God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.
Chapter 890 - 890: The Inception of War (3).

Cain stared at the humanoid hunk of metal in front of him, his gaze mysterious.

Slowly, he raised an arm.

In sync, the strange golden statue raised its arm as well.

"Creepy." He muttered.

He stared blankly into space as he stared at the series of system prompts that had popped up after forming the [Body and Soul] contract with the {Golden Steel Herald].

***

[Body and Soul Contract]:

Type: Elemental.

Details: Creation of a Soul in exchange for a lifetime servitude, or until the host's life is terminated.

Note: This contract cannot be renewed.

{Congratulations to the host... The contract has been completed}.

{+100,000 System points}.

***

{Golden Steel Herald}: Level 260 (Godly, Tier 2).

Strength: 250,000.

Agility: 300,000.

Defense: 7,000

HP: 2,000,000/2,000,000 .

MP: 5,000,000/5,000,000.

Spirit: 100,000/100,000.

Skills: Elemental Heart, Metal Elemental, Steel Chain Deluge, Divine Essence of Metallurgy, Puppet Soul, Blade Spirit, Transmutation.

{Elemental Heart} (passive): The Golden Steel Herald possesses a core of living metallic energy, functioning as its engine, and contains the driving force of its will. It does not eat, sleep, or breathe, and is unaffected by exhaustion or poison. As long as its heart remains, the Herald is undying.

{Metal Elemental}: As a pure manifestation of elemental metal, the Herald is immune to corrosion, decay, and highly resistant to flames and electricity. It can also absorb the dormant power within magical ores and make them its own.

{Steel Chain Deluge}: The Herald can produce an endless stream of enchanted steel chains from its body or the surrounding metal. These chains are unbreakable through normal means and exist as extension of the elemental's will.

{Divine Essence of Metallurgy}: The Herald holds perfect mastery over the nature of metal and all its sub forms. It can deconstruct and reconstruct any structure created of metal, turning it into an extension of its will and spirit.

{Puppet Soul} (passive): The Golden Steel Herald possesses consciousness, but it does not have a soul. Once born as a puppet, it has regained its initial purpose. It can be remotely controlled by the will of its master. It is immune to mind-affecting magic, emotion manipulation, and spirit-binding techniques. It cannot be possessed, dominated, or deceived by any creature other than its master.

{Blade Spirit}: The Golden Steel Herald can abandon its physical form and take on the shape of a Soul-bound weapon of immense power. In this state, it fuses its consciousness with the host, drastically increasing their attack potential, combat instincts, and metal attribute magic abilities. The transformation requires a massive expenditure of spirit energy and can only be sustained for a limited time. While in weapon form, the Herald cannot act independently but retains awareness. Once dismissed or depleted, the Herald must recover before it can be used again.

{Transmutation} (Lvl 1): The Herald can change the properties and molecular structure of its body and metal structures attached to its will, making it as soft as a cloud, or harder than diamonds at the first stage. It can also manipulate and change the shape and density of its body at will.

***

Cain couldn't help but be impressed.

'Its base stats are incredibly high. And then, there's these skills.'

His brows furrowed,

'It is the perfect puppet. With these skills, it can be a war machine if I choose so. The possibilities are endless.'

But that was not where it ended. Not only would he be able to utilize the Herald in combat, he could very well use it to create more weapons and equipment.

'The details of its Divine Essence of Metallurgy is a bit different from mine. It seems even more powerful.'

It seemed there was a limit to how much affinity a human like himself could have for a particular element compared to a creature that was born of it.

That much wasn't surprising at all.

He sighed.

Enoch, the Steel Herald kept staring at him silently.

Well, he thought it was, but with itself lack of eyes, it was still hard to tell.

'Well, I guess we could call this a win?'

He felt a few curious gazes burning into his back.

He smiled wryly, but decided to ignore them and finish his preparations for the upcoming battle.

There was not much time left.

He retrieved the {Lonely Dragon} Warblade from his inventory.

'It's a good sword. But it can be improved even more.'

He wanted to pull all the stops. Anything that would give him an advantage, he would make use of it to the fullest.

He placed his Zweihänder right in front of Enoch.

The Steel Herald tilted its head, as though to express its confusion.

