Chapter 456: The Fruits
"The Spirit of Nature above..."
"Oh great divine being, please eliminate that demon disturbing the peace of the sea..."
"Demon who killed my kin, in the name of the Lord, I spit on your grave!"
The Sea Race, still reeling from fright, seemed to find their pillar of strength upon witnessing the descent of the divine being they worshipped daily, and continuously offered devout prayers.
For the weaker members of the Sea Race, whose intelligence was not fully developed and who still dwelled in a state of semi-ignorance, their faith in the Spirit of Nature was undoubtedly quite devout.
However, for the Sea Race elders, who were also present in the temple city, their faith was far from as steadfast as that of their subordinates. Consequently, their feelings towards the High Priest, who had exhibited power beyond imagination, were quite complex.
Unlike the lower-level Sea Race, who were confined to living their entire lives in the deep sea with almost no contact with land civilizations, the elders, possessing powerful abilities that allowed them to freely switch between aquatic and terrestrial modes of existence, mostly ventured out of curiosity to secretly observe the terrestrial world.
They were like a group of curious teenagers, using avatars transformed into human guises to secretly infiltrate places brimming with information—libraries, internet cafes, schools—and silently absorb knowledge entirely unlike the doctrines Seres had imparted.
As their wisdom and knowledge steadily increased, these high-ranking members of the Sea Race gradually discovered that, in the beginning, there had been little to no hatred between themselves and the humans on land.
However, as their enlightened mentor, the High Priest had genuinely taught them many things and bestowed great kindness upon them all. Before it committed any excessively insane acts, the Sea Race Elder Council was unwilling to turn hostile.
On the other hand, Seres had also subtly sensed that some of its students seemed to know a bit too much, but its power was insufficient to halt their exploratory strides.
Several Cthulhu-like major powers, fully capable of holding their own against Seres in individual combat, made it difficult for it to act as it pleased.
The Sea Race's enormous population base gave birth to a surprisingly large number of powerful mutated creatures, a figure at least several times that of powerful human experts on land.
However, those scattered across the world's oceans mostly yearned only for an unrestrained life. Thus, even Seres itself could only gather a portion of them to form the Sea Race government, while simultaneously allowing these minor feudal lords to exist.
All of its goals ultimately served itself, rather than the development of the Sea Race. Expending countless years of effort and toil to individually subdue all the powerful Sea Race members scattered in every corner held genuinely little significance for its own power recovery.
......
"Just one more step..." Bai Mo waited until Seres had completely finished constructing its divine body, transforming into a colossal entity whose size could rival Bai Mo's own luminous form, before suddenly uttering a remark that seemed utterly inexplicable to outsiders.
Of course, to Seres, who harbored a guilty conscience, those words were far from simple.
At this moment, it had almost completely shed the bio-shell of a brain bug, no longer resembling a slug with a colossal brain sac and eight tentacles, but was transforming towards an energy-based form.
The organic brain sac had entirely vanished, replaced by a gigantic light-brain constructed from energy pathways. Its originally solid tentacles had become translucent, giving the impression that they were on the verge of disappearing.
A halo floated above its divine body, illuminating the entire city's Sea Race with a gentle radiance.
"How could he know!" It understood the unspoken implication, but wasn't certain if it was merely a bluff or genuinely meaningful.
Thus, Seres pretended not to hear, and with an unchanged expression, launched a probing attack against its long-waiting enemy.
A bizarre orb of light, not much larger than a basketball, instantly formed within the halo above Seres's head.
This was an extremely unstable substance it had created by directly interfering with the microscopic structure of matter using its own spiritual power, forcibly raising the energy level of the subatomic particles within it.
"I'm not here to waste time watching your parlor tricks." An invisible wave swept past, and the immense energy sustaining the brief existence of the high-energy particles was entirely diverted into the surrounding air. The orb of light extinguished before it even left the halo.
The dissipation of heat caused the air near them to expand, stirring up a gust of strong wind. However, over the oceanic rift already encircled by hurricanes, this minor air current brought absolutely no significant impact.
"You're forcing my hand!" Seres, seeing the gap in power once more, finally abandoned its illusions.
It understood Bai Mo's intention: he wanted to force it to activate all its preparations now, to assault the threshold of the seventh stage.
"Mm." He, who already knew everything through the Destiny System, calmly nodded.
After learning its plan had been seen through, the cornered Seres did not fly into a rage, still maintaining its superficial calm.
However, behind its outwardly calm demeanor, its heart was already churning like turbulent seas. Yet, no amount of anger could change the facts; it understood it had no escape. And so, it once again emitted a special mental fluctuation.
"Awaken from your slumber, my fruit!"
This time, what was affected was not just a few "Zerg base owners" as before, but an unprecedented number of superhumans!
Several years ago, the first-generation "Worm Spy" Ling Tian, under Seres's subconscious suggestion, proved to the whole world that he had perfected the Xuanhuang Fruit.
The raw material no longer required human Spirit Hubs; the spirit energy organs of mutated Sea Race members could also be used as a substitute!
From then on, the new generation of Xuanhuang Fruit immediately and completely abandoned the original formula.
After all, consuming humans, an act that severely violates morality, no normal person would undertake unless driven by immense gain.
The Xuanhuang Fruit, which used human spirit energy organs as one of its primary ingredients, no matter how it was packaged, could not escape the extremely cruel concept behind it.
The slogan "No trade, no slaughter" was once active within a certain Fruit Nucleus Organization that had been forced to flee abroad.
But eating seafood was completely different; few people felt any guilt about eating fish, shrimp, or crabs.
Of course, all of this was actually a setup laid by Seres.
Vast numbers of the Sea Race underwent Zergification enhancements by it. These Zergified Sea Race members, after being made into the new generation of Xuanhuang Fruit, became a hidden trump card that Seres had laid.
The users' perceptions, views, and control methods regarding power would eventually transform into resources for its advancement when recalled, because the obstacles it faced in advancing to the seventh stage were truly too immense.
This was not only due to the obstacles inherent to the stage itself, but also the primordial imprint originating from the old master of the Zerg swarm.
In the Zerg swarm it belonged to back then, every Zerg's advancement required the master's approval. But Seres, determined to break free from its shackles, naturally had to obliterate this master's will, which was like a bone stuck in its throat.
PS: Recommending a book: Fantasy World's Great Slaughter. The old eunuch has left the palace... (manual side-eye).
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