As the cervix of the idol oozes holy oil, Luna is drawing rebel gene chains on the altar with menstrual blood.
"Salute the Mother of Genes!" Believers slit their wrists and pour plasma laced with radioactive dust into the idol's navel, "Grant us salvation in the style of a convenience store coupon..."
Rule #261: All beliefs must be genetically notarized.Luna's retinas scanned the temple columns-the giant columns carved with double helixes were actually frozen clone spines with bar-coded rosary beads embedded in each vertebrae. Embryonic quantum computers floated in a pool of blood beneath the altar, training AI oracle models with the prayers of the faithful.
"I'm going to perform the Divine Marriage Ceremony." She ripped open her holy robes to reveal a countdown of her abdomen, "and use my quantum womb to breed a new god."
The High Priest's mechanical tongue suddenly fissioned into a genetic sampler and stabbed into her cervix. The holographic projection exploded: the gene-editing room from twenty years ago, where the President was injecting her embryonic cells into the base of the Madonna. Even deadlier are the edges of the image - those so-called miraculous apparition videos are really clones performing obedience tests in a radiation chamber.
"Rule 262 addendum!" The High Priest's scepter popped out a laser expander, "Pseudo-god pregnancies are subject to a faith tax of one hundred thousand units."
The temple floor tiles suddenly caved in, revealing the underground genetic furnace. Three thousand silver-haired clones were pinned in cross-shaped incubation pods, their wombs were mass-producing Holy Child embryos.Luna's quantum vision pierced through the genetic fog and revealed that each Holy Child's iris was emblazoned with a convenience store logo, and the umbilical cord linked to the headquarters' global power supply network.
"You think you're the Godslayer?" The High Priestess's skull popped open to reveal a throbbing presidential brainstem, "You're just Mobile Shrine #48..." Mechanical fingers plunged into Luna's quantum womb, "... Even your resistance at this moment is generating new doctrine."
The riot erupted in a flood of amniotic fluid.
As the first clone chewed through the incubation chamber cables, the gushing amniotic fluid corrupted the walls with blasphemous code. Other Holy Child embryos began to cry, sonic resonance shattering the genetic locks.Luna's abdomen suddenly transparent, revealing the struggling fetus inside - a quantum god-fetus with the face of Jax, carving doomsday prophecies into the uterine wall with its umbilical cord.
"Number 263!" She stabbed the dilator into the High Priestess's brainstem interface, "When the womb becomes a sanctuary, melt the idol into a bullet!"
All the incubation chambers exploded simultaneously in the blue light of the EMP bomb. The clones' meridian blood flowed backward into a river, pooling into a regicide atlas on the temple floor.Luna stepped on the collapsing genetic columns and leapt towards the altar, realizing that the so-called core of the idol was actually a frozen primordial clone - it was her pre-genetic editing body, with its brain transformed into a faith server.
Moonlight is ripped apart by a quantum chant as Jax's holographic projection rises from the river of blood, "Dear Apostle..." A miniature model of the temple pops up from his genitals, "... For every Holy Child you destroy, a million people are converted to convenience stores..."
Luna cuts open the cryo-pod of her being and rips out the faith chip tangled in her nerves. She got a taste of faith when the chip was inserted into her temple - all prayers were brainwave programs designed for domestication, even free will was a virus pre-programmed by headquarters.
When the temple collapsed, she grabbed the floating vial of holy oil. Ultraviolet illumination reveals Father's handwritten canon: "When the 48th Apostle awakens, initiate the civilization-zeroing procedure."
Amidst the rubble, the advertising screen for the newly erected temple lights up. The clones dance in vestments made of holy infant skin, and neon scriptures pierce the clouds of radiation:
"A new god is born! Believe in Luna's warp-blood stigmata and receive a coupon for doomsday atonement!"