OP Sister Chapter 416: Infiltrating The First Mechanical Tree

Listen While Reading: Opposing Destinies
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After battling hordes of robots and gigantic titan machines made out of hundreds of combined smaller robots, Zero One’s team glanced as the Mechanical Tree was not only blown up and sliced into two, but also freed the Demon King, whom Anna and her parents fought and then sealed until Song was resurrected. Naturally, they wanted nothing more than to join Anna’s party through all of what was happening, and they would have, if it weren’t for the armies of robots around them that never stopped coming.

Indeed, even as the Mechanical Tree was sliced apart, her group and the rest of the Immortals and Allied Machines that came with them had to continue fighting countless robots that kept coming. They were the ones who kept the Venerable and Anna safe as they did everything, and even more as they had to fend off the Demons.

Even now, they were still fighting. The sliced Mechanical Tree was not giving up at all, and the machine production, which they thought had slowed down, suddenly increased tenfold. More and more machines—of stranger, larger, and more vicious forms—started emerging one after another.

The gigantic Artificial Eyes glancing across the cracks in the world’s Dimensional Membrane used a special power, perhaps an Authority above anything Zero One had seen before, to strengthen all machines allied to them. Alongside them were some of Anna’s Egos, as well as the Will of the Heavenly Empress, which had been given a physical body and breathed life into—Yu Mingzhu, the embodiment of a Record Fragment herself. All of them ended up joining after they emerged from the mountain.

The two Divine Beasts, in their evolved states, which continued growing stronger with each passing second, had become their strongest fighters, while Zero One and her Sisters, combined into a single machine, were the third strongest among them. The strange woman that Anna’s Egos and Yu had found was nowhere to be seen now, as she had vanished the moment they stepped out of the mountain.

She wasn’t helping them at all, and after what she did for the two Primordial Beasts, she completely disappeared—although they were sure she was watching somewhere. Unlike the Venerables, who worried and cared about the world, she was completely indifferent to it and only did things to help others if those things amused her or were fun enough for her.

In the end, despite her immense power, this mysterious woman wasn’t reliable at all, and Anna decided not to include her in her plans, which had to shift quickly as several things happened at once. The plans changed rapidly. She and her family went to fend off the invading demons, while Zero One and the Primordial Beasts, leading the rest of their army, would fight the Berserk Machines, which were being produced by the hundreds each second.

Whatever factory the Mechanical Tree had, it worked using supernatural powers or abilities, as the assembly of units was simply ridiculously fast. Anna, through her many Egos, suspected that the Mechanical Tree—and the Supercomputer within it, which Zero One called “Mother”—might have become the Void Ruler’s Apostle, in a similar way that Blednica did for the Bleeding Scream.

Void Rulers couldn’t get Avatars or Protegees the same way Constellations could, mostly because they were ridiculously powerful. If they gave away a fragment of their power to a mortal, or even a Venerable, that being would quickly explode and die. Therefore, they chose “Apostles” and sometimes even “Priests” who worked with said Apostles, spreading the “teachings” of the Void Rulers across the Cosmos and the many Worlds they visited. The Death Apostles were called Apostles but were not affiliated with any Void Ruler, and the name of their organization was more of a mockery of the Void Ruler’s Apostles themselves.

“Ugh, these bastards never stop coming! I’m getting pissed off!” Wai Tian roared furiously, already letting go of her meditative state as she embraced wrath itself. Her beautiful form changed into a larger, bestial appearance as she used her Transformation Skill once more. With Anna’s Egos present, healing was taken care of by them. They not only healed wounds but could even alleviate exhaustion to an extent. This was not through simple magic or techniques, but through an extension of her Myriad Self Arts, where Anna shared her own Spiritual Vitality with her allies, making them stronger by buffing their stats and healing wounds over time.

Thanks to that, Wai Tian was able to overexert her own limits and go even further beyond. She felt her Physique and Spirit Body constantly developing as she battled and tore apart hundreds of robots with her claws.

