"Yes," I said firmly, "I think I am. But I'm going to need to borrow your armor."
She blinked. "I'm sorry? What?"
"I'm no prude by any stretch of the imagination, but I'd prefer not to enter the hardest fight of my life without some measure of protection."
"Ah." Jean instantly caught my meaning, but then frowned slightly. "Even with the shapeshifting enchantments, I'm not exactly sure the armor will be as responsive as you need it to be. You linked it to my blood."
"True," I conceded, "but I don't need the entire armor, just the bio-enchantments and a lot of arcanite."
I transmitted my ideas telepathically, and Jean shook her head ruefully.
"If you were anyone else, I'd think you were crazy."
I grinned. "But yeah, you love me."
She rolled her eyes and held out her hand, and I eagerly took it.
Liquid Arcanite poured out of the armor and wrapped around me, modeled strictly after the metal blueprints I'd transmitted over.
First came the single-piece under armor, woven in the style of the Vibranium suits the Wakandans had provided us. Then came the hard layers: chest piece, pauldrons, articulated gauntlets, boots, and everything in between.
Thanks to how bio-enchantments worked, I still had access to nearly every enchantment I'd woven into her original armor. I just had to convince the new armor Jean had grown that it was still somehow connected to her.
It took nearly a minute of experimentation and thousands of rune arrays, but I got it.
With the tether established, all that was left was upgrading the old enchantments on both armors and pushing them over the next threshold.
The armor evolved with me still in it, the pieces melding together and transforming entirely. The hard bits broke down and became layered and flexible like leather, while the eye slits in my visor vanished, my helmet now one continuous dome flickering with multiple spatial, permeability, and precision enchantments to boost my vision.
When I was done, the system description for my suit read as follows.
Sentinel IV
Devourer's Physique: +700 stat points.
Metal Creation and Manipulation
Cosmic Tether: While wearing this armor, you are forever linked to the Phoenix and can draw from her endless reserves to replenish your energy stores.
Evolving Armor: Adapts and evolves based on damage and absorbed energy. Manifest new abilities and enhance existing ones over time.
Energy Absorption: Purifies and absorbs all energy-based attacks that impact the armor. 130% Absorption Rate.
Regeneration: Purifies all injuries in Phoenix fire and accelerates regeneration using stored energy. 2800% boost to natural regeneration.
Eternal Core: Passively and actively draws in all forms of energy and converts them into Demonic and Angelic Energy.
Reservoir: 800,000/800,000 DE, 800,000/800,000 AE
Enchantment Arrays
Affinity Amplification Array II: Density, Dimension, Fire, Gravity, Wind, and Mind +150% boost.
Ancient Enhancement Array II: +2000 to all stats.
Ancient Protection Array III+: 150,000 DEF, Soul Defense Array.
Ancient Perception Array I: +250% boost to senses.
Ancient Time Array I: Localized Time Stop, Time Reversal, Local Time Acceleration, Slow Personal Time.
Ancient Power Array III: Staggered End ×15, Ancient Precision Array ×15.
Ancient Crafting Array I: Unshaking Will, Absolute Focus, Ancient Rune Array, Precise Telekinesis, and Energy Transference.
Absorbed Mutant Abilities:
Psychokinesis (Jean Grey)
Super Speed (Pietro Maximoff)
Accelerated Adaptation and Growth (Rin and Armando Munoz)
Super Strength (Piotr Rasputin)
With my armor complete, crafting weapons felt almost like an afterthought. With a flex of my mind, three weapons sprang into existence, each heavily runed and each a vast improvement over my earlier designs.
Kurogiri II
Abilities:
Self-Repair
Evolving
Energy Absorption
Shapeshifting
Endless Core: 1000/100,000 DE, 1000/100,000 AE
Enchantments:
Summon
Dimensional Slash
Phantom Riposte
Anathema Flame Infusion
Kurogiri was long, bordering on the length of an odachi, with a solid handle, a decorative flame-shaped handguard, and a body that danced with light.
