Weapons of Mass Destruction

Chapter 522: Ardenyx

The other day the system probably decided we’d been slacking long enough.

Warning! The 1st wave is now in progress.

Just that message and nothing else. Lifting my eyes from the Fracture in my lap and the Logic Core I’m working on, I look at Min-Jae sitting across from me in the living room.

“You too?” he asks.

“Me too!” Izzy says from nearby.

We join the telepathic link the twins have been maintaining and exchange a few warnings. After that, I check the Ley Lines connected to the other members of our group.

(You might want to come see this shit, guys,) Dennis says before signing off.

Locating where he is, I sigh and start putting on these warm clothes. Izzy and Min-Jae do the same. Noodle is coiling himself up somewhere deep inside said clothes. They are better than nothing, but it’s insane to think that I’d even be capable of feeling cold despite the thermal energy I have. So the options are either to use more of it or be more efficient and put some clothes on.

I’m not the type who normally cares about not wasting mana or efficiency. Hell, I could probably walk outside naked with golden flames sizzling around me, and keep that going for days. But it just feels more immersive to walk around in thick layers of warm clothes even with their terribly inefficient inscriptions woven from thread.

Does it make sense that I feel a bit warmer in the clothes even though I could do a better job with thermal energy alone? It’s weird and amusing at the same time.

Once outside, I join some of the other members of group 4 standing in the cold wind as it blows the snow around us into the air. It only takes me a moment of looking at the piles to know that they’ll be asking us to clear it away in an hour or two tops.

Someone like Serabeth or the Champion’s disciples could probably blow it away with the slightest thought, but I guess something like that would just be beneath them. That and they are avoiding using too much mana outside of the tents.

“So, what…” I start, looking over at Dennis. Then I follow his gaze and shut up.

One of the three tallest tents in the middle of the camp opens, the canvas flaps of the tent moving to the side pulled by ropes. Revealing a hint of the tent’s interior, heat and light radiating forth along with the sounds of a smithy.

Then the ground shakes. Again and again. Massive footsteps sending tremors through the ground, and just like that a war armor steps out of the tall tent.

“Ardenyx,” Sophie breathes out. “It fits the description.”

The war armor is enormous, its towering frame rivaling a multi-floor building five to six stories high. Its sleek, dark plating is inscribed with glowing mana patterns, intricate lines, and symbols etched deeply into the metal, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat. The armor’s surface gleams with a polished metallic sheen, built for both speed and durability. The plates overlap seamlessly, designed to redirect impacts and channel mana efficiently through the entire structure.

Its head is angular and sharp. The cockpit itself is positioned deep within the chest, protected by reinforced layers of plating and surrounded by conduits of mana. From there, the pilot interfaces directly with the armor’s systems, controlling it through a blend of mental commands and physical inputs, all powered by the pilot and the mana batteries placed throughout the armor.

Ardenyx’s back is fitted with streamlined, wing like appendages—sleek constructs with sharp edges, humming faintly with energy. The arms and legs are long and proportional, covered in segmented armor seeming designed for flexibility and precision, each joint reinforced and marked with faint mana pathways to enhance movement.

Even standing still, it radiates a quiet and deadly energy, as the glow of its mana inscriptions cast their faint light on the snow around it. The suit is quickly surrounded by a handful of level 8 technicians, as they begin running a myriad of checks. The hands open and close, joints twist, and the appendages on its back flex and retract. Brief bursts of mana pulse through its channels, while fields and shields flare into being and fade just as quickly. Itʼs a process that ends up taking several minutes, and one they appear to take very seriously.

My eyes activate and I observe it more, pushing through some of the defensive layers and observing the movements of its mana. A special material replaces the muscles and uses mana to send signals to expand and contract the fibers.

A number of places hide mana batteries all over the war armor, humming with the immensity of the energy stored within. Inscription nodes which must be something akin to a Logic Core, allowing it to turn simple signals like “walk” into a set of orders that shrink and expand these fake muscles, balance the armor, and move the joints.

The sheer complexity of this thing is insane. And the amount of mana it probably requires has to be just as insane. And that’s without getting into the inscriptions covering its surface.

It’s bigger than I thought it would be and damn, it’s only the disciple’s war armor.

Back on the 4th floor, there was a Calamity known as The Fallen Hero. A man who reached the level of Champion and died in a suit of Valorplate that wound up using his half broken heart to power itself. I know it was probably weakened by the system, yet I have to wonder how a suit of Valorplate, even at full power, would compare to Exoria, Ardenyx, and Praxion?

Full power Valorplate would probably be equal to Exoria, and even though one of them is the size of a normal suit of armor and the other one is probably bigger than the war armor in front of me, it would be fun to watch.

However, that does leave another big question: what advantages does armor that large actually provide? Shouldn’t it be more trouble than itʼs worth? That question has been bothering me from the beginning. There must be a reason for it.

Ardenyx takes another step and the things on its back expand, and the air around them vibrates, making everything around it grow hazy. Mana flows through it and all sound fades into the background. Some of the inscriptions activate and Ardenyx begins to look like the tents in the camp, seeming almost transparent as it takes on a chameleon like quality.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Then it lifts off as easily as if it weighed no more than a normal human and accelerates, flying off into the blizzard somewhere far in the distance.

A part of me really wants armor like that. A big part that is easily excited by new and interesting things. I mean, I don’t need it, it seems expensive and after a few weeks, I won’t have any use for it. But I WANT IT.

The other part forces me to remind myself not to rely on things like that. No, my intention was always simple and very much so.

