Chapter 395 (1): A Habit, a Very Bad Habit
After leaving the church, Wayne climbed into the military vehicle. The fervor on his face had dimmed somewhat, and he dozed off on the ride back.
He was deeply enthusiastic about Mechanical Augmentation, certain that it could be applied to the Pale Knight. The Book of Greed had consumed the information, proving that the concept was valid. In this boundless universe, the path of machine ascension was real.
In other words, ship waifus existed in the Chosen Land, and it was a distinct possibility that Prussia had mass-produced a fleet of female submarines!
Little Wayne stirred eagerly, urging Wayne to dive into the ocean and measure the caliber of their torpedo tubes. Wayne ignored his little brother. The information he had was too limited to turn dreams into reality, but one thing was for certain: his trip to Prussia was no longer only about the demons and the Gate of Hell, but also the Philosopher’s Stone that contained data about Mechanical Augmentation.
The demigod who had later been refined into a Philosopher’s Stone had an imagination that left Wayne awestruck. The person had forged a path that no one had walked before. They were undoubtedly a transcendent genius.
That begged the question: who had refined that demigod into a Philosopher’s Stone?
The odds of another deity lurking behind Prussia weren’t high. No one had walked the path before, which meant that there was no one blocking the way. A god wouldn’t just generously give the evolution away for free...
Then again, maybe they would. Granting evolution meant strengthening oneself. There would be as many benefits as would come from founding a new church.
***
“The Goddess of Death has been playing dead all this time... Could it be her?”
In his office, Wayne had his feet propped on the desk, muttering to himself. “It’s unlikely to be Darkness. If she’s gotten hold of this evolution path, She wouldn’t have demeaned Herself by flirting with me...”
“Can’t be Nature, either. She’s currently the top goddess, second only to the Heavenly Father. Her goal is most likely to deal with all the other goddesses once and for all.”
“The Sun... the Sun Knight’s always planting mushrooms with their attacks, so the combat style does kind of fit.”
“As for the Goddess of Moonlight, She really doesn’t stand out at all.”
“I remember that the Church of Sun and the Church of Moonlight both set up their headquarters in Graeci. The two goddesses are close, so they’re probably watching out for the Goddess of Nature...”
Wayne shook his head. He couldn’t suspect only the goddesses. The demon lords of Hell were just as suspicious. Hell had no gods, so Mechanical Augmentation, if successful, could help any demon lords ascend to godhood and become a true demon god.
Come to think of it, Heaven was a possibility, too. Hestia’s combat form was distinctly futuristic, suggesting that Heaven had also researched machine ascension, or at least established a laboratory to study it. The Heavenly Father had run away from home, and without the head of the household, the most ambitious child in the family might be quietly plotting their own ascension to godhood.
“There are too many possibilities. I can’t settle on a direction.” Wayne snapped his fingers and called for Ottilia to massage his throbbing temple. He muttered, “The Philosopher’s Stone fragments are only given to the Führer's followers. Following the top-down model of faith, the Führer would be the ultimate beneficiary. He couldn’t be some god or demigod in disguise, could he?”
He kept going through the different possibilities, and before he knew it, he was lying on the sofa with his head resting on Ottilia’s lap, enjoying a massage from his girlfriend-slash-secretary.
After a while, he got up and went through his usual routine, heading to the projected abyss to extract the Seven Deadly Sins from the demon vessels, sending them to the holding cell in the bunker to undo the angel seal.
The seal had already been broken, but that didn’t stop him from milking the demon vessels dry. Knowledge of the Seven Deadly Sins was always welcome. Learning brought him joy.
He hadn’t stopped experimenting on Hestia, either. After days of experimentation, Hestia figured out Wayne’s real intentions: his primary goal was to collect data, and his secondary goal was to make her angry. He had no intention to turn her into a demon.
Still, it’s unacceptable!
During every session, Hestia’s eyes blazed with fury. She wanted nothing more than to tear the demon into pieces.
The experiments weren’t going well. Wayne had no idea how to handle a reincarnated angel. He wasn’t a great demon from Hell. What the Lord of Envy could do was beyond him.
He lacked a certain something.
Besides, Envy’s corruption didn’t allow his subject to switch freely between forms, which made it useless to him.
He had a new objective: convert an angel into a demon and then back into an angel.
***
April tenth.
A black sedan pulled up at the orphanage entrance. Wayne signed for two cases of documents and a mission briefing.
Of the two cases, one was meant for him, containing a Philosopher’s Stone fragment containing information on mechanical fusion. According to the network assessment, he had the potential to develop into a battleship.
So a ship husbando instead of a ship waifu.
There were currently three evolution branches for Prussia’s Mechanical Augmentation, corresponding to the army, navy, and air force. The soldiers of the SS and Wehrmacht had all undergone varying degrees of modification. Generally speaking, the higher one’s rank, the more resources were allocated to them.
With limited information, Wayne could only speculate that at the endpoint of the three evolution branches, there had to be a unifying process. The concept art in the slides showed humans becoming machines in the same way that mages became elves by cultivating faith magic, with the two forms being switchable at will.