Crusher I (Warhammer)
Abilities:
Shapeshifting
Self-Repair
Evolving
Energy Absorption
Endless Core: 1000/100,000 DE, 1000/100,000 AE
Enchantments:
Density Manipulation
Gravity Manipulation
Staggered Carnage
Summon
Riposte
Crusher was modeled after Thor's hammer, but the head blended more smoothly into the handle. I designed it specifically to grow in size and length, rapidly shift densities, and teleport, giving me a thousand different vectors from which I could attack.
Shield I
Abilities:
Shapeshifting
Self-Repair
Summon
Evolving
Energy Absorption
Endless Core: 1000/100,000 DE, 1000/100,000 AE
Enchantments:
Ancient Defense Array
Energy Transference Array
Riposte
Ancient Time Array
The shield was a singular, slightly sloping piece of high-quality magic steel with a bottom that terminated in a sharp spike and a rounded top.
I sent it into a pocket dimension layered into my armor thanks to my Ancient Space Array.
My sword and hammer danced between my fingers before settling into my palms, hungry for violence.
I cracked my neck, feeling very confident about my chances.
I was still somewhat worried about my ill-defined Promethean Body and Ancient Runic Magic upgrades, but I was expecting only good news and was hungry for some fucking payback.
Across from me, Lauren hadn't been idle.
Thousands of other Laurens had portaled in, each new one merging with the previous. A few stood to the side, their expressions blank and inscrutable.
Shin was planning something.
"He's not going to make this easy for me, is he?"
"He most certainly won't," The Phoenix spoke. "You and your world represent centuries of nourishment and a chance to expand his power base. He won't let some upstart cheat him out of decades of work."
I almost balked at the upstart remark, but I caught her meaning.
"So, you're saying he's going to cheat?"
"Almost certainly. Or enhance her to the absolute limit her soul can accommodate."
I blinked at that last comment as something clicked.
"Right. Souls have limits. That's why he's so obsessed with me."
"There's a reason Shin does not create champions en masse. Most sentients can only handle so much energy before their souls crack and they begin devolving as you once did. It starts with madness, then their bodies follow quickly."
"You think he'll crack her?" I asked.
"No," the Phoenix said, "but she'll be close enough to the edge that you could break her with your new flame."
"Won't they be expecting that?"
"It won't matter. Not if you're determined."
Lauren's POV
An unnatural coldness filled me.
It spread from my chest, stretching through every limb, organ, and cell. Ordinarily, it would've been a great comfort—an eternal sign of my devotion to my Lord's vision.
But recently…things had been spiraling out of control.
And if there was one thing my Lord despised, it was uncertainty.
"My power is wasted on you," he whispered, his voice echoing through the multitudes of clones surrounding me. "You have power beyond compare, an unending catalog of powers and abilities to draw from, resources spanning several star systems, and you still cannot beat Dante and his followers."
"We needed the other Ascendants where they were," I reminded my Lord slowly.
We couldn't count on Dante to take the Demon World anymore, not with how much stronger Belasco had grown, and the other Demon Lords were threats we preferred to deal with sooner rather than later.
Mundus had the Power Stone.
As for the Reality Stone…well.
The final pair of clones arrived bearing gifts.
One held an orb of darkness crackling with reddish, fluid energy that warped reality around it.
The other held a serum--the serum.
My breath caught.
It would push my soul to the very limit.
It might even kill me.
I looked past my clones toward Dante. He was clad in fresh armor, his body and soul patched up and likely stronger thanks to the Phoenix's ministrations.
No doubt, he probably had a few more bullshit abilities up his sleeve after this entire ordeal.
Meanwhile, I'd had to claw and bleed for over a decade in preparation for this phase of the plan.
No.
I refused to lose to some entitled child who never had to work for his powers.
I'd come too far to turn back now.
"I'm glad you understand," the clone to my left said, its voice filling me with renewed confidence. "Now, follow my orders to the letter, Lauren. I favor you, but you know what happens to people who fail me."
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