Taming the Protagonist

Volume 2

Chapter 108: Fantasy Armament · Deus Ex Machina · Part Two

“Ivora!!!”

With Ephithand’s tyrannical roar, gravity tore through the world’s barriers.

Compared to Flamel’s elegant gate-opening or Ivora’s precise space-twisting, Ephithand’s methods were crude, yet they showcased her terrifying violence.

This Empress, yearning to ascend to the seventh tier through Anselm, clearly restrained her power.

She could uproot or flatten the Imperial Capital in a thought but didn’t—not even igniting her Flame-Feasting fire.

Clearly, in Ephithand’s eyes, needing to destroy the Imperial Capital to deal with these two powerless brats would make the term “divine” laughable.

In the pit blasted by Ivora’s twisted space, Ephithand’s return unleashed a ferocious shockwave.

Stepping from the torn space, she roared at Ivora, who looked at her with strange eyes:

“I will—”

Boom!!!

The second deafening roar to shake the Imperial Capital that night.

Blinding white light blasted from above toward the just-returned Ephithand, the pure destruction within making Ivora’s eyes twitch.

“…Anselm, you really.”

She looked up, murmuring: “You sure can hide things.”

There, floating, was… a demon god.

Only “demon god” could describe that monster, gleaming with dark iron light yet clearly not forged of steel.

Ivora saw it with her own eyes: from Anselm’s wrist, from that dull, unremarkable gray-black bracelet, after his inexplicable call, a torrent of iron-gray particles surged, blotting out the sky!

Behind Anselm, Mingfuluo’s shadow merged into the endless particles, swiftly enveloping him, expanding rapidly as if without limit, transforming into a solid entity gleaming with cold iron light.

The gray-black particle flood built thick, angular foot armor from the base.

The only gray-white accents in the dark hue extended upward through sharp, streamlined leg armor.

At the chest, a massive snake head roared, its black maw as if devouring all.

Sharp shoulder plates rose like blade-crafted wings.

The arm armor coiled like snake bodies—on the left, a snake head faced forward, its open mouth forming a cannon at the forearm; on the right, a snake tail extended, forming a sleek black blade reflecting cold moonlight.

Behind this iron demon god, a ring of an ouroboros floated, countless iron-gray particles pouring from it, continuously refining its form.

“Severance System online.”

“Annihilation System online.”

“Lunar Cascade System online.”

“Autonomous floating annihilation cannons assembling…”

“All defensive force fields ready.”

“Current elemental composition: twenty-six types.”

Inside the iron demon god, Anselm sat in a cockpit, a screen displaying complex data streams while showing the outside view.

A wisp of iron-gray particles brushed Anselm’s cheek.

The young Hydra turned, seeing the particles form the petite woman he hadn’t seen in so long.

She sat on the edge of the spacious cockpit, legs crossed, hands in the pockets of her unchanging white coat.

She showed no playful smile, didn’t pounce on Anselm, not at all like a lucky soul freed from the abyss, only saying calmly:

“Long time no see, Anselm.”

“Long time no see, Arlo.”

“What?” Despite her petite frame, Miss Mingfuluo’s presence was formidable as she tilted her head slightly. “You’re willing to call me that now?”

The young Hydra raised his hands in surrender: “Apologies can wait until after tonight, alright?”

Mingfuluo nodded slightly: “Just this once.”

Saying so, she boldly hopped into Anselm’s lap, sitting calmly.

“For the Fantasy Armament… a cockpit is purely decorative, right?”

Anselm looked at the array of seemingly impressive but useless “decorations,” then at the control sticks on either side, chuckling.

“I’d never built this before, so I had to go with the wild ideas you told me about.”

“Though I could control it alone…”

Mingfuluo glanced at Anselm: “You needed some sense of involvement, didn’t you?”

Anselm raised an eyebrow: “Without me, this thing couldn’t even manifest.”

He shook his wrist, the once-ordinary gray bracelet now an ouroboros.

“Yes, yes… my driver, sure you want to chat now?”

Mingfuluo said calmly: “Detecting intense spatial fluctuations. Ephithand, banished to the Zero Point Labyrinth by Ivora, will return in four seconds.”

Anselm gripped the control stick.

He hadn’t expected Mingfuluo to remember the mecha stories he casually mentioned three years ago, even replicating a cockpit… utterly meaningless for this fantastical construct.

This absurd, unreal feeling greatly eased Anselm’s tension.

Though he hadn’t felt much pressure, the weight of the machine, transmitted through the stick, gave him… a sense of security.

