Yet Belial had been devouring it nonstop, completely fine and even enjoying it. Watching this, Lilith raised her estimation of his status as a god-favored being yet again. Maybe he was a descendant of divine blood. "The fourth one, we're here."
"Finally, almost done!" Bella wiped nonexistent sweat from her brow, tossed her wrench aside, and looked at the heavily modified Sky Island.
Its area had doubled, the layout looked like a rebuilt fortress, and most importantly, a massive cannon now extended from the island below. "So, Bella… what does this Sky Island, which looks like a magitech weapon, actually do?"
Louis, who had taken off his coat and draped a towel over his shoulders after helping with the work, asked from the side. Just seeing so much Ancient Steel being used had left him stunned. Was that material sold in bulk now? "You'll know soon enough. It's obvious, really. It's a cannon, specialized against Nanometal. This is my backup plan."
"If I get one good shot, even if it doesn't kill the target, it can at least force the metal to break itself down. Then we'll have a chance." "…That sounds impressive."
Not really understanding, Louis decided that smiling was enough.
Nanomachines are extremely hard to kill, and Bella knows this better than anyone, because their design was based on a high-level existence, making ordinary physical impact almost useless. A more effective method is to use extreme temperatures, put simply, cold fears heat and heat fears cold. Of course, forcing raw damage into them until they die, like Belial does, also works.
At this point, Nanomachines had long since lost their cluster networking function, and continuing to control them would require a unified high-level central core, according to Bella's calculations. Those massive erosion phenomena that used entire cities as basic units could be seen as sub-nodes of this structure. As for the highest core of this system, Supreme Overlord, there was no doubt it was the Evil God itself, slowly gathering strength.
"With my current setup, trying to kill a high-level existence, even a half-crippled one, is a bit of a fantasy," she said. "But nobody said it has to be just me."
Bella had once calculated the temperature of Belial's breath, which had spiked into the terrifying seven-digit range. It was incredibly strong, but not necessarily enough to completely destroy a centrally governed Nanomachines cluster, especially with that kind of immortality layered with the power of Evil God. Since her own output could not reach Belial's level, she chose the other extreme of temperature, absolute cold.
"By connecting my own core, adding that thing called Draconic Magic, a special Magic structure that absorbs heat, and combining it with my precise calculations," she muttered. "Then integrating the Rule-Based Technology that can still operate in this era, the ultimate weapon, Absolute Almost Zero Cannon, was born."
"…Oh, that sounds impressive," Louis replied. He did not understand any of the unfamiliar terms and could only smile awkwardly before quietly going back to hauling debris.
"That is only natural, but sadly my materials and time only allow this unstable version," Bella continued. "And the most important function, turning into a humanoid robot, is not added yet. Damn it."
This cannon could absorb energy and generate temperatures near minus two hundred degrees, forming a beam attack, and its energy band was also encrypted by Bella. The band was similar to an electromagnetic signal and forcibly issued commands to Nanomachines within a certain range, pushing them into self-destruction mode. That should more completely wipe out the remaining Nanomachines and deny Evil God any chance to revive.
She only installed this single cannon and a basic defensive Barrier, leaving out all other weapons since there would only be one chance anyway. Thinking further, she frowned and muttered that her old memory databases were probably still in her main body, and if everything was destroyed, she likely would not remember much at all. She also wondered why she had entered sleep mode in the first place, then gave up when it felt like her CPU was overheating.
"Forget it, killing something that threatens the world matters more," she said. "If sacrificing my database solves it, that is a good death."
A sharp boom rang out, followed by a heavy impact, as something weighing tens of thousands of tons slammed into the ground. The shock snapped Bella out of her thoughts. She stared blankly and asked, "Why does my home look like this now?"
"Wow, this is insanely cool," someone shouted. "Besides firing the cannon, can it turn into a super handsome robot?"