The technology was remarkably mature.
That meant that the path had already been forged. The Philosopher’s Stone’s vitality domain was used to alter a subject’s external lifeform, granting evolution—or corruption, in another manner of speaking.
The corruption was potent enough to not only change humans, but also a demon vessel. Take Christian, whose identity Wayne had stolen, as an example. The higher-ups believed that Christian’s demonic form wouldn’t be able to resist mechanical transformation and that he would return to his rightful path, going down one of the three branches.
He was to become a battleship named Christian.
Wayne absorbed all the information from the stone fragment. It was a single-use stone that would be drained after use. He dismissed his personal guards and, under the astonished stares of both his secretaries, his arm morphed into a pale cannon barrel.
“Boss, is this evolution?”
“Obviously, it’s one evolution path...”
Wayne frowned, feeling the urge to fire the cannon. “The stone fragment can bestow mana. My flesh has become a machine, with my thoughts and mana forming the ammunition. In this way, I’m still a mage.”
Though he was still a mage, the destructive power of Mechanical Augmentation far surpassed that of a regular mage. With a few shots, he could destroy a Gold-ranked mage’s vitality barrier.
Moreover, there seemed to be an endless supply of the Philosopher’s Stone fragments, which meant that Prussia possessed an incredible capacity for creating troops, making their potential in war terrifying.
Prussia could steamroll the entire Chosen Land.
“There are weaknesses, too. Regular people turned machines don’t have enough mana, thus giving them limited ammunition. They can’t reload indefinitely. Applied to the air force... well, the bombers would still need two external fuel tanks. It’s surprisingly scientific.”
Wayne joked, but he knew that if the strange Philosopher’s Stone could corrupt a demon vessel, it would have no trouble altering the life essence of a Gold-ranked mage.
Gold-ranked and Legendary-ranked mages could both be converted into war machines under the influence of the vitality domain. It was evident how powerful they would become. With enough mana, a few bombers would obliterate all the military factories in Londan.
If air combat broke out, the defeat would be one-sided.
Regular soldiers piloting fighter jets stood no chance against Mechanical Augmentation. The result of Naval combat would be even more obvious. Windsor’s Royal Navy, with its atrocious hit rates, would never beat the ship waifus on Prussia’s side.
“The stone must be destroyed!”
Wayne made up his mind. He needed to show his gratitude to Nature’s gift, whether from the perspective of world peace or his personal interest. He opened the second case, finding it similarly filled with fragments of the Philosopher’s Stone.
“How many have they made? This should be rare...”
“Boss, aren’t you eating these?”
“You might not believe this.” Wayne held up the mission briefing. “But the higher-ups think angels can be corrupted, too.”
He, for one, didn’t believe it.
The Prussian leadership was far too optimistic, clearly lacking a real understanding of demigodhood. Both Hestia and Derrida had awakened, which meant they no longer had a Golden Triangle within them. Like Hestione/Mona, they were now powerful demigods.
A Philosopher’s Stone forged from a demigod stood no chance of corrupting a full demigod. Wayne didn’t have any expectations. Since the orders had come down from above, requesting a report, he had to go through the necessary process.
That would make things easy for everyone.
“Let’s go. Down to the basement.”
***
Holding cell, bunker.
Wayne went to Hestia with his secretaries. Bound in chains, Hestia hurled muffled insults at him as soon as she saw him.
“Enough already. You’re an angel, but you’re speaking foul language. You’re destroying Heaven’s reputation.”
“...” x2
Why can’t I understand her? x2
“We’ve got a mission. It’s important, so I’m going to need you to cooperate.” Wayne opened the document case and addressed Hestia solemnly, “This is a fragment of a Philosopher’s Stone. It’s capable of altering the life essence of a demon vessel, directing them to an entirely different evolution path...”
He demonstrated his thick cannon barrel, thrusting it toward Hestia’s face. Lust incarnate scowled darkly.
After days of his brand of taming, Hestia had grown sensitive. She strongly suspected that the damn demon was making an indecent joke.
“I hope you won’t take my past offense personally. I’m trying to restore Heaven’s reputation. We angels are immune to the corruption of the Seven Deadly Sins. Once an angel, always an angel...”
Wayne launched into a lengthy lecture from Heaven’s perspective, praising Hestia’s sacrifice and devotion. Regardless of whether she had joined the experiment voluntarily, her contribution was great, worthy of the remembrance and admiration of all angels.
Clap, clap, clap. x3
Wayne led the applause, and his two secretaries joined in. The great scumbag was joined by two lesser scumbags!
Hestia glared at the three of them and screamed in a muffled voice, “Mmmph—mmph—mmmph...”
“Alright, alright, I’ll unmuffle you. Look at you. You’re drooling all over the floor.”
Wayne removed the gag. Freed at last, she opened her mouth to unleash a torrent of curse words.
“Think carefully. Say one word wrong, and you won’t be saying anything else today.”
“...”
Hestia’s tongue shuddered, numb and sore. Without the ball gag that she had polished to a shine, it took a moment for her to remember how to speak.
She had contracted a habit, a very bad habit.
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