The petite woman in his lap said calmly: “Spatial fluctuations intensifying rapidly. Ephithand will arrive in four seconds.”

The moment Anselm touched the machine, he understood how to control it, how to unleash its power. He exhaled softly, saying:

“Then… let’s make this quick.”

Under Ivora’s shocked gaze, the floating iron demon god’s chest, its roaring snake head, gathered a white light that could burn the onlooker’s eyes instantly!

“Destruction, decay, termination, light… eight elements?!”

This seemingly plain, unremarkable light cannon combined eight extreme-damage elements. Normally, mashing elements like clay would blow yourself up!

Completely baffled, Ivora felt genuine… death threat from the light gathering at the demon god’s chest cannon.

If she took this hit head-on, she’d die, even in her Ether Armament.

Ivora was certain.

This strike was both a raw, unadorned blast and a masterful technique, fusing eight extreme elements with immense energy.

Thus, the moment Ephithand appeared, ultimate destruction descended.

A bottomless pit formed where the mad Empress stood, her figure gone.

But the Deus Ex Machina didn’t pause.

From the ouroboros ring behind it, dozens of massive floating cannons emerged, firing wildly into the air!

The ferocious firepower further shattered and expanded the pit Ivora had blasted, destroying half the palace cluster at Tianxin City’s highest point, the Empire’s symbol of majesty.

But a closer look revealed that under this city-leveling barrage, the targeted… wasn’t hit at all.

The destructive beams, striking her, were fully deflected by the distorted force field around her.

“Looks like you’ve prepared well too, Anselm.”

Ephithand, drifting slowly toward the iron demon god, raised her hand expressionlessly.

“Such… a restless child.”

The gleaming iron demon god began to distort under her clenched fingers, an invisible, terrifying force compressing it from outside, threatening to tear the machine apart with raw “power”!

“Damage rate seventeen percent, twenty percent…”

No longer wearing glasses, Mingfuluo’s eyes still flickered with streams of light, yet the dire situation didn’t faze her. She said calmly: “Second contingency activated.”

Her body… emanated an utterly pure abyssal aura!

“Corresponding elements collected, loaded, applied.”

As Mingfuluo murmured, her form inexplicably grew fainter but soon solidified again.

Anselm, gripping the control stick, glanced at her without a word, then maneuvered the Deus Ex Machina, raising its blade-equipped right arm, slashing down at the ant-like Ephithand!

The dark gleam on the blade sliced through everything.

Ephithand looked up at the mountain-like blade, sneering: “A child, always a child.”

Boom!

The massive blade, striking five meters above Ephithand’s head, halted as if hitting an unbreakable invisible barrier, unable to advance an inch.

The terrifying impact from the blade’s halt cut through the pit’s walls like a knife, spreading further, causing the palace cluster—already centered with a giant pit—to rumble and collapse completely!

In the lower city, people on the streets stared dumbfounded at the Imperial Capital’s highest point, watching the dazzling splendor crumble into ruins.

The impact didn’t just affect the vast palace cluster.

A third of Tianxin City’s upper district, closest to the palace, felt it too.

Those farther away were luckier, with only shattered glass or cracked houses.

But closer ones had homes and even ground torn apart by the shock.

And this was merely a simple clash between the Deus Ex Machina and Ephithand.

Looking at the giant blade stalled above her, Ephithand narrowed her eyes: “You think this can—”

The shadow of termination descended instantly.

The blade inexplicably pierced Ephithand’s flawless force field, aimed to cleave a divine being, slashing down at her!

“Target hit.”

Mingfuluo reported immediately: “Death, plague, decay successfully attached… More importantly, we found a way to bypass her gravity.”

What made a sixth-tier divine’s power so great? What force could oppose it?

Mingfuluo had pondered this for three years.

Divine species could unleash ultimate destruction with a wave, create supreme works with a thought—who could grasp their essence?

Probe their secrets?

Fortunately, several secret tomes on divine species in the Hydra Mansion’s underground library inspired her.

The divine species’ curse stemmed from abyssal erosion, their power from the abyss’s gifts—endless surges of world origin information.

By focusing on parsing specific information, they understood that part of the world’s essence.

In their dominated domains, their will’s changes were the world’s changes.

Their power… was the world itself.

This was the supreme status, eternal companion to the abyss, a great authority rivaling that endless curse.

So how to oppose a monster whose power equated to wielding the world?

The answer was… there wasn’t one.

Mingfuluo found no possibility.

Despite all her knowledge, she couldn’t find a force to rival a divine species.

Only a divine species could oppose another—that was the only solution.