After casually killing six more targets, leaving only four on the progress bar, Belial finally flew back with Lilith, who was starting to struggle with the operation of the Reactor. The remaining targets were clustered together anyway, so it made sense to rest, apply buffs, and finish them in one go. Lilith first saw the heavily altered Sky Island and charged inside angrily, clutching half of a Magic Staff.
Meanwhile, Belial circled around outside, inspecting the island's mechanical structure and wondering which parts counted as the head, arms, and legs. He even thought about whether it could be turned into some kind of ultimate form. "If I coat myself with a few layers of red and pretend, could I pass as a real Burning Mode supernova dragon?" he muttered.
He could activate Burning Mode mode himself, and his birth was also tied to a supernova, so why not. He even wondered whether Miss Witch could count as a senior Witch caster, since the elements were similar.
Inside the castle, Lilith stormed in and delivered judgment to the trembling Bella. She grabbed Bella's face hard, knowing her body was metal and incredibly tough, so she did not hold back. Bella felt real pain, since she used to secretly turn off pain simulation when hit with a Magic Staff, but recently it somehow hurt for real.
After a good pinch, Lilith finally calmed down and realized she understood what Bella was thinking. She had just lost her temper in the moment. "I was not like this before," she said slowly. "When did I become so short-tempered?"
After thinking it over, she remembered it started a few months ago, when she saw her home being spun around like a top and beaten. Her current temperament and values, along with the Shard, were clearly no longer what they used to be. After a long explanation, she finally forgave Bella, and the results were mostly what she had expected just from imagining the appearance and function.
"Why did you come back so fast," Bella asked later. "I have not even finished the modifications."
"That dragon wiped them all out," came the reply. "The remaining three targets are rushing in the same direction and clustering together, so I was worried something might happen."
"So fast?" Bella was shocked again. She had planned to finish tuning the weapon and then surprise a few unlucky targets, but now it looked like a boss fight was coming already. The feeling of clearing everything too easily made it all seem unreal.
Lilith felt the same. As for whether it was a trap, the cities had indeed been destroyed and their power swallowed by the dragon, so if it was a trap, the scale was absurdly large. Still, the dragon's strength meant the upcoming battle had better odds, so Bella decided to temporarily move her core into the charging matrix.
She still could not understand why a creature or machine could experience such an unreasonable exponential rise in power when energy or heat built up too much. That was a good question, and Belial wanted to know the answer too.
On the other side, Ludwig was confused. "I anticipated this possibility, but how did that dragon even find them?" Compared to other cities filled with flesh and bones, this expanding, living city was full of technological aesthetics and strange vitality, pulsing like breath.
Sharp, geometric metal buildings rose from the ground, merging into a unified whole. Energy spires, laser cannons, and electromagnetic disintegration beams were constantly being constructed, forming a dense web of firepower. Underground, metal roots like tree roots plunged into magma to draw geothermal energy, while Nanometal at the edges devoured surrounding matter and multiplied wildly.
Countless anchors twisted the space into chaos, forming a Laws domain close to the Divine Kingdom, where puppetry and self-centered life concepts merged. Nothing that was not part of it was allowed, and every grain of dust became its incarnation. Within the city's range, physical Laws were redefined, and twisted rules manifested a fragment of the old world for Ludwig.
Where the silver-white metal tide passed, all living souls and flesh were sacrificed as food. Hundreds of millions of souls restored Ludwig slightly. Beneath it all, suppressed kin continued to revive and feed power into the Nanometal city, reshaping it further.
Ludwig freely borrowed that power, ignoring its erosion, and used Laws to swallow and transform even the surrounding ecological System into his own domain. Though this would turn his soul into a brood nest for the other, it was a gamble, and winning meant taking everything. Still, he had prepared data and surprises for the dragon he feared.
"But I have not done anything yet, and I have already lost so much?" he growled. He had sent out only twelve city nodes, and nine were destroyed in a single day, in an extremely short time.