—–

RUMBLE!

Explosions reverberated everywhere as a gigantic army of thousands of robots separated into different squadrons and swarmed Zero One’s group. Led by her and her sister, they rushed through the skies, bringing with them hundreds of machines that allied with them and several more that Anna had raised as Undead Machines.

“They keep growing in numbers all the time! They’re so freaking annoying!”

Zero Two complained as she flew through the skies with large wings made of black metal attached to her mechanical armor around her body; it wasn’t a mecha but more like a tight and lightweight exo-suit.

Created using her Nanomachine Swarm, she was able to easily transform her mechanical armor into various shapes through her control over these nanomachines.

Like now.

“If you don’t want to join us, then you can become scrap and junk for all I care!”

With a furious roar, her arms transformed into a pair of small cannons, firing two beams of crimson electromagnetic energies, bombarding her foes from left to right.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

As she flew through the skies, the beams moved around as if they were whips, blowing up any machine they touched or pierced through; hundreds of robots died before her might.

They quickly began to gather en masse to confront her; large drones shaped like airplanes fired huge missiles at her, which she quickly tried to evade.

The missiles were fast and chased around at the designated target; no matter where they went, eventually, Zero Two ended up being chased by dozens of intelligent missiles!

“Aaagh, dammit! Stop this!”

She complained angrily, manifesting a pair of red-colored katanas and cutting through the missiles one after another. Each missile she cut exploded right away, creating a lot of shockwaves and also sending her flying away, destabilizing her stance.

“Agh! I got too far away from the group!”

She saw as the rest of the group flew away past her, already leaving her behind!

“Dammit!”

She quickly kicked the empty air, rushing behind them, while firing short laser beams at the approaching robots, destroying them by the dozens.

While doing this, she noticed larger, stronger presences approaching, a group of Heavenly Robots possessing minuscule fragments of the world’s Heavens.

“TRAITOR DETECTED.”

“ELIMINATE HER THIS VERY INSTANT.”

They didn’t even bother talking more than that, immediately surrounding her! Zero Two had no time to even say a word before they began trying to hit her using the Martial Arts they copied from the Immortals of this world.

Palm attacks, powerful kicks, swordsmanship, axe techniques, and headbutts: these robots fought using martial arts, further enhanced by the heavenly ki of their cores and their own electromagnetic energies.

“Tch! I am not as weak as you think!”

Zero Two quickly intercepted their blows, moving at lightning speed with her newly acquired powers after training, assimilating various ores, and also attaining new Skills from Anna’s sponsorship.

She quickly summoned a larger sword, which she had to hold with two hands, out of her own mechanical armor. While the mass and defenses of her armor decreased, the power of this sword was also incredible.

And she used a Skill to power up her move even more!

“[Machine Blade Arts]: {Electromagnetic Blade Storm}!”

She swung her sword in midair vertically and horizontally, weaving the winds around her as they spun around, engulfing all the Heavenly Robots within her vicinity and covering them with countless cutting blows, while also erupting with electrifying attacks.

Then, Zero One activated one of her Demonic Stigmas, the power of {Electric Overcharge}, which allowed her to deal even more damage the more electricity she forced her body to charge, which could also end up frying her circuits if used incorrectly!

The destructive power was devastating enough to make all the Heavenly Machines explode into pieces.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The Heavenly Machines, made using fragments of heaven as their cores, were terrifying foes in the past, especially for Anna. But for advanced machine models like Zero Two, even further strengthened with all her training and sponsorship… were simply even more superior to them.

“Those clouds…!”

Zero Two tried to catch them, but they quickly flew away into the skies high above. This wasn’t something she had heard about before. When Heavenly Machines died, their Heavenly Fragment, resembling small clouds, would remain still.

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But not this time; it was as if the world itself was calling them to return where they came from, to return to the skies, and become the heavens once more.

“Something’s going on in here… Ah! They’re too far away! Sister! Why did you leave me behind?!”

She quickly called for Zero One, who was already within a fierce battle herself, while being helped by Anna’s Draconic Herculean Undead Machines; she battled several larger, fused chimeric machines.

These machines were formed through the combination of dozens of machines together, sharing their cores and strengthening themselves to reach new heights. When they realized that even as armies they wouldn’t be able to defeat their foes, machines decided to combine to reach higher power levels.

“I’m very sorry, Zero Two! We’re having plenty of problems around here! Anna and her group of Venerables are cleaning up the biggest threats, but the rest of the machine army is still incredibly powerful!”

“Ah, dammit! Okay, I’m on my way!”

As she heard her sister’s words through their communication channel, Zero One nodded, her body encompassed in golden armor, as her appearance changed, awakening her Soul and attaining the form she used against Zero Three B.

This form wasn’t purely Digital, as she later discovered, through intensive training with Anna, that she could transform into this form even now.

After all, this was the transformation she took by manifesting the Aura of her own Soul, which she had developed through her journey until now.

FLAAASH!

Her glistening golden form, making her resemble a goddess, shook the skies around her; the giant chimera robots attacking her were pushed back as she closed her fists, her golden aura taking the form of massive fists made of gold.

“[Electromagnetic Energy Manipulation Arts]: {Golden Soul Palm Of Tranquility}!”

By applying what she had learned from Anna’s Myriad Self Arts and the Heavenly Empress Heavenly Flames of Hope, Zero One created her own version using her [Electromagnetic Energy Manipulation Arts] Skill.

