CHAPTER 105 DIVINE BUT WHY

There were two kinds of strength. One was the strength that came with having something to protect. The other was the strength of having nothing to lose."

..........

"Mmm, that's true, but the word 'living' changes its meaning when we bring it into a wider scale called the multiverse. There are living machines, androids, humans with full machine bodies, clones, artificial intelligence, living weapons, living concepts, ideas, clouds, machine-based life forms who weren't born but created, aliens, ghosts, souls, soul-based life forms, sentient planets, energy-based life forms, living energies, and much, much more,"

Jin explained as they both looked at the Giant Mecha, which was finally making some movement. "So who knows, maybe I could, maybe I couldn't. Why not find out together?"

Asked Jin while taking her hand as she also grinned back at him. "That would be lovely."

"Hii! Typhon, you heard the lady, now do your thing," said Jin while shaking Typhon, who was just nodding as he prepared for a big attack, but before he could attack, he got a head slap. "Hii! Hii! If I wanted to destroy the armor, it would have been gone. I want what is inside dead, not the armor."

Hearing him, Typhon instantly canceled his attack and prepared something less flashy.

"What happened? How can this be possible?!" The Child Emperor was in complete panic now as he looked around the desolate black place. He didn't understand how something of this caliber could exist and why he didn't die. And the next second, a laser beam fired from his hand, and before the Child Emperor even knew it, the beam tore through the armor, then his heart, and came out the other side.

"Cough"

He coughed a mouthful of blood as he died.

He watched the place where the capital was erased from the map before he raised his hand and saw black smoke coming out of the huge armor.

But he still wasn't sure if it was because of the Child Emperor inside it or because Shikoutazer could become a shadow due to the connection with the Imperial bloodline and being a living creature once.

Esdeath looked at the clouds that turned orange-red from the explosion before looking back at the giant robot.

The Child Emperor died with agony, hatred, and without even knowing who was the one behind all this. The attacks didn't leave him any chance to even stand up.

Typhon stopped his attack as they stared at the completely annihilated ground where the Empire was turned into ashes.

"This is it?" Typhon frowned as he felt somehow empty from the inside. Like he was expecting something, but it didn't happen.

"I'm feeling empty..." Esdeath looked at the sky while feeling that this accomplished nothing.

"This was disappointing... All those plans and tactics went to waste," Jin lowered his hand down as he stared at the sky.

Jin looked at his hand, feeling empty from the inside. Esdeath sighed before looking at the clear sky, and Typhon looked at his hand, feeling that this was the most anticlimactic fight he had in his life, even when he wasn't very old.

"*Clap clap*," Jin clapped, taking their attention, and said, "Hii, let's look on the positive side here. At least I will be able to find out if it's possible to create a beast out of that hunk of metal and flesh."

Jin spoke positively as he once again looked at the giant Mecha. "Arais."

As Jin said those words, the whole Mecha started trembling, as if something was trying to come out of Shikoutazer. But the next second, it stopped, and the Mecha started to break apart, turning into pitch-black particles that were absorbed by his shadow. Then, a huge machine hand was placed on the ground, and it started to pull itself from the shadow.

Soon, a huge shadow was standing in front of him. The shadow had changed greatly, losing its robotic look and appearing more like a beast with some metal parts in it. Even though it had lost some of its metal parts, it looked more genuine, like a naturally born creature or the result of some man-made experiment.

The creature, from a step away, looked different from when it was still alive. Black smoke streamed from its body continuously.

'So, this is that robot shadow...'

Much had changed about him, yet he still had the uncanny look of a combination of a machine and a living creature.

"But I have to say, it looks more fearsome now. I couldn't tell just how much of its original stats have changed, but at least, the ominous aura it gives off seems to have gone up a few levels," Jin thought as he stood before Shikoutazer's shadow, feeling its enormous magic energy reserve.

And it didn't end there; he could detect that this shadow still had robotic attacks as its skills. It had the abilities of a massive armor: five-hundred-meter-tall with enhanced durability, enhanced strength, energy beams, missiles, and the ability to fire a massive ray of energy from its chest-plate, discharge mortars from its shoulder pads, launch explosive cores from a mouthpiece, and shoot multiple homing missiles from cannons across its back and lower torso.

Its trump card, the Purge Mode, was still available for him to use.

