SWNOVELXO Chapter 54: To Obtain Power
Using his bare hands, Sunny tore apart the defeated automaton. Previously, such a notion would have been ridiculous — however, it seemed like the robot had lost it's mysterious qualities after being destroyed.
As such, the steel plates couldn't resist the dire strength of an Awakened Demon.
Haphazardly removing the plates from the chassis, Sunny's eyes scanned the inside of the automaton. The wires and circuitry were drenched in water, and scorch marks were littered all over the inner mechanisms.
Moving the obstructing machinery out of the way, Sunny attempted to search for something that would be out of place within the chassis of an automaton. He bunched up a few wires within his hand, before violently ripping it out as he casually tossed it behind him.
As he did so, the other four circled around the destroyed automaton, curious expressions appearing on their faces. They didn't interrupt Sunny as he searched through the wet, flooded interior of the robot — which was starting to get on his nerves, as his hands were getting wet.
After a few silent minutes of digging, Sunny located an unusual compartment right where the back of the robot was. Pulling it open, Sunny found five smooth, glowing crystals. He removed one of the crystals from the robot, staring at it for a moment. He knew what it was.
The crystal was a Soul Shard.
Soul Shards were the physical manifestation of broken Soul Cores, and would be found within the bodies of any slain Nightmare Creature. These Soul Shards could be consumed by Awakened simply by crushing them, increasing their overall essence capacity until they've absorbed one thousand of them.
Once they increased their Rank, all the essence recieved from absorbing Soul Shards is used to provide them with even more strength. By doing so, the Soul Shard counter would reset to zero, allowing them to saturate their Soul Core from the beginning once again.
For example, if a Sleeper were to absorb one thousand Dormant Soul Shards, five hundred Awakened Soul Shards, or two hundred and fifty Ascended Soul Shards, they would fully saturate their core — allowing them to reach the peak of their strength as a Sleeper.
However, if they were to Awaken, the essence that was absorbed from the Soul Shards would be expended during the Awakening process, increasing their overall power even more. Once this occurs, their Soul Shard counter was set back to zero, which allows them to saturate their cores to one thousand once more.
Based on this process, it was fair to say that the best way for an Awakened to reach the absolute pinnacle of strength was to fully saturate their Soul Core before attempting to Ascend to the next Rank. Despite this fact, there were too many risks that might come out of Soul Shard hunting. For example, death.
Most Awakened were mainly concerned with simply surviving. Fulfilling their potential wasn't much of a priority for those that desire a peaceful life, so they wouldn't try to take such a risk.
The amount of essence recieved from a Soul Shard was based on the Rank of the creature it came from, while the amount of Soul Shards found within the creature corresponded to the number of Soul Cores it had.
As for Sunny, the process of saturating his core was much more difficult than the average Awakened — yet much more rewarding. Firstly, he couldn't absorb Soul Shards, instead receiving Shadow Fragments whenever he killed something that was his Rank or higher. Not only that, but Sunny had Shadow Cores instead of Soul Cores, which alluded to his nature as a Divine Shadow.
This meant that while other Awakened were able to reap the rewards from enemies that they didn't kill themselves, Sunny could only benefit from his own work. Naturally, this meant that he would progress much slower than other Awakened when it came to acquiring Shadow Fragments.
Secondly, Sunny's Aspect Rank was Divine. Whenever he fully saturated his Shadow Cores, a new one would form, increasing the maximum amount of Shadow Fragments to the amount of Cores he had multiplied by one thousand. When Sunny gained his third Shadow Core, the counter for his Shadow Fragments increased to three thousand.
Based on this knowledge, it seemed that each Shadow Fragment was divided by the amount of Shadow Cores that he had. One Shadow Fragment would be split into three, smaller Shadow Fragments, and would each saturate his three Cores equally.
So it would be safe to assume that he still had to saturate his Shadow Cores even after becoming a Titan. Not that something like that was going to happen anytime soon.
Either way, each Core was an overall increase to Sunny's strength, and made him physically superior to any other Awakened — assuming their strength wasn't being augmented.
