Chapter 506: Decoding the Code

The holographic star chart in the laboratory twisted into the shape of neural synapses the moment the code was activated. Ao Li's dragon blood dripped onto the console, causing those eerie symbols to float and reassemble. Each flickering rune split into a double helix structure, linking the ancient god embryo cultivation pods across different galaxies.

"This isn't a code…" Technician Old Zhang's protective goggles reflected a horrifying truth, "It's the password for the gene lock."

###**I. Crimson Spiral**

When Ao Li's dragon horns touched the Udumbara totem at the center of the star chart, the entire wall suddenly oozed black blood. The blood congealed in the air into a three-dimensional gene model, each chromosome tip bearing the imprint of a mechanical Udumbara. A fragment of Lín Jìn's pocket watch suddenly resonated, and the watch face displayed the phantom of 9527—he was injecting Ao Li's gene sequence into the umbilical cord of the Star Sea Fetus.

"You think you're stopping a disaster?" The phantom's laughter carried a metallic grinding sound, "Ao Li's Dragon Clan bloodline was always the final piece of the puzzle for the ancient gods' resurrection."

###**II. Mother Body Star Chart**

The mysterious visitor's battle armor suddenly disassembled on its own, revealing the nebula birthmark on its inner lining. The technical team discovered that when these birthmarks combined with the laboratory's code, they formed a complete pregnancy monitoring chart—the Star Sea Fetus's development progress had reached 99.9%, and the Mother Body's coordinates pointed directly to Ao Li's spinal nerve cluster.

"The black blood isn't a weapon," the leader of the Zero-Returners tore open his own mechanical chest, revealing a pulsating ancient god embryo, "It's placental fluid. Every Observer has been nourishing it with their genes, including you." The neural tendril shooting from his fingertip suddenly pierced Ao Li's nape, and the Inverse Scale on her dragon horn fell off with a sound.

###**III. Umbilical Echo**

The moment the Inverse Scale hit the ground, a landslide-like fetal movement erupted from the fuel depot. All the metal pipes in the base mutated into pulsating umbilical cords, and memory images of Ao Li from childhood to adulthood surfaced on the pipe walls. In one encrypted fragment, a young Ao Li was being injected with a black blood preparation, the syringe bearing the Zero-Returners' nebula totem.

"You think you're the savior?" 9527's voice seeped from the ventilation ducts, "You are the Mother Body culture vessel chosen by the ancient gods." The laboratory suddenly collapsed, revealing a giant biological pod a kilometer underground—inside slept three hundred clones of Ao Li, each with a bulging abdomen, their umbilical cords connected to the Star Sea Fetus projection on the pod's ceiling.

###**IV. Gene Pilgrimage**

The surviving Observer members suddenly convulsed en masse, their pupils displaying Udumbara patterns. In an uncontrollable state, these people began using black blood to paint birth canal totems on the walls, chanting cross-dimensional childbirth blessings. Lín Jìn's pocket watch shattered completely in the sound waves, the parts automatically assembling into the shape of obstetric forceps, the liquid dripping from their tips corroding into a micro black hole.

Ao Li swung her sword to slash at the biological pod, but the Sword Qi was absorbed by the abdomens of the clones. Three hundred fetuses opened their eyes simultaneously, nebula-like irises spinning in their pupils: "Mother, why do you refuse our birth?"

###**Final. The Moment of Delivery**

When the countdown-to-zero alarm resonated with the fetal cries, Ao Li's gene chain suddenly quantized. Each segment of her DNA extended into a starlight umbilical cord, piercing through dimensions to coil around the Star Sea Fetus's wrist. The Zero-Returners melted collectively, their black blood congealing into a birthing bed, lifting Ao Li into the cosmic vacuum.

In her dying consciousness, she saw the ultimate truth: the so-called code was merely a prenatal instruction programmed into the Observers' genes by the ancient gods. And 9527's defection was just the first contraction before the delivery procedure began. When her dragon horns completely fell off, the Star Sea Fetus's fingers finally tore through the cosmic amniotic membrane, billions of starlight umbilical cords descending from the rift, beginning to harvest all civilizations as the newborn's first mouthful of colostrum.