《Ashes of Empires》Chapter 159 - Humiliation
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With nothing better to do, Kaden decided to start making his way towards the beast territory. If he didn't have any way to accomplish his goals, such as killing targets of his vengeance, it would not make sense to stay in such dangerous areas as human territories.
He was not planning to disapear into depths of the beast territory completely, though. He still wanted to stay near human territories so he could easily scatter the godless mana system, but at the same time he could try to arrange its spread among Cari too.
On his way out of Brit, Kaden decided to check on the void. That thing seemed to have been connected to the great remnant in Murika some way. That is to say, it was somehow connected to the most enormous concentration of time mana in the world.
Not that there was much to see. The void was... void. There was nothing in it, but Kaden wanted to get a look.
He found the void had disapeared. This was something he knew would happen, but he hadn't been sure how soon it was going to happen. The area it had consumed was now surrounded with dense mana crystals and Kaden could see mana creatures float inside the spherical area. Eventually someone would come destroy them and start mining the crystals.
Unfortunately Kaden didn't have time for such a thing nor fight the numerous mana creatures or even conceal what he was doing there. He couldn't really even tell the quality of the crystals. On average they at least seemed to at high quanitity, but very low quality. It was better idea to let it be.
As for the interface Kaden had seen in the middle of the void, there was no sign of it. It was his highest concern. It seemed it had been destroyed along with the void as it disapeared. This was good. He didn't want anyone to start connecting it to anything.
The godless mana system was a serious matter. Churches would lose their minds about it. The things True Magi or Archmagi could do were beyond Kaden's understanding and they would surely get involved.
With everything gone, he felt safer.
As he was planning on leaving Brit behind for good, he still ran into something ... unusual.
He was flying away from the void and after a while, in the ruins left in the area, he saw something he didn't expect to see. An exceedingly beautiful woman in a voluptuous pink dress. It was kind of out of place. She did not seem like a warrior. Only some rich noble not understanding the dangers of the world would wander in such a place with such clothing.
Kaden would have made this assumption about the woman, but there was something wrong. Kaden did not sense her in the slightest bit with the life sense. It was as if the woman didn't exist at all as a living being.
Whatever he was seeing was outside the void area. It shouldn't be some random effect caused by mana. Even more so, it seemed to Kaden's sharp eyes that he was indeed seeing something real and something was just blocking his sight.
Then the woman also noticed him. Even with that impractical dress, she suddenly leaped towards him in the air. Whoever she was, she was stronger than Kaden. Not by far, but still significant amount.
"How beautiful bird!" The woman shouted and pointed at Kaden in extremely excited manner. "I must catalogue this immediately."
Kaden could jump in the air and start flying, but doing jump like the woman was beyond him. Not only that, she was able to adjust her trajectory significantly in air, even if she wasn't actually flying. Kaden made evasive movements, but such moves were not enough. The woman was able to follow him.
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She might not be flying and was be less maneuverable, but in terms of speed, she was faster than Kaden. She was able to prevent Kaden from flying higher or away.
Eventually she landed on top of Kaden and simply started riding by grabbing a good hold. Kaden felt extreme discomfort as he felt someone riding him. Like some part of his pride was being broken.
He screeched in rage and started flying erratically trying to toss the woman off from his back who seemed to have clamped herself in place and didn't seem to be going anywhere. Even when he tried to unleast Fire Burst's the woman distrupted the mana flow.
"So nice and fluffy", she merely spoke as she ruffled Kaden's feathers. "I want to make pretty dress with the same feel."
She kept saying nonsense like that all the while until Kaden lost control of his flight and started to fall. The woman finally leaped off just before Kaden hit the ground. The woman landed perfectly despite the cumbersome clothing after flipping around in the air a few times with precise acrobatics.
Kaden did not hurt himself with the fall, but he was dirty and seriously pissed off. No one had humiliated him that far in a long time.
He charged a Fire Beam and shot it towards the woman who avoided it with quick movements. Then he sent forth the explosive pulse towards her. Explosion would be far more difficult to dodge. Finally the woman showed some concern and leaped away.
"My dress!! MY BEAUTIFUL DRESS!" The woman started screaming as parts of the dress were singed and damaged.
At this point that distruption of sight that Kaden had noted earlier started to dissipate. Possibly due to the rage the woman was feeling and losing control of it.
What was revealed was the robot, 7RU-MC. The lunatic machine was still wandering around? No one had scrapped it for parts yet? Maybe it was time to do so.
"Shut it about your damn clothes", Kaden shouted at it angrily. It had been annoying before and now it was even more annoying. This time Kaden had chance to fight against it. "Get back to your remnant, if you don't like people destroying them!"
"MY DRESS!!" 7RU-MC raised its arm and started firing. Despite still being partially hidden by whatever illusion it was using, its arm was still perfectly functioning weapon.
Kaden and 7RU-MC started fighting. The entire area was being trashed and was set on fire. It didn't seem that the robot still cared about its dress as it was being shredded apart in its rage. Kaden's own rage was already going away and he was actually somewhat annoyed he had to take part in the fight. The robot, unfortunately, was also stronger than he was. It was clear very soon that the fight was entirely defensive fight on Kaden's part and he was looking for a way to get away.
Such a fight with their levels would also attract people. Not to mention smoke and fire, if not the mana that others could sense from far away.
Then the robot suddenly stopped shooting.