When the trump card was activated, Shikoutazer shed its armor to reveal monstrous flesh while the user became violently insane and corrupted by alchemic Danger Beasts. The Teigu's abilities were dramatically improved; it could control alchemic energy, concentrating it around its chest cavity to create and fire a dark singularity bomb, produce small clumps from its mouth which unfurled into a horde of small, wasp-like Danger Beasts, and project a retractable, organic steel blade from its hands that reached up to incredible lengths. Other abilities included augmented toughness and resilience, and a final armament which was the ability to fire multiple wave motion blasts from the various eyes on its body armor.

Furthermore, it still retained its beast-type instincts.

"It seems turning him into a shadow caused a mutation in it, as both beast and machine merged together, something I've never seen. But still, it's too soon to reach any conclusion. At least, him becoming my soldier finally feels real now that he stands right before me, and I can sense his magical energy like this," Jin thought as he looked at the system screen.

[?? Lv.1]

Veteran Elite Knight Grade

"One more powerhouse under my belt," Jin began to grin while clenching his fists tightly after confirming its grade. A new member of his op force had just made its appearance. This meant that the guy possessed the kind of power that was beyond the S-Rank realm.

"'Well, that's obvious when considering its original abilities while it was still alive....'

Just the name of the grade alone implied that this soldier was not your average, common soldier. It was a powerhouse with the power to completely annihilate the military forces of any country, especially as my soldier.

And now, with this, I have got 5 Veteran Elite Knight Grades: Gorr, Zelos, Akame, Susanō, and now him.

Even then, soon Gold, Croc, Cerberus, and Buster will be ready for the rank up.

While the other named ones will soon be leveling up, and possibly all the non-named ones will be ready to be named.

This was the fruit of my labor for having worked so hard to own this shadow. It was then that the shadow knelt down after meeting his gaze with Jin-Woo's. Without a doubt, the 'absolute loyalty' that affected all the other Shadow Soldiers also applied to this guy.

In the meantime, Jin was still lost in thoughts. "Jin," seeing him like this, Esdeath called him out.

"Ha?" Hearing her, he turned to look at her and pointed towards the kneeling soldier. He did a wide smile as he nodded. Looking on the ground, he didn't see the body of the child emperor. "Interesting," which only meant one thing: the body was merged with the armor and became a shadow, supplying its consciousness and soul as fuel to pull this shadow.

Again, something occurred he never even thought of, and now questions arose: how did it happen? Why did it happen? Is it because of a bloodline connection? Or will it happen with anything as long as a machine has a living pilot, it can turn into a shadow? A theory he had to test. But then again, all of this could be a miscalculation on his part, and he could be far from the truth.

Seeing him lost in thoughts, which happened frequently even during fights, Esdeath walked towards him and grabbed his shoulders, shaking him. Once he looked at her, she smiled and said, "Dear, don't you have a name or something?"

Asked Esdeath as he snapped out of his thoughts, she had seen him creating shadows and knew he usually names them. This morning, he had renamed all the Night Raid members, using their old names. Even she had to admit he was very bad with names, as he gave them the same names they had before their deaths. Jin nodded. "Yes, yes," Jin said as he turned his head to look at the kneeling beast.

"Well, you shall be known as Guardian," Jin said in simple words as the newly named machine just nodded.

As he turned again and looked at Esdeath, who was looking at him with a face that said, "This is the best you can come up with?"

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Nothing."

"Mmm," Jin held her chin and had her look into his eyes. "Anyway, don't you think this calls for a celebration," said Esdeath with a sultry tone?

As she smacked her blue lips on his.

Jin and Esdeath embraced, their hearts beating in unison with the melodies of the air. They sealed their love with a kiss, their lips brushing against each other.

Esdeath jumped into Jin's body, her legs wrapping around his waist, while her lips caught his mind in a kiss. He could see the deep lust brimming in Esdeath's eyes. Hence, his hand caught her ass as Typhon flew towards their temporary home. All his shadows knew how possessive he was and didn't like his woman to be seen naked by any man.

On the other hand, Esdeath didn't have anything like that. Of course, she would freeze any man's balls off before killing him if he even dared to compliment her on her body, forget about seeing her naked.

But she also knew they were enough that nobody could even know if something was there, so Esdeath wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. She responded fiercely to his kiss, trying to engulf his mouth with hers while he was hugging her ass.

 As they were carried by Typhon, heading home, his tongue moved into her mouth and searched for her tongue. Esdeath panickily tried to hide her tongue, and he quickly found it and intertwined his tongue with hers.

"Her breathing quickly turned heavy, and her face turned hot. Esdeath tightened her arms around his neck and glued her body to his, melting in his embrace. "~Mmm~" He answered by biting her soft lips. Esdeath moaned and closed her eyes.

