Chapter 499 — The Rules of the Gods
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
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—"