Cain chuckled,

"I never knew you would be this good. I am going to take advantage of you to the fullest, so prepare yourself."

The Steel Herald remained silent. Cain wasn't sure if he was seeing things, but it appeared as though the Elemental had shivered slightly.

'I am definitely seeing things.'

He cleared his throat then pulled out three strange ores from his inventory.

One was a black rock with flashes of purple lightning swimming in its surface.

The second was quite similar to the first, only instead of purple sparks of lightning, it burned with an eerie blue flame.

The last one was a small hunk of unassuming silver metal.

{Lightning Rockcore}, {Blue Emberstone}, {Silverbud}.

All three were mystical grade materials Pudding had chances upon. Correspondingly, they were the only mystical grad materials he had in his possession at the moment.

Coming across things like this was nothing but luck, so he had to be smart with how he made use of them.

He pointed at the three ores,

"These three... Can you extract their power and transfer it into my sword?"

This wasn't something he was capable of. While he could smelt the metals and use them to craft weapons, he couldn't just extract their essence and transfer it into the weapons.

However, this Elemental with the body of enchanted steel, could.

"That is possible."

It stretched its arms forward. Their turned into metallic tendrils, reaching out and making contact with the three ores.

A moment later, the tendrils wrapped around the ores and pulled them into the Steel Herald's body.

Cain brushed his hair back as he watched curiously.

It only took a few moments.

The tendrils were reshaped back into the form of human hands.

With those hands, it picked the {Lonely Dragon} Warblade.

Cain stared carefully, not willing to miss a single beat.

He watched as hundreds of small wires spread out from Enoch's palms and fingers, wrapping all around the weapon, with some wriggling through the outer coating and into the weapon itself.

"It will take a few minutes. Please, wait patiently." Enoch said.

Cain chuckled. He continued to silently observe.

The power within the three mystical grade ores were meant to boost the attack potency.

His Zweihänder was heavy, and every swing of it generated enough power to split a mountain in half.

However, it was a bit difficult to swing around.

Although Cain was stronger than a thousand bulls, its weight was significant to him.

His old weapon, the {Scale of the Abyssal Flame} had been heavy too. It possessed a skill that could actively increase its weight. Yet, despite not having such an attached skill, the {Lonely Dragon} was even heavier.

It wouldn't be an understatement to say the weapon weight as much as an actual dragon.

However, the power of the three attached skills, {Blood Dragon}, {Gold Dragon}, and {Demon Dragon}, almost made up for this tremendous weight.

{Blood Dragon} was a vampiric skill that absorbed the blood of enemies he slew to boost the quality of his weapon. Its sharpness, its speed, the weight of each strike.

All these qualities would increase with every enemy he slew.

{Gold Dragon} was a defensive skill, instead of an offensive one, although it didn't improve his defenses directly. Instead, it improved his stability, meaning his ability to launch counterattacks and parey dangerous attacks was increased tremendously whilst the {Lonely Dragon} was in this form.

The final form of {Lonely Dragon}, {Demon Dragon}, was more of turning the blade into an amplification conduit.

Every slash, stab, swing and cut was made incredibly lethal, and all energy based attacks even more so.

This form was particularly useful when dealing with a larger, more powerful opponent.

As it was, the weapon was already so powerful.

Its only downside, was its weight.

The optimal adjustment would have been to find a way to reduce its weight.

However, Cain was of a different mind.

Instead of decreasing its weight, he wanted to increase its attack potency.

He watched as the {Lonely Dragon} greedily absorbed the essence Enoch fed to it.

He was plenty strong and fast to be able to swing the blade with little issue.

If he could make the weapon even more dangerous and wicked, it would be even more lethal than making it lighter.

If anything, he wanted it even heavier. So it would pack more of a punch.

A few minutes later, Cain watched the process come to a gradual end.

The steel wires were absorbed back into the Steel Herald's body.

It turned to Cain,

"It has been done. Is there anything else you would like to do?"

Cain chuckled,

"Enthusiastic, I see. Seems like you are finally warming up to me."

Silence...

Cain awkwardly cleared his throat.

Then with excited eyes, he snatched his weapon out of the metallic hands and quickly went through the system prompts that followed.