"Nice to meet you, my name is Zen." she spoke as the armor suit flowed around her.
"I know. The pilot's dossier was read and logged already. I'm just surprised to have been given a...mortal user. You have just reached Emperor Realm." the Gundam suit spoke with a voice vaguely familiar. Lady Lin, in particular.
"I have other clones doing the cultivation part. I only care about the Way of the Sword." Zen answered with a focused voice, as she flexed her hands and adjusted herself with controlling the suit's movements.
"We are equipped with Tier 9 weaponry. Your mortal senses and reflexes will be a hindrance. Dangerous even." the suit argued in a harsher tone.
Zen hummed inward as she realized the problem. "Pef didn't address this?"
"He is mostly a cook and mainly focused on combat Formations. Anyway, the dragon Drake has made a mistake in his build, a flaw in a haptic interface which will allow us to mind-merge for combat. Do you wish to attempt it?" the Gundam suit asked in warning voice.
Zen sighed inward. The dragon boy had only reached True God Realm with the aid of a Universe Pill and had never crafted something so complex so far. But Pef was in Tier 10. He didn't make mistakes.
The flaw had been left there intentionally. And, the Heaven themselves had approved it as well, with an Artifact Tribulation no less.
"You were meant to be my Suit. You were also bestowed an Artifact Rank via Tribulation." Zen spoke with a calm voice and sank into the haptic interface, finding her soul floating inside the command center of the suit, like a ghost watching a thousand screens at once.
"Oh, you're here! I notice the Domain screens for Shadow and Sword are already active." the suit's Avatar said while manifesting at her side.
A child body with a dragon's head on top pointed at the two Domain screens.
Zen nodded slowly as she looked around until she found the qi scan screen. On it, thousands of planet sized objects began to translate all around, while the Legion designations appeared underneath. Bee Hives. Space carrier and troop transports into one.
Defensive Formations flared all around the Legion's regiments, while the Legion fleet fired a massed volley into the nearest hive, exploding the construct into hexagonal shards and fragments.
More and more bee hive translated into battle, bringing with them trillions of enemies. The entire universe was on fire, beams of energy and flashes of Sword Qi filling the void all around.
Zen glanced at her side, to find her Master and husband, Pef sipping carelessly from a coconut fruit, seemingly more interested in making loud slurps from his straw.
'Is this multiverse-scale war really that boring?' Zen grumbled inward as she urged the suit to Blink forward and begin slicing.
Her Tier 9 wing-blade struck flawless through a dozen Tier 5 Bee Warriors, and her own cultivation jumped straight into the next realm without any effort. Zen felt a bit vindicated for not wasting thousands of years just to achieve another cultivation realm.
Another Domain screen powered up in front of her soul form, Air Dao, 3%, written at the bottom.
"Nice, our speed increased!" Gundam commented as it dodged reflexively from the assault of a Golden Realm Bee Commander.
The wing blade blurred and struck the Tier 7 Bee from a thousand directions at once, slicing off several insectile limbs and bouncing off the bee's own wings.
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'Soul River, it's your time to shine.' Zen murmured inward as she summoned her sword.
'Meh, it's only a Golden Immortal, but fine. I don't have a Bee Immortal in my collection.' the Soul River answered with it's usual superior tone, then easily dismantled the enemy beast into a million smaller parts, all with a single swing.
Zen cultivation rose once more, entering Sovereign Realm without much pomp.
'Yeah! We killed an Immortal!' Zen yelled inward, then fired a single Yin-Yang grenade at a Bee Hive opening thousands of exit ports to disgorge its troops. The explosion flung the suit back towards the Legion lines, while millions of Bee Warriors burned alive.
Her cultivation rose again, reaching the late stages of Sovereign Realm from that single blast.
'Caution! A Tier 8 enemy has locked on our signature.' the suit warned as it moved the Soul River sword to parry the incoming strike.
The impact was felt even through the suit and the defensive formations, forcing Zen to reform the Shadow Clone or suffer internal damage.
'Oh! I thought you died already, user Zen!' the suit remarked in a surprised tone.
'I did. But I came back. Now retreat us to the nearest Legion fort. We'll play defense until the big guns are taken care of.' Zen decided in a more conservative tone. She couldn't kill a Tier 8 by herself. Not yet.
As the Gundam Suit vanished in a Void Recall, the Tier 8 Bee Commander glanced at her wing, finding a crack still growing with soul energy, spreading constantly until the damaged wing broke off and fell away.
Worried, the Tier 8 Bee retreated as well to carry the news to her Bee Queen. The invaders had brought a new and dangerous hard-shell into play.
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'Catch that Bee Commander.' Pef urged his Spirit Taotie, and a ghostly claw slapped the injured bee into the Pagoda's Violet Realm.
'Oh? The suit works even better than we thought. A mortal injuring a Silver Realm Immortal?' The Taotie mused thoughtfully as he examined the captured bee like a curious child would examine a pinned butterfly.
'It wasn't the suit.' the glove said after a moment, also examining the damaged bee wing.
'Yes, I expect it was the sword. Soul River.' Pef added with a frown, and tapped an undamaged wing with his Heart Ruler.
His Sword Dao had passed 59 percent, and he already regained his Heart of the Sword, and with a Tier 10 in hand it was easy to slice through the Tier 8 wing. But the Ruler's cut was too clean and sharp. Not the same with what Zen had achieved. Or rather, what her sword had done by itself.
Pef needed to meld his soul into the strike, then push it carefully as to not destabilize the cut, and keep pushing into further dimensions.
It took a hundred tries until his sword managed to copy the exact type of crack, and Pef watched the soul-infused crack expand in a million dimensions, until the wing became to fragile to hold together and fell off from the captured Bee Commander.
'Your Sword Dao jumped by 7 percent.' the glove remarked in calm tone.
'Yes. Master Jin must be very close from attaining the Soul Sword. But his old sword already has it. He gave away what he searched for all his life.' Pef said with a grin, as the captured bee was being sliced into thin meat sheets and sent to his kitchen.
His other selves already salivated at the new dishes they could make, from soup and noodles to dumplings and crispy meat.
Gaining the extra Sword Dao will help him fight and eat even stronger beasts.
Hopefully, Pef would never run out of new things to cook.