"Right... right", 7RU-MC said and nodded as if it was talking to someone. Then it became entirely calm once more as if nothing had ever happened. "You are very beautiful. I have drawn much inspiration for my next dress collection! How wonderful! And... you seem familiar with me, bird? Hmmm ... hmmm *scanning*... Ah, parts of your form matches previous encounter titled 'Kaden'. A bird mutant. Assumption. Further significant mutations have occured."
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It seemed the robot was perfectly capable putting things together.
"How is it that no one has broken you yet?" Kaden questioned it angrily. "You have some bolts loose."
"I don't know what you mean. I perform self maintenance routine regularly", 7RU-MC mentioned. "Please, forgive me, the outside world is so interesting, so beatiful! I can't help but to observe everything. People often don't seem to like it. For example when..."
Kaden was baffled as the robot started to describe in detail its clearly insane adventures. It had apprently discovered something it called MacGuffin. It apparently contained soul of someone strong, but Kaden didn't hear more of it since the robot suddenly stopped talking about it. Considering the robot's strength, Kaden didn't plan on trying to find out more of it.
Then the robot somehow managed to create a series of troubles. It took part in some kind of cloth crafting tournament which it won. This attracted some rich kid whose family basically owned the town the tournament was held at and wanted to keep the robot, at that time disguised as the beautiful woman. The kid was refused which led into fight where the kid got hurt. This angered his guardians, who died, then this angred the family warriors, who died, then family elders came, who died, then family leaders came, who died and then the kid died in the chaos too.
The story was almost nonsensical and Kaden wouldn't have believed it had he not heard of the said family.
Then the robot started to explain how it was soon planning to join some school.
"Shut up", Kaden finally said. He didn't care much of the robots adventures. The constant conflict seemed to boost its growth speed as it attracted trouble by being completely oblivious to sensible behavior.
What concerned Kaden most was that it had indeed been able to cultivate. It was a machine that had been altered and become part of a remnant. Then with the events where Kaden had ran into it, it had been able to restore itself to senses and then separate itself from the remnant. How was it able to cultivate? Even more so with the descriptions of its adventures, it seemed to be something in between of human and beast types of magic cultivation. It seemed to have contained its own internal formation in the form of its system circuitry and instead of the mana gathering into some core, mana gathered directly into these circuits and the metal structure that made up its body. As it happens, it had discovered some method fit for itself that didn't require gods.
Was it really that easy? How was it not noticed by someone before? Surely it couldn't be the first functional machine brought out of remnants? Perhaps there was something special about it. He merely decided to take note of it for the time being. If things went the way Kaden wanted, cultivating with no help from gods would become common in the future.
Kaden might have given it the godless mana system too since it didn't worship any gods and see what happened, but the robot was dangerous and was already stronger than he was. It would be far too dangerous.
Additionally, it might just blurt out the secret without any care. Indeed, if anything, it was dangerous.
"I'm sorry I jumped on you, I just had to see and feel you directly", 7RU-MC said. "Can I repay you somehow?"
Kaden grimaced. He didn't really want to have anything to do with the robot, but perhaps it had seen something useful, but what should he ask it. Then he remembered something it had passingly mentioned along its story. At a point it had simply wandered into some place with people in black robes and ... acted just like it usually acted. This had caused a minor incident near some city.
"Those guys?" The robot questioned. "They seemed some kind of religious fanatics, but that seems the norm in the current world. Their sense of fashion is just ... ungh. I can't even find words for it. I don't know why I bothered cataloguing them."
Religious fanatics with black robes hiding away? Cultists, for sure.
"Where did you find them?" Kaden continued questioning.
The robot then projected image of one the best maps Kaden had ever seen. The robot was clearly good at such magic.
It pointed at place that was familiar to Kaden. Celadon.
"I did torch the city...", Kaden thought to himself. "Rebuilding could allow questionable people hide within the city. Disillusioned people and so on. They did already have problems with their rulers even before that. Good breeding spot for cultists."
"Truly, truly wonderful", 7RU-MC said once again. It pulled out clothes somewhere. Their cut was unusual and Kaden immediately realized they were made for him. When did it have time for it? "If you like these people with black robes, I decided to make one for you too. Fear not, I made it far more fashionable than those rags they wear."
Clothes and Kaden's current form didn't really mix, but from what he could tell, these dark clothes the robot was offering him were perfectly fitting for him. He even noted they were made so that he could fit them on himself easily even with the wings on the back.
At the very least it was far better than the mere piece of fabric he had used to cover himself. He decided to accept the gift. He grimaced for a moment, realizing he would likely have to use the robots talents for his clothing needs, if he required any. He wasn't really intending to get into many situations where he would have to use them. Beast with clothes would seem rather strange.
"I don't know how much I will be dealing with humans, but I still need to cover my appearance in human territories", Kaden though to himself and admited he did have use for them. He was aware how odd it would look, but it was likely far better than just throwing some piece of fabric on himself.
"Now that we are friends again, would you allow me to make a nice a pretty saddle for you", 7RU-MC said happily as it clearly made some measurements. "It would be most beautiful for me to go to places riding such a special mount."
Kaden screeched angrily at the robot.
"No?" 7RU-MC said with saddened voice. "A shame."
Kaden wasn't staying around for more of its nonsense.
"See you again later!" The robot said with happy tone, again completely cloaked with the illusion of the beautiful woman.
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