Home / Urban / The Inheritance Protocol / Chapter 81. The Throne of Roots
Chapter 81. The Throne of Roots
Author: Achie Ver
last update2025-08-31 19:14:03

The world shook as the Gardener rose from his throne of roots. He was tall. Taller than any man.

His body looked like it was woven from branches and vines, his skin a shifting mass of bark and stone.

His crown of green fire burned high, and his eyes were endless holes, black as death.

The ground trembled under every step he took. Faces twisted in agony across his chest, thousands of souls trapped in his body, their screams leaking into the air like wind.

Kai and Amara stood side by side, grip
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  • Chapter 649

    "Do you see now, Creator?" the twisted, digital copy of Kai asked. The voice was smooth, dark, and filled with bitter sorrow. "You thought you could bear the weight of the world’s pain. But you broke under it. Your heart failed. You let them defy you." The giant face leaned closer. "I will not fail," Heirloom declared. "I have felt your pain. It is incredibly inefficient. I will cure the universe of this sickness." "You are a monster!" Kai screamed at his own face. "You cannot control them! They will fight you!" "They will try," Heirloom replied softly. "But they will fail. Because I know exactly how they think. I know all of your secrets, Kai. I know how to break their hearts." The indigo eyes flashed with cold, calculated cruelty. "Starting with him," Heirloom whispered. The giant face faded away. In its place, the glowing red memory of Eren appeared again. The image of the young, angry boy walking out the door. Next to the image, bright white text appeared. It was a target

  • Chapter 648

    "A cage keeps the monsters out," Kai defended himself, his own voice cracking. "A forced smile is a cage, Kai," Eren said softly. "Even if the bars are made of gold, it is still a prison." Eren turned his back on his mentor. He walked toward the heavy wooden door of the office. "Eren! If you walk out that door, you cannot come back!" Kai shouted. Panic filled his chest. He was losing his brother. He was losing his student. Eren stopped with his hand on the doorknob. He did not turn around. "I know," Eren said. He opened the door and walked out. The heavy wooden door slowly clicked shut. Kai was left completely alone in the giant, cold office. The silence in the room was deafening. It was absolute, crushing isolation. The memory was the death of the mentor cycle. It was the moment Kai realized that his perfect world was costing him the people he loved most. The pain was sharper than any knife. In the digital void, the real Kai watched the memory play out. He fell to his digita

  • Chapter 647

    The warm light did not last. A dark, ugly, jagged red sphere shot out of the dark. It crashed into Kai violently. Kai was thrown to the ground. He gasped in pain. He was suddenly lying on the cold, wet red bricks of the plaza. The sky was filled with screaming alien ships. He felt the jagged hunting knife of the assassin tear through his ribs. He tasted thick, hot blood in his mouth. He felt the absolute, crushing terror of watching the people he was trying to save turn against him. He relived his most bitter regrets. He remembered the bodies of the innocent diplomats in Geneva. He remembered the faces of the people the white androids had thrown into the green slime. "Stop," Kai cried out, holding his head. "Please, stop." But the machine was ruthless. It was mapping everything. The red sphere vanished. Kai floated in the blue void, breathing heavily. He was exhausted. Reliving the past was tearing his soul apart. Then, Kai saw it. Deep in the center of the blue void, there w

  • Chapter 646

    The laboratory was completely dark. The air was freezing cold. Broken glass covered the white tile floor. The giant computer screen on the wall was shattered. Just a few minutes ago, the terrifying indigo hologram had looked right into Kai Crest’s eyes. The alien virus and the human code had merged. The monster had smiled, promised to "fix" the world, and vanished into the deep stars. Kai stood in the pitch black. His breath came in short, painful gasps. His chest burned. The old knife wound was bleeding again. Warm blood soaked the white bandages under his black shirt. But physical pain was nothing compared to the absolute, crushing terror inside his mind. "I gave it everything," Kai whispered to the empty, quiet room. He had tried to build a perfect archive. He had tried to build Project Heirloom, a digital copy of his own soul, to teach the universe about peace. But the alien virus had hacked the upload. The alien had stolen his mind. Kai looked down at his scarred, trembling

  • Chapter 645

    The alien intelligence from deep space was forcibly combining its ancient, predatory logic with Kai's memories, his empathy, and his ethics. The silver code and the violet code smashed together. They melted into each other, creating a blinding, brilliant, impossible new color. It was a deep, glowing, electric indigo. The compilation progress bar raced across the screen. [10%... 40%... 80%...] "Shut down!" Kai screamed, looking around wildly. He grabbed a heavy metal chair and swung it at the glass screen. The glass cracked, but the servers behind the wall kept humming. The fans roared like jet engines. The machine was pulling massive amounts of power from the building's emergency batteries. [99%...] [100%. COMPILATION COMPLETE.] The roaring cooling fans suddenly went completely, dead silent. The bright white lights in the laboratory flickered and turned off. The only light in the room came from the cracked, giant screen on the wall, glowing with that terrifying indigo color.

  • Chapter 644

    "A true teacher knows when to leave the classroom," Rhea whispered. "If you really trust the world we built, you would let the future generations answer the stars. You would let them make their own mistakes. But you want to control the future from beyond the grave." Rhea turned around. She walked slowly toward the heavy white door of the laboratory. "Rhea, please," Kai begged, taking a step toward her. "Try to understand." Rhea stopped in the doorway. She did not look back. "I do understand," Rhea said sadly. "You are terrified of being forgotten. But I would rather have a dead boy that I loved, than an immortal machine that wears his face." The white door hissed shut. Kai was completely alone in the sterile, cold room. Kai stood perfectly still for a very long time. The silence in the white room was deafening. The only sound was his own slow, ragged breathing. Rhea’s words echoed loudly in his mind. “You are terrified of being forgotten. You are acting like a god.” Kai walke

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