“{Claws of the Fiery Tigress}!”

As dozens of giant machines shaped like wasps and dragons emerged before her, she rapidly activated her Skill once more. Her claws grew five times as big as before—when they could only go up to twice as big—and were encompassed by white flames, which she used to cut through the machines, generating blazing explosions as they were torn apart.

CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!

“Wai Tian, don’t overdo it! Stay close to us!” Yin Sheng, on the other side of the skies, rushed like a huge blur of black light. His body constantly divided into several Shadow Clones of himself. His original, smaller, and cute appearance had changed into a huge and beastly nine-tailed black fox entity. His giant claws tore through his foes as his shadows rapidly destroyed anything around him, covering a wide area surrounding him. With his clones, he was also able to help out his friends, sending them as extra defenses or to take lethal hits in place of his allies. With that, the rest of the Immortals, alongside Sara—Anna’s friend from Earth, who had grown closer to everyone else through her stay in this world—fought on.

“ELIMINATE.”

However, several specialized machines started appearing as Yin Sheng spread his Shadow Clones further and further around his allied forces. These machines contained powerful supernatural abilities, using specialized cores to absorb his shadows and completely destroy his clones without them even being able to fight back.

“T-That’s…! Are they adapting to our abilities?!” Yin Sheng quickly unsheathed all his daggers, firing them at the machines as he chased after them, destroying them one by one. Although they specialized in destroying elemental constructs, fighting someone head-on was not what they were made for, and they died rather quickly.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

“Everyone! Be careful! The Mechanical Tree is producing machines specialized in countering our abilities!” As Yin Sheng alerted everyone else, they quickly drew closer as a group. Even the raging, berserk Wai Tian regained some consciousness as Anna’s Egos calmed her mind.

“You don’t say! These guys were certainly designed to fight me!” Sara was also one of the unfortunate ones, swarmed by hundreds of machines specialized in countering her ghostly powers. Packed with Holy Light Laser Beams, they constantly destroyed her Phantasmal Techniques, negating most of her attacks and outright stopping her from passing through their physical bodies to destroy them internally—a technique she used to destroy dozens of robots easily.

“ELIMINATE.”

“EXTERMINATE THREAT.”

“DESTROY. DESTROY. DESTROY.”

The robots had not only begun to adapt to their abilities, but the power of the Void Ruler watching over them was making them stronger. They became faster, processed quicker, and could also adapt to techniques and stances, easily analyzing their foes and countering appropriately while using thousands of allied forces. Sara parried their blows with her two black-colored swords, specifically made by Anna by using her original dagger weapons and fusing them with various materials harvested from this world.

CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!

As she was being attacked constantly, several shadows of Yin Sheng came to help, only for them to be quickly absorbed by Shadow-Eating, spider-shaped machines nearby, completely destroying his strategy.

“Ah! Dammit!” As this happened, however, a larger shadow loomed above Sara. A giant machine piloted by three Androids swung its metallic hands down, destroying dozens of robots at once!

CRAAASH!

As the machine destroyed them, its chest glowed brightly, releasing a giant cannon of blue-colored electromagnetic energy. It completely decimated the surviving machines and then moved around. The Immortals shifted out of the way as it disintegrated hundreds more robots.

BOOOMMM!!!

“Zero One! And her sisters…! Thank you… You saved my skin.” Sara was grateful, though she looked slightly exhausted. Anna quickly fed her Souls from her Urn, making her grow “revitalized” even as a half-ghost entity.

“We’re almost there. Don’t lose focus, Sara. I’ll take care of your back,” one of Anna’s Egos said. It was actually Bastet herself. Despite being Bastet, as one of Anna’s Egos, she shared part of her memories and knowledge, knew Sara very well, and could even speak for Anna too.

“Alright, Bastet, I’m counting on you,” Sara nodded, rushing forward while Zero One and her sisters charged to the frontlines.

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