But this didn’t stop her from seeking power to help Anselm fight fate.

No way to oppose a divine species meant giving up?

She should find the next best power.

No matter what, she’d do her utmost—Mingfuluo always approached her ideals this way, and now she applied that to giving Anselm power.

The strongest power she could create, with a chance of realization, was one.

The third-stage mechanized armor, so absurd its realization was near impossible, dubbed [Fantasy Armament] by Anselm.

The first-stage Material Armament was merely a “powerful entity” forged from strong materials and alchemical techniques, its power set by its creator, its limits fixed at creation.

The second-stage Ether Armament amplified the user’s control and mastery of ether and elements, pushing them further in raw destructive output.

But the third-stage Fantasy Armament… What made it fantastical?

It was modeled after divine species.

Since divine power came from receiving and mastering world information, understanding endless information in a domain to wield the world as a god, why not apply this to mechanized armor?

If armor could, like a divine species, endure the flood of world information, gain the abyss’s gifts, and turn erosion into world cognition and rule mastery, it might not dominate a domain like a divine species, but with such an effect… who, besides a divine species, could oppose this monster?

But this was impossible.

Alchemical constructs were created by transcendents, their ether flowing through inscribed circuits, their elements granted by creators.

As a lifeless object, it couldn’t be eroded by the abyss, but thus couldn’t perceive world origin information, let alone understand, digest, or master it.

Thus, it was only a “fantastical” armament.

But Mingfuluo… realized this fantasy.

If a lifeless construct, even if eroded by the abyss, couldn’t use it… then make the construct “alive.”

A living entity capable of parsing power from the abyss’s infinite information, mimicking divine species’ world domination, turning that power into reality.

If achieved, building such armor would face no limits—no need for material strength or structural logic.

When a living Fantasy Armament drew power from the abyss, all issues became “natural.”

Need an indestructible body?

Seek [Strength], [Stability], or [Immortality]’s essence from the abyss and imbue it.

Need pure destruction?

Find essences of [Destruction], [Ruin], [Void], and infuse them into cannons and blades.

As long as the living Fantasy Armament could perceive and understand the abyss’s countless possibilities… its power came not from a creator but the world itself!

So Mingfuluo made her decision.

She resolved to become that “living entity.”

To become the Fantasy Armament, Anselm’s weapon itself.

Destroying her physical shell, using Nidhogg—decomposable to the smallest units—as her soul’s vessel, abandoning the safe Celestial Path, immersing her soul… in the abyss!

The danger Mingfuluo faced was far greater than most transcendents choosing the abyss, who kept their souls in suitable vessels.

But Mingfuluo’s chosen vessel was Nidhogg, formless, so minute even fifth-tier transcendents couldn’t detect it, only bearing a soul when gathered, utterly unstable.

Probing the abyss this way, how much erosion could she withstand? How much origin could she perceive? A soul in such a fragile vessel… should be consumed the instant it touched the abyss.

If abyss-walking transcendents were paper dissolving in water, Mingfuluo was the tiniest paper scraps, unable to resist the abyss’s flood.

So Anselm called her approach reckless, beyond even Flamel’s imagination.

Perhaps only Mingfuluo could achieve this.

Once she set a goal, no matter the cost, the sacrifice, or the feasibility, she’d act to realize it.

…When that goal was herself, she was so remarkable… It was hard to know how to face her.

“Arlo, honestly, how long did your soul, your consciousness… linger in the abyss?” Anselm suddenly asked.

“I don’t know. In a metaphysical conceptual realm, time doesn’t exist.”

Mingfuluo closed her eyes: “It felt like I drifted forever, yet… just an instant.”

“Was it smooth?”

“Not smooth. I could feel I failed the first time.”

“…The first time?” Anselm paused, then quickly understood, sighing softly, “You and… Helen.”

“I split part of my soul to Helen, and Helen was a fragment, incomplete. We overlooked that… neither of us was stable enough.”

Mingfuluo murmured: “Even switching our soul’s vessel to Nidhogg, upon touching the abyss… it collapsed instantly.”

“We weren’t complete.”

“So you’re now…”

“Helen is me, Mingfuluo is me.” Mingfuluo said calmly, “You don’t need two names.”

Just as Flamel’s “Elnilisa” was wholly Elnilisa, Helen and Mingfuluo were essentially the same, two identical souls.

Only different experiences and memories shaped different personalities.

“If you want…”

The petite woman paused, turning to lean on Anselm’s shoulder, whispering:

“In special moments, calling you something else isn’t out of the question.”

“…Daddy.”