I will learn everything I can about them. Then I will prepare a very very fancy structure that I will [Focus], and keep stored in the back of my mind. A structure very similar to that of war armor. The only difference being that when I deploy it, I will weave my mana into armor that I will expand. I will set parts of my mind to work like a Logic Core and take care of movement. And I will use mana and kinetic energy to power it.

And I still plan to name it Regalia. A suit of armor woven from my mana and perhaps even [Ley Line] that I can deploy at any time.

Until then, likely years and years into the future, I wouldn’t mind piloting one of these things.

We’re sitting on the ground of the room Lily shares with Sophie and Izzy. Sophie is doing some training with the twins, and Izzy has decided to stay and observe our tests. Noodle and Biscuit are both here for moral support.

Even in his super cute pup form Biscuit still gets a lot of respect from Noodle, damn, probably even more than before. But the corgi pup is merciful and doesn’t seem to mind when Noodle comes begging for my mana.

In fact, it seems like Noodle has been doing it even more after my last trait evolution and Primary class upgrade. He’s even doing it right now, shrunk down until he’s barely as long as my forearm and as thick as a finger, and coiled around my neck as he noms on my mana.

Meanwhile, Biscuit sleeps in Isabella’s arms. Even now he sometimes finds himself going into something like a shorter version of his food coma. Tess seems to think that since he’s a pup now he needs to sleep more, but I don’t agree with that. He is also wearing his own set of clothes, made from the ones we got from the lumorans, modified with help from Izzy and Sophie. They’re much higher quality than anything we’re wearing, in terms of looks and functionality.

“So, I have compared your arm from before and after trait evolution,” Lily starts.

“And?”

“No idea. Sophie could tell you more, after all, she’s better with mana. But I can tell that there are a lot of changes that go very deep. Everything from your bones, and flesh to the tendons and skin. It’s very very mana-conductive and the boost I get when I [Sacrifice] it is crazy.”

“That’s good to know. By the way, how’s your training with [Disintegration Mantle] been going?”

“I don’t like it.”

“Give it to me if you don’t like it.”

“I would if I could! I’d rather just use [Disintegration] or the raw strength of my body. It has an amazing defense. I mean really crazy. And it doesn’t use that much mana for the damage it deals to anyone who touches it. I’m pretty sure I’ll even be able to shape it to a degree. Additional arms? Wings? Perhaps a longer mantle? Not too much though, the skill doesn’t allow for too much deviation.”

“Are you trying to annoy me?”

“I’m not! It’s just that I usually kill anything that gets close before I’m forced to use it.”

“You aren’t helping.”

“Look, I train every day, just like I promised but it’s not as fun as the testing we do together, my ax, or the stuff I’ve been doing with my bones.”

“She likes to spend time with you!” Izzy nods seriously as she hugs Biscuit closer.

“So what else did you try?” I ask, ignoring that sentence.

Before turning to me, Lily hisses at Izzy and when she turns to me she has a slight blush on her cheeks, “I improved my ax and it should be capable of channeling my [Disintegration] without excessive amounts of damage. I’ve also been experimenting with making armor from my bones…”

“Skele-suit.”

“I’m not calling it the Skele-suit, Nat.”

“Calcium cage.”

“Screw off,” she sighs, the blush gone entirely, “I don’t know how much I’ll be needing it with my mantle, but the way you guys have been talking about war armor all the time made me excited to try something of my own.”

“Do you know how horrifying it would be if you made an Ardenyx size mech grown out of your bones and maybe flesh instead of whatever that war armor was using to move?”

“Plus a similarly sized ax! Maybe I could apply my mantle to it too and give it self-healing properties as well.”

“Lily.”

“Yes?”

“Let’s try that sometime. It sounds too creepy and scary not to try.”

“Yes! And by the way, I finished examining the finger bone you got from Jean. I think he has a trait, not unlike your Mana Physique. Maybe he got it when he took his second trait like you when you got your eyes. His trait also changes his body a lot but it seems to ‘reject’ external mana and use powerful bursts of the excess to boost his healing, just like you said. And I think there might be other Physique based traits besides yours and Jeanʼs.”

“That makes a lot of sense,” I note. “Can you get anything out of his? Enhancing myself with the same kind of increased regeneration from mana based attacks could be nice.”

“Maybe? But not anytime soon. That Physique is incredibly difficult to grasp, even a little. With you having a similar Physique, then taking his and improving yours while working around its effects… sorry, but it would take likely years if ever.”

I breathe out, disappointed, and lean back. When Noodle’s tongue tickles my cheek, I send a bit more of my mana his way while I think and curse whoever caused me to be stuck with nothing more than an epic healing passive and this weird-ass skill [Bone Knitting].

Well, at least I can count on the cockroach to bring me the heart of that Champion. That alone should boost my thermal energy by a shitload, and that should improve my healing as well. Until then, there are a few things I need to work on, one of them being the conversion of my heart into a pure kinetic mana heart, without the thermal aspects.

Lily and I have already started experimenting and forming our own theories and now we’ve brought Sophie in as well. And then, to top it all off, even though it’s still likely a few months off, I’m already starting to wonder.

How it’s going to feel to have two hearts?

Refocusing my attention on the room, I reach out to the side to set Fracture in between us as I deploy the protective arrays I’ve been working on over the past few days.

“Maintenance?” Lily asks, taking the cue from our prior runs.

“Yes,” I confirm. “The materials are degrading faster and the condition of the protective sheath is getting worse, but this time we should be able to do it without twins.”