Lord form with her claws, “Perhaps Taville’s speculation was too optimistic. Ah Jun, your power can only proceed gradually, unable to instantly reverse the infection state. But the overall direction is definitely correct. Since being with you, I can genuinely feel the Abyss Power within me calming down completely. This feeling is unmistakable, though precisely when the shift occurred remains unknown.”
“Let’s hope so,” I shrugged, for waiting for the “experiment subject” to wake up was quite boring, prompting me to chat a bit with Sandora. And somehow, the conversation tied to my earlier train of thought, “Sandora, you said Xyrin Apostles have vastly different Life Forms from each other, right?”
“Certainly,” Sandora nodded, “Species form adaptability grants Xyrin Apostles unparalleled advantages in evolution. We can merge technological advances with species progression, achieving endless evolution and allowing rapid development in both individual strength and civilization power. That’s a point of pride.”
“Then I have a question…” I scratched the back of my head, “Life Forms differ so greatly among your kind. Yet, you still have concepts of family and love… So, can Xyrin Apostles reproduce using conventional methods?”
Sandora was stunned.
In fact, I was too…
“Ah Jun, I deeply respect your divergent thinking,” Sandora looked at me with a peculiar expression, somewhat conflicted, partly embarrassed and slightly shy, “What made you suddenly ask this?”
“Ahem, I was just curious, nothing more,” realizing the intimate nature of the question, I bashfully admitted, asking Sandora, “If you feel uneasy, let’s drop it. I meant no offense.”
“No problem,” Sandora stuck out her tongue, “Ah Jun wants children? Although it’s a bit challenging by Earthling standards, if Ah Jun wishes… hmm, I can give you one… it’s a special method, like how you and Alaya had Little Qijing…”
Me: “…”
This girl really went deep into this topic!
I didn’t expect to actually start discussing this confounding subject with Sandora; from all aspects, it seems a bit too strange. First, we crazily researched whether there was reproductive isolation between the two of us, and then, referring to Alaya’s example, Sandora concluded that reproductive isolation doesn’t exist in a certain sense. She then began to introduce the Xyrin Apostles’ population growth methods to me, which was the main focus, allowing me to truly understand what a biological anomaly is: such a war race requires a large population to support their pursuit of victory and territorial expansion. On one hand, the Xyrin Apostles’ constant resurrection power ensures they don’t suffer significant losses under any circumstances; on the other hand, they have countless miraculous ways to rapidly increase their population. The most efficient method is the assembly line: a large number of low-level apostles can be continuously assembled through the production line, endowed with basic knowledge and intelligence. Some are assigned the ability to evolve, allowing them to gain access to a more advanced arsenal and learning components. These are the Xyrin Soldiers, the main population of the Empire, the backbone of this race. Many high-level apostles came from soldiers initially. There is also the ordinary family-rearing pathway to increase population. Xyrin Apostles have emotional aspects, and more advanced apostles proactively form families. Then, based on racial needs, they nurture their children. Reproduction methods are bizarre, and different sub-species of apostles generally use information fusion to cultivate offspring, extracting valuable parts from their soul and body data to create the new child’s mind core, and choosing one sub-species from the parents as the main body part, and another sub-species as the auxiliary part. Such nurtured newborns are often more outstanding than those line-produced soldiers and have greater evolutionary potential. Sandora thinks she could have a child with me like this… I feel immense pressure because, honestly, the kids at home are already becoming a disaster.
Besides the above methods, Xyrin Apostles have many bizarre ways of proliferation, such as…
“Format copying, mother splitting, battlefield wreckage recycling and regeneration, soil-free cultivation, mitosis, limited clone bodies, energy solidification manufacturing,” Sandora counted on her fingers and told me, “and cutting into sections planted into the ground, special sub-species of the Xyrin Apostle’s body remnants can automatically collect energy and materials from the surrounding space to reconstruct their body. Though this is slower than production lines, it’s very useful during fierce wars. For victory and evolution, the Xyrin Apostles do whatever it takes to expand themselves, mastering tens of thousands of ways to expand the race collectively, and nothing can stop us.”