Their kiss continued for a long while. Once they finished that kiss, they kissed again. Then, they kissed again. Esdeath was soon more addicted to the feeling of kissing and tried to be more active, kissing him with even more lust and passion. She was finally going to do the thing she had been dreaming of for a long time.

After a few minutes, Jin separated his mouth from hers and kissed her neck. ~Mmm~ Esdeath lifted her face and let out a moan. He then licked and bit her neck softly, causing her to shiver in pleasure.

But before she could grab his pants, he grabbed her hand and said, "Let's not just start here."

"Who cares."

"I do, babe, so you also have to. I don't want anyone to see your naked form. It's a form that only I could adore," said Jin with a somewhat serious face.

"Yes, of course, my master. My body only belongs to you and could only be seen by you," Esdeath replied with a joking manner as she again leaped onto his lips.

After another long kiss, they separated. Both were holding each other, with Jin's hand on her ass and her hand on his back. They were looking in front, enjoying the beautiful view as cold winds passed by.

"Babe, there's something I am dying to know," asked Esdeath without looking at him.

"Go on, I am listening," replied Jin, not only enjoying the view but also the fine ass in his hand, which he was caressing.

"I have noticed something. Why do most spells you cast have something related to Divine, Holy, Light, or Heaven in them? Like Holy Light, Divine Lightning, Heaven's Roar, Healing Light, Divine Light, and even now Heaven's Wrath," asked Esdeath, as she was very curious to know why that is.

"Mmm, you noticed, huh? Well, to tell you the truth," Jin paused and looked at the sky, then with a smile, he said, "That's because... I want to be an angel."

Jin's words shocked Esdeath, and she thought she had misheard him.

"..."

"Love, can you repeat again? I think I heard something wrong," said Esdeath, feeling like she misheard him.

"I want to be an angel."

"..."

Hearing this again, it was so shocking that it took her brain some time to process it.

"You an angel? I bet you'll turn into a fallen in less than three seconds or even worse, a demon...Hahahaha!!!" Esdeath laughed for a bit before she looked at Jin and said, "A good joke, though."

Again she looked at him and saw his serious face.

"You aren't joking. You really mean it. So, what about light power? And it'll be the angelic god? And being a dragon."

"*Sigh* I thought you knew me, Esdeath," Jin looked at the wide sky, and Esdeath sighed.

"How foolish of you!!! Do you really think I'll go for something as simple as site wings and being a bulb? Remember my passion!! 

"Passion? You mean, being overpowered"

You see, Esdeath, I, who have been blessed by what most likely seems to be a God and got his gift," Jin stared at Esdeath before he said, "I'm the god who dared to challenge the shackles of heaven."

"I'm the man that broke the shackles and became a sinner," Jin smiled before he said the last phrase, "And lastly, being a dragon will be easy."

Esdeath frowned as she felt this was going into a place she didn't like, before she said, "So, what's the meaning of these?"

"You know that there's some connection between worlds," Jin smiled as he opened his hands wide while Esdeath nodded.

'Some rules and abilities can be similar between worlds, with some struggle, a lot of maths, and good luck can help me find abilities even without the system shop, which doesn't even sell abilities.'

"So, I think a heavy religious meaning is helpful in my plans," Jin smiled while Esdeath opened her mouth from shock because she somewhat understood what her love was doing.

"Again, why do you limit your vision this much?! Always go for the things that destroy dimensions at minimal, I want to become an angel..." Jin closed his fist as if trying to grab the whole sky in his fists, wanting to conquer the sky, wanting to have no limits on him, wanting to always grow. "From a world where angel does not mean light but whole universes."

Esdeath dropped her cap to Typhon as she realized the true madness which even shocked his Shadow that day as they felt even the Absolute Being can't comprehend the mind of their lord.

Esdeath was fully shocked now. She understood why he always said that the sky's limit is not the truth; the only thing limiting you is your mind and its madness. Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is. And the other thing he said: You are what you believe in. You become that which you believe you can become.

"Now she understood where all that madness came from as she repeated the talk they just had in her mind. Then she gasped, 'Hii, didn't you say it could, might, maybe, have come from some God? Doesn't this mean you aren't sure?'

"Yes."

"Mmm, so by the off chance it doesn't come from a deity, but from something worse, like a demon, won't it be too late by then?"

"Yes, that's very much a possibility. There is a chance that could happen, but don't you think you are forgetting something huge in this? And don't you think I won't have plans for a worst-case scenario?"

"And what might it be?" asked Esdeath, eager to know more.

"Well, if that happens, then let's just say even once even the strongest devil was once an Angel, the Light Bringer," Jin answered with a grin on his face.