Gun of Ashes

It was like a beastly armor, a corrupted and filthy Black Angel.

The heartbeat was so powerful, growing louder, pounding like a war drum in everyone’s chest, rising and falling with the rhythm, blood surging vigorously, muscles stretching freely beneath it.

The loathsome face armor was entangled with growing flesh, sharp bones protruding from it like cracked, ferocious fangs. The Night Owl was so close to it, while the sound of steel echoed right by its ears. If the Black Angel exerted a bit more force, it could crush the Sword Dancer’s head, and along with it, the Night Owl’s head below.

After being stunned by terror, the Night Owl snapped back to awareness. The Sword Dancer suddenly lifted its blade, fiercely hacking towards the Black Angel. But the Black Angel’s speed was much more rapid, and without the propulsion system, the Sword Dancer couldn’t keep up with its pace.

One could only see the black shadow leap up, with the Black Angel stepping on the Sword Dancer’s bulky external armor to leap into the air—an action impossible for the Sword Dancer. It was mostly built of mechanical structures, with Demon flesh only connecting vital stable areas, unlike the Black Angel.

It was fully exposed under the vast light. Last time, the Black Angel lost control during the night, and no one saw its form clearly. But this time, it did not hold back at all. Blood overflowed from the pressure between flesh and steel, with the scarlet muscles without skin protection growing along the joints of its limbs.

The power brought by the steam engine aided the flesh body, agile like a beast brought back to life, while the armor’s super strong durability allowed it to make swift and exaggerated movements.

Both hands slashed down forcefully in mid-air, with sharp steel slicing through the external armor, and the speed was so fast that the edges of the Iron Feather were slightly red from the rapid cuts.

The Black Angel leapt behind the Sword Dancer. Once fully activated, its mobility completely crushed that of the Sword Dancer, but without weapons, relying solely on its Steel Feather made it difficult to inflict effective harm on the fully armed Sword Dancer.

This Iron Feather was dangerously sharp, and once Bola nearly died under this steel. For a flesh body, its lethalness needed no further explanation, but now it was confronting similarly cold steel.

After a brief moment of panic, the Night Owl regained his disrupted composure. Inside the Sword Dancer, the electrodes inserted at the back of his head detected his stress, and the Florun Potion was injected along his neck, making the Night Owl feel much better.

”Continue, Night Owl, with all your power, try to kill him; Mr. Holmes is not so fragile.”

Merlin’s voice echoed beside his ear, emotionless. After the experiment officially began, the Alchemist also displayed his professionalism, staring blankly at the two armors in the workshop, without any emotion. At this moment, in his eyes, they were just two slightly odd little white mice.

”I understand.”

The Night Owl tried to remain calm. The Black Angel in front of him was emitting a mild corrosion—a thing hard to avoid after the resurrection of Demon flesh, something many First Generation Armor pilots had to confront during operation.

He needed to stay calm, maintaining absolute rationality. The corrosion was like a black sea, and human rationality was the ship sailing upon it. Rationality must not have any gaps exploitable by fear. Once it found that fatal rift, they would tear at the wound like greedy Evil Ghosts, injecting more hateful corrosion into it.

Currently, the Sword Dancer couldn’t match the Black Angel in speed. It awkwardly turned around, and without the propulsion system, the weighty armor showcased its shortcomings.

Yet the eerie thing was that the Black Angel didn’t attack at this opportunity. It was, indeed, a good chance, but it stood still, mixed blood with gray liquid flowing out. It seemed that due to flesh proliferation, some oil pipes were crushed, then faint red mist began to rise from within, with the copper exhaust pipes pressed flat by flesh, hard to distinguish, as if the mist came from inside its body.

The Black Angel stood silently in the mist of blood, its posture beast-like, legs slightly bent, one hand hanging straight down on the ground, while the other hand slowly lifted. The head was quietly staring at the hand entwined with steel and flesh...if the twisted red peculiarity under the face armor’s crack could be called eyes.

It was like a child newly born in innocence, carefully observing itself, its gaze shifting to the Iron Feather, then to the Restraint Device, the gap between flesh and mechanism, that shattered plate armor...it was savoring this strange sensation, this extended body.

The Sword Dancer could barely tolerate this bizarre scene. It raised its blade, slowly approaching, the heavy external armor arming its front into the most secure shield, and in the limited space of the workshop, as long as the Sword Dancer stabilized its formation, even though the Black Angel had powerful mobility, it still couldn’t deal a fatal attack to itself.

The steam engine ran at full capacity, scorching white steam seeping out of the seams. Unlike the First Generation Armor, the Third Generation Armor’s main power source was a steam engine, making its design overly huge and bulky, and those heavy external armor pieces mainly protected the fragile power system.