I felt a bit of a cold sweat break out—if I still had sweat glands, that is.
“Why do I feel like it’s a flu virus.”
“Every kind of creature is a virus,” Sandora stuck out her tongue, “because reproduction and expansion are life instincts of all living things, but the Empire has turned these instincts into easily controllable tools. We can ensure our race doesn’t exert fatal pressure on the world, or we can, in a short time, fill the entire universe with fully armed soldiers. Our war factory has an astonishing production efficiency, one reason being to keep up with the soldiers’ expansion speed.”
I was stunned by this limit-pushing expansion power and couldn’t help but daydream: you say, if I plant a Pandora in the ground in the spring, then by autumn…
A large field of ship-to-ship Ghost Energy Cannons should grow on the ground.
Alright, this bizarre topic ends here; if I keep associating this way, I’m afraid I’ll completely immerse myself in it—by the way, I mustn’t let Sandora and Qianqian discuss this matter, God knows to what extent that girl will expand it. By then, she will most likely drag Pandora and Visca to the yard every day to dig holes, contemplating how to plant Little Baobao…
“Uh… this… is really terrible.”
Just as I was startled by Qianqian’s possible tangent thoughts, a muffled grumble suddenly came from beside me: the unlucky prisoner who had been knocked out seemed to have finally woken up.
Pretty impressive, the Void Power directly invaded his body, circled around, and he could wake up so quickly; it’s truly eye-opening. Do fools have such strong Life Force?
“I feel like eighty percent of my components are burned out, hiss—”
Prisoner A twisted uncomfortably, his eyes clouded as he looked around, seemingly not spotting Sandora and me for a long time until I couldn’t help but pat his shoulder: “How do you feel now?”
The guy still might not have fully recovered from the sudden attack just now, and now he was sluggish for a long time before focusing on Sandora and me. He shifted uncomfortably, knitting his brow with confusion: “What did you do to me?”
“As said, conducting an experiment to see if there’s indeed a way to let you wake up without dispelling the Abyss Power.”
I leaned in close to him, observing his still somewhat cloudy eyes, and remarked casually.
From the outside, there didn’t seem to be any changes, but the feeling was that his aura seemed indeed a bit different from before; but of course, this could also be just my illusion.
In reality, I was testing a certain coffin-loving glasses girl’s theory.
A long time ago, based on the experiences of Visca, Bellavilla, Bingdisi, and Sandora’s special sense, we had this hypothesis that, as a Void Creature, I might have a special ability: to reverse Abyssalization.
And this reversal was completely different from conventional Purification; it wasn’t about removing the Abyss Power from the host but rather altering the essence of the Abyss Power, making it non-threatening and even easily controlled by the host voluntarily.
Visca gradually turned from a state of madness into an obedient little girl by my side, Bellavilla also slowly awakened and returned to normal under similar conditions, Bingdisi freed herself from the Abyss Chains during a friendly hand-to-hand fight with bricks. This series of occurrences was definitely not luck; it surely related to my trait as a Void Creature.
But unfortunately, out of all known Void Creatures in the Void, there were only three, and still three different ones, with each practically capable of forming an independent species if picked out. So researching whether I truly possess some kind of “Reversal Power” was full of challenges.
But despite the difficulty, a certain glasses girl’s research vigor was enough to overcome all hardships. After a series of bold mathematical models were established, she proposed a plan to me: try to consciously control your Void Form and let it intensely stimulate the opponent’s soul without causing harm to the target, and see what happens.
Obviously, this was an extremely dangerous experiment, Void Form—this thing pretty much straddles the line of being fatal or crippling. With my current control power, can I make it non-lethal? Clearly not, so fundamentally, it was an impossible experiment to try—of course, that was how it was before. Now, well, we have an experiment subject who we don’t worry about dying, and if they don’t die, it’s a gain…
It’s the current Prisoner A. (To be continued. If you like this work, feel free to go to Qidian () to vote for recommendations and monthly tickets, your support is my biggest motivation.)