Anselm pressed her shoulders, his tone odd: “I think I still know too little about you, Arlo.”

“Likewise.” Mingfuluo gave a faint smile, “Meeting you made me realize how hollow and shallow my life was.”

Resting in Anselm’s arms, she said softly yet firmly: “So I’m here to defeat the fate that wants everything to follow its set path.”

At that moment, a terrifying fluctuation emanated from the pit.

“Hehehe… hahahahaha! What a thing! What an incredible thing!”

The crazed, manic laughter echoed over the ruins.

Ephithand, slashed to the ground by Anselm, floated up again, disheveled and bloodied, yet without wounds.

But closer inspection revealed… a pink scar from her left shoulder to right hip.

Anselm’s strike, infused with six destructive essences, had genuinely harmed Ephithand, nearly cleaving her in two.

Madness, arrogance, underestimation… and the blow suffered while seeking seventh-tier possibility, plus her suppressed power, brought Ephithand to this state.

The reigning Empress… wounded to this extent by two “brats” without inherited power.

“Was Flamel working on this, hm? Did he get into trouble creating it? No… it doesn’t matter, hehehe… it doesn’t matter. I’ll kill… kill this cursed traitor! Then pin you, brat, in the Empire’s grandest square and violate you! This armament is mine too!”

“Seventh tier… the Empire… transcending the abyss!”

Boom—!

Roaring blood-flame surged skyward, the frenzied flames as if venting, burning even the heavens.

“All… mine!”

“…” Mingfuluo, in Anselm’s lap, frowned, “She’s completely mad.”

Their earlier banter was because both recognized Ephithand could no longer restrain her power after that strike.

She was nearly fully insane.

Not just the sky-burning flames, the entire Imperial Capital trembled as if hit by a massive quake under her gravity.

If she exerted full force, the city would shatter in seconds!

And this… was with her power suppressed.

If Ephithand were still a sixth-tier divine species, there’d be no chance of winning.

While Ephithand, injured, unleashed her power wildly, Anselm and Mingfuluo weren’t just chatting idly.

The Deus Ex Machina was gathering its final strength.

“Not enough time…”

Anselm sighed, shouting to Ivora, struggling against Ephithand:

“Ivora, ten more seconds, final ten seconds!”

“Go to hell!”

In Anselm’s lap, Mingfuluo’s figure grew fainter… this time, even more ethereal than when she appeared to Ivora, as if a touch would make her vanish.

Mingfuluo was a genius, not a god.

Turning herself into the Deus Ex Machina through the Hydra Mansion’s secret tomes was a miracle among miracles.

Repeatedly drawing power from the abyss, seeking essences, and applying them… had brought her to the edge of collapse.

Now, Mingfuluo… couldn’t sustain the Fantasy Armament long.

When the Deus Ex Machina descended, her soul entered a self-destruct countdown.

She didn’t tell Anselm.

This foolish boy, having chosen to let go for his father, would lose his resolve if he knew.

I said, Anselm, I’d give you the power to shatter fate.

Mingfuluo knew Anselm, who saw the future, valued her highly, meaning she had unmatched achievements in that future.

But she didn’t care, because that future wasn’t hers, nor what she needed.

Ideals and Anselm—she wouldn’t accept losing either.

Her ideals were in Anselm’s eyes; Anselm was her ideal.

This was Mingfuluo Zege’s resolve, becoming the greatest anomaly in fate’s reasoned plans.

Becoming the Deus Ex Machina, solely for Anselm.

And… she needed to find more, critical essences.

To defeat Ephithand now, she must—

“Arlo.”

As Mingfuluo murmured inwardly, her figure growing fainter, Anselm suddenly spoke:

“You think you can fool me twice?”

“…”

Ten seconds.

Mingfuluo didn’t respond, but Anselm, smiling, threw out another question.

“Do you know who I trust the most?”

Nine seconds.

“Anselm!!!”

The blood-flame in the sky transformed into an inverted sword of judgment, plummeting toward Anselm!

“I don’t know if you’ll be upset, but that person right now… actually…”

“It’s not you yet.”

“Die, you old hag! I’ll rip your head off and feed it to the dogs!”

A girl’s frenzied roar grew closer.

“How dare you… harm Anselm!”

A wolf, charging thousands of miles across ruins, leaped at the pit’s edge, soaring toward the sky, rushing headlong at the descending sword of judgment.

“So, to earn the same treatment as Hit in the future.”

He grabbed the stunned Mingfuluo’s hand, pressing it to his heart, smiling gently:

“We have eight seconds left.”