Speaking of augmentations, the main benefit to forming a new Shadow Core was that he would obtain another invaluable helper; which he could use to both augment himself and his Memories, as well as an extra pair of eyes and ears.
The third difference that Sunny had with other Awakened was the reward that he would gain for killing a human. Normally, when one Awakened killed another, the killer would receive a percentage of the dead's absorbed Soul Shards. Due to this, there wouldn't be any Shard remaining if the defeated was to be cut open.
If Sunny were to do the same thing, he would only receive the amount of Shadow Fragments that was equal to the Rank of the other person. If they were an Awakened, he would gain a singular Shadow Fragment.
Honestly, this might have been the biggest downside to his growth. It practically made it so that there wouldn't be any benefit to killing humans!
…That didn't sound right.
Anyways, as long as he kept forming more Shadow Cores, the rate in which he got stronger wouldn't mean much. Even now, he doubted that there was anyone of the Awakened Rank that could match him…
Not unless there were more Divine Aspect Holders out there — outside of AR-26710 and himself — along with Emanators…
Still, Sunny was confident in his power compared to others of the same Rank. In fact, he might even be able to beat a Master if he went all-out.
And considering that the Supreme Guardian was still a major threat, it would be nice to have the power to fight against her.
Back to the matter at hand, Sunny had just found a Soul Shard within a literal robot.
'Was it being used as fuel? What a strange Aspect…'
It seemed that this mysterious ally of Svarog's had an Aspect that allowed them to use Soul Shards to empower automatons.
Based on the radiance of the Soul Shard that he was holding, Sunny deduced that it was an Ascended one. And considering the fact that their were four more of them hidden within the compartment, it seemed that his assumption on the automaton's overall power was correct.
With five Ascended Soul Shards, it was the equivalent to an Ascended Tyrant. Not only that, but the automaton was using the essence within the Soul Shards solely on it's strength and the strange automatic repairing ability.
Unlike actual Tyrants, which had both their Devil ability and their minions, there was nothing else that the essence within the shards could be used for. As such, it's power, speed, and regenerative capabilities far surpassed the average Tyrant.
…Actually, the strange ability to fix itself was similar to a Devil's strange abilities.
The spider-like Fallen Tyrant that Sunny and Sparkle had fought a few days ago wasn't even close in terms of physical prowess. It's terrifying might came from the horde of weaker spiders, alongside their coordination. In fact, if Sunny hadn't used the Silver Bell to get rid of the sound-based communication between the Web Empress and her minions, the two of them would have had a much harder time.
They might lose a couple limbs in the process, but they'd probably live.
Looking around the compartment, Sunny found a wire that extended from it to the rest of the automaton. As he followed it's path, it suddenly halted as it was severed by a scorch mark.
It seemed that Dan Heng's lightning had struck it perfectly, completely getting rid of the automaton's monstrous strength as well as it's annoying ability to repair itself. Sunny grinned as he waved for the others to come over.
Drawing attention to both the compartment and the wires extending from it, Sunny shared his strategy for defeating the robots…
***
As Clara followed Svarog as they went towards the Robot Settlement, she suddenly paused mid-step. Turning her head back the way they came, she bit her lip and looked down at her boot-covered feet — her expression turning melancholic.
'Mills…'
Similarly, Svarog's hulking figure also paused as it stood still for a few moments. Suddenly, it's modulated voice spoke.
"Automaton Grizzly, Codname: Mills. Status: Destroyed. Source of termination: Awakened Demon, four Awakened humans. More information needed."
Clara turned back to Svarog.
"What happened, Mr. Svarog?"
Although she felt her connection to Mills being cut off, she wasn't able to see what had occurred to it like Svarog can. She wasn't a robot after all.
Svarog turned his head slightly, but did not turn the rest of his body.
"The five that arrived before we left destroyed Mills. Based on the video recordings left behind, I have concluded that they used lightning to achieve this feat. The flow of essence must have been cut off during the attack."
"Oh…"
So they were special, just like her. Maybe they would understand if she talked to them, since they shared some similarities.
'If I talk to them, then something would change, right?'
Somehow, Clara wasn't convinced.