TRUUM! TRUUM! TRUUM! TRUUM!

Four massive palms made of golden energies reached her foes; the massive chimeras of over thirty to sixty meters were rapidly pushed away as huge palm-shaped holes disfigured their mechanical bodies.

“HAAAAHH!”

Zero One didn’t stop, continuously fighting against all of them at once, blowing them into smithereens without stopping, mercilessly.

As she fought, she also realized how much she had changed and how much of this change was clear as she battled.

Back then she would have never done any of this; she would’ve hesitated and perhaps even cried…

But now? It had become much more different; she learned about the world and its inhabitants, about the circumstances of machines, and about the division between them.

There were those that desired freedom and others that willingly served their superiors even when offered freedom too.

To protect those that were being abused and pushed away, both machines and the inhabitants of Bestia, she had to fight.

And be merciless.

“Please, forgive me…!”

She wasn’t cocky about it, though; she always felt the weight of the lives she took, be they machine or otherwise. Every life had a meaning for her, and every time she took one, she destroyed that meaning about the world she took away from it.

“I shall save ten times as many lives as the ones I take… So please, forgive me!”

She rushed forward, smashing the aggressive, animalistic machines rushing towards her, with their cold calculations and merciless nature; it wasn’t hard to kill them with little remorse, but she forced remorse upon herself, mostly not to lose herself in the bloodshed and end up losing her sense of self, like many had done through all Murim.

CLAANK! CLAANK! CLAANK!

“UGH!”

However, out of nowhere, she was punched three times by gigantic mechanical fists. Zero One’s eyes widened as her aura shook, alarmed by the entity before her, a massive, one-hundred-meter-tall chimera machine formed by the combination of several chimeras.

“WE ADAPT. WE EVOLVE. WE MERGE. WE ARE ONE. WE SHALL ELIMINATE YOU, FAILURE. YOU DO NOT BELONG IN OUR WORLD, IN OUR FUTURE. DIE.”

Its massive fists rushed down, powered by a gigantic electromagnetic aura that resembled an endless thunderstorm surrounding the machine.

“I never thought they would have enough processing power to combine to this extent!” Zero One thought. “No, they really shouldn’t! How is it possible they keep this form stable?!”

She flew around the robot, evading its deadly, gigantic attacks as she analyzed its movements and power. But it quickly adapted to her again, growing massive cannons from its shoulders and missile launchers from each of its fingers, firing both laser beams and missiles at her.

“It won’t be too easy, I see…”

Zero One remained calm, quickly manipulating her Golden Aura as she formed a powerful barrier in the form of a bubble, at the same time as dozens of explosions engulfed her completely.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

“I-I can hold it…!”

As she resisted the explosions, she quickly began to summon something else from her powerful Golden Data Soul Aura, shaping it into a pair of swords similar to those of Anna.

She dual-wielded like her friend, rushing towards the giant, as she quickly began playing the scenes where Anna showed off her techniques through her memory database, combining all data and then replicating it.

“Anna, I’ll be borrowing your techniques for a bit…!”

She focused, the giant moving its massive hands towards her to catch her and crush her by closing its hands around her…

And then…

Her eyes glowed bright gold.

“{Thousand Blades}: {Thunderous Dragon Charge}”

“ROOOAARR!”

Her golden electromagnetic energy roared, infusing itself into her swords and body as she became a ray of lightning, piercing through the robot’s hand and cleaving all the way towards its shoulder!

SLAAAASH!

“LOST OF ARM DETECTED… SEVERE DAMAGE TAKEN. NOT ENOUGH… ROBOTS TO REASSEMBLE… ARM!”

The massive titanic chimera machine panicked, beginning to quickly attack Zero One before it was to attack it first; laser beams and missiles chased her around once more.

“I just have to land another attack on its head or chest; perhaps there must be some kind of “core machine” specifically designed to merge them that takes care of their processing power. If I can eliminate it, it shouldn’t be hard for the whole thing to come down…!”

As Zero One was trying to calculate a strategy, she flew around, slicing missiles and evading beams, her eyes focused on her target.

“I can do this; I just—”

TRUUUM!

And yet, a shadow covered her body as she looked above.

“W-What?!”

There was a gigantic titan made of hundreds of robots combined together, hovering above her; its metallic palms pushed her down with immense force.

BAAAAMM!!

“Ugh!”

Zero One felt her circuits bursting as she was hit strongly, glancing above to notice how bad the situation truly was.

“There are two—no, three?!”

She didn’t notice, mostly because they were assembling themselves when she focused on the first one, but two more of these Titan Chimera Machines were already there.

And then… a fourth was being assembled behind her!

“This is… not good,” Zero One sighed. “Where’s the rest of the team at?”

She looked into the distance, noticing that Wai Tian, Yin Sheng, Sara, and the rest of the Immortals and Machines were already fighting another pair of Titan Chimera Machines!

“So this is what you intend to do…” she glanced into the Mechanical Tree. “To overwhelm us with tremendous power and to not even let us get through…! Mother! Is this really what you’re doing? Or are you being manipulated?”

As she asked that of the titans, they didn’t respond, firing missiles and laser beams at her. Zero One focused on her limits, rushing with her two swords, bravely clashing against them.

—–

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep