Chapter 49: Transform and Roll Out

It was total chaos within the brilliant golden chapel. Even when the organizer tried his best to maintain order, he couldn't stop the commotion among the underground city lords.

Even though they were tricked, allowing us to pass this proposal in the Conference, it could also be attributed to Sulfur Mountain City's might. The decisions made in the Conference weren't a game and couldn't be changed, otherwise the basic trust in the Alliance would waver.

The Fifth Autarch — Sulfur Mountain City, these were the phrases that came up often during the chatters the underground city lords were engaged in now. Many of them had begun to accept it as reality within their hearts.

A sudden emergence of a new Underground Autarch meant a reshuffling of the powers within the Alliance. In the worst-case scenario, it might even incite thousands of battles to restructure the territories of the biggest factions. These sudden circumstances represented endless trouble… and a hard-to-come-by opportunity.

None of the underground city lords who were qualified to sit in this Inner Hall were easy to deal with. These days, everyone had their own ambitions and since Sulfur Mountain City was able to climb up to the top spot, then there's no reason the rest couldn't do the same. Furthermore, the new Autarch still lacked supporter. Perhaps, some would take this as an opportunity to side with them to win themselves resources and backing… Countless desires and ideas made the underground city lord's mind start to turn and naturally, the Inner Hall's atmosphere became bizarre and lively.

As for my conflict with the Dragon Empress, other than the few people who sat near us, there weren't many people who noticed it.

It was a pity as that meant not many of the crowd would noticed the Dragon Empress Molly, who struck fear in the entire Underground World, acting like an infuriated old cat, baring her teeth towards a small Dwarf. Furthermore, she could only express her wrath verbally. Despite being an Underground Autarch, she didn't dare to start fighting in the Conference Hall.

What that was even more pitiable was that despite the Dragon Empress, who was used to be being unreasonable, for once being reasonable, the silly-looking Dwarf wasn't giving her any face.

"What… What are you staring at!? Stare… Stare some more and I will eat you!"

The Dwarf who was full of big words ignored the threats of the Dragon Queen. His arrogance caused the surrounding audience's eyes to fall to the floor. But I knew that this threat wasn't just for show. When Ah Dang said that he would eat her, it meant that he really intented to eat her and… he most likely also had the ability to carry out the action.

Be that as it may, the base was still under attack right now. Now wasn't the moment to be wasting time with the Dragon Queen who was obviously trying to drag our feet.

"Ah Dang, before I allow you to, you aren't to eat any living thing!"

Ah Dang's face turned sour instantly, but he still nodded his head in reply.

However, it was fortunate that Ah Dang's brother had given another name, Ya Dang Si, preventing the Dragon Queen from recognizing Ah Dang through his nickname from the start… Even though Ah Dang sounded nice, why couldn't we use it as his real name… I had pondered over this question but couldn't understand the reason.

"Ah Bas (Demonic Spatial Hellhound Bastian) too. To think that the true head of the Four Heavenly Kings, the elder brother of the Seven Deadly Sins Wrath, would reject the name I bestowed upon him. Look how obedient Ah Bao (Chromaggus) and Ah Dang are. Now that they are used to their nickname, I doubt that they would even remember it even if you called their real name."

From nowhere, a familiar voice sounded over the emergency communication channel that we had agreed on earlier.

"Are you here yet? There are 3 Undead Lords on the level of Xiluo Senators. I can't hold out for long. If you don't back us up soon, I will make the rest of the guys flee."

There wasn't a single trace of pride of the Dragon Tribe as described in the legends, instead running away decisively when the odds weren't in their favor. In reality, Little Red was just following the standard Dragon Tribe way of doing things. On the contrary, the Dragons found themselves unable to comprehend why the Dragon Tribes in the epics would fight to their death.

"Why aren't they escaping even though they can't beat the opponent? They even landed down to fight with those metal cans foot soldiers, were they stupid?"

However, going by Little Red's more and more panicked urging, I shouldn't waste any more time.

"Go."

I grabbed the hand of Ah Dang, who was acting very aggressively towards the Dragon Empress, while intentionally ignoring the stare behind me which was getting only progressively colder as well as Ah Dang's mysterious saliva while staring at the Dragon Empress… The Dragon Empress grabbed her leg, grimacing in pain. She didn't try to stop us. Unexpectedly, she found herself instinctively fearing that shorty, both her eyes were filled with confusion.

"Heh, slowly think about it. I don't believe that you will ever be able to guess that the small Dwarf would be the savage 'Carnivore' Ya Dang Si."

However, from the vicious stare the Dragon Empress shot us with, the trouble had just begun.

"Elisa, you stay behind to help Annie. I don't feel at ease leaving her here alone."

"No, I want to go… Besides, didn't you say that you wanted to train her so that she could stand up individually? This is such a good opportunity for her."

I turned back in shock. It was rare to see Elisa persisting on a matter. "I feel like there's something ahead waiting for me. I must go. Perhaps, this will be useful to me in breaking through to the Legend realm."

Those who were at a bottleneck would tend to have intuitions of plausible opportunities for them to break through. Since she had already said as much, there was no reason for me to stop her.

"Diana and Victoria, enter the Inner District to support Annie. Victoria, it's your turn to perform, don't let me down. Diana, if there's anyone who tries to stop you both from entering, feel free to beat them up. No.3 and No.4, remain here to support them. The rest of the Roland Robots, follow me back, we have something up at our base."

After delegating simple instructions, I left Xueti in charge and jumped onto Roland No.2 to take a free ride back. 'Boom', 'boom' a series of earthquakes made the buildings by the side of the road shake.

Sitting on the head of No.2, I closed my eyes, deep in thoughts. Behind me, Elisa consoled me.

"Rest easy, with Lady Einz Mezus there and those defensive powers we left in the base, nothing bad will happen."

I nodded my head in silence. I would never tell her that I wasn't worrying, it was just that I had been hesitating over whether shouting 'Autobots, roll out!' or 'Decepticons, roll out!' would be cooler.

However, looking at the tension on the faces around me, I thought it was best for me to adapt to the situation and don't say things that would make me get beaten up.

"Hahaha, so fun! Ah Pa, this isn't a living thing. Can I eat?"

The salivating Ah Dang was bouncing around like a pinball due to the movements of the Robot. Even so, there's not a single possibility of him falling down. In this instant, he was even pointing at the Roland No.2 beneath his feet. It looked like the massive figure of the Robot had evoked his appetite.

"You can't, Ah Dang. Also, you aren't allowed to call me Ah Pa here, just call me Wumianzhe or Lord will do."

"Okay, Ah Pa."

"Wumianzhe…"

"Okay, Ah Pa."

"I… can you stop being so inflexible."

"…Ah Pa, Ah Dang is not inflexible. Ah Pa is Ah Pa."

Alright, considering that this joke had been overused and no longer served any comedic purpose, I shall skip the see-saw interaction between me and Ah Dang. In the end, with Elisa watching at the commotion with a smile, I admitted defeat, allowing him to call me whatever he pleased. I didn't care anymore.

However, it seemed that Elisa knew from the start that this little Dwarf couldn't be my blood-related son. Her performance in the Conference Hall was just her habitual venomous tongue acting up.

"You just had to learn from that gutless Margaret. Saints are used to looking at changes from the perspective of an observer. However, sometimes being an observer means that you are playing a passive role, thinking too much and over-considering everything, resulting in the lack of courage to change. Putting everything else aside, let's just talk about her feelings. If only she had a little more courage, she could have just pressured Adam and forced the fool to take responsibility. As for why did she drag the matter until now, it's because she's too gentle and too considerate about other people's feelings. Sometimes, it might not be a good thing. Isn't being a little selfish good? There isn't such a thing as a happy ending for everyone in the world."

Hesitating for a moment, I upped the volume of my 'mumblings'.

"Margaret is Margaret. Elisa is Elisa. If you can't even recognize this, you don't qualify to create a Soul Imprint that belongs solely to you, you can't show the world that you are an existence that surpasses the mortals and you won't be able to open up your path as a Legend above the rest."

The sharp-eared Elisa could hear my 'muted' mumbling clearly. Her delicate body jolted and the expression she used to look at me with was complicated… It was enough saying this much, it could even be said to be excessive. I turned my head to question Ah Dang.

"Ah Dang, you probably didn't come alone right? Who brought you here?"

"Big Sister Gria."

"Who?" I blanked out for a moment. There wasn't anyone named Gria amongst the Undead Lords. Could it be a super rookie who appeared recently? To be able to bring Ah Dang without ending up as spare ration, this wasn't something a normal Undead Lord was capable of.

"It… It's that Big Sister who sings very badly!" Noticing that I didn't understand him, Ah Dang's hands waved about in a panic.

"Oh, it's Gray Sin! You could have just said the 'Throat of Death'. Can it be that there have been too many victims recently that her reputation took a plunge, so she decided to change her name to scam others to attending her Concert of Death?" Hearing that the person sang very badly, I immediately thought of the familiar Bone Dragon Queen.

Gria's singing had reached the level of polluting one's mind. Yet, she was totally oblivious to it. Her actions that kept creating new victims consistently was even more infamous than she herself.

"Other than Ah Pa, if other people call her that, Big Sister Gria will beat them up. Ah Dang doesn't want to be beaten."

"Hehe, it couldn't be that you can't defeat her. My Ah Dang won't lose to any one of the Senators."

"No, Ah Dang doesn't hit Big Brother and Big Sister. Ah Dang is obedient. Whoever bullies Big Brother, Big Sister and Ah Pa, Ah Dang will beat him up. Ah Pa, is Ah Dang obedient?"

"Very obedient! This is what I call a good kid." I happily carried this small cutie and turned around to wink at Elisa, hinting her to that this was how a good kid should behave.

"…Yes, such a regret. You were such a cute little girl then, exactly where did I go wrong to create the venomous-tongued housewife of today…"

Alright, in consideration of my precious collection, these words stayed in my mind. I'd rather not challenge her.

"Ah Pa, Ah Pa. Big Sister Gria flies very fast. I let her go help the fight first."

The little Dwarf sucked in his mucus as he jumped about with a face of expectation, just like a kid waiting to be praised.

"Does she know the location?"

"…I, I told her to fly South-West of the city. Beat up annoying people on the way." It may seem unbelievable, but this kind of experts who were lacking in intelligence so much that even their cultivation depended on instincts, their intuition was often much stronger than rational thinking. Apparently, Ah Dang and Adam belonged to the type who 'thought' with their body, depending heavily on their intuition.

"…Bone Dragon Queen Gray Sin is here, she is actually here to help me…" Little Red's message made me heave a sigh of relief. Gray Sin's singing throat may be unreliable, but her fighting prowess was definitely reliable.

But, if we remain with our passive approach, problems would occur sooner or later. We couldn't just depend on others. We were still at least 20 minutes away from our base. Besides, what if I reached the field and end up getting recognized by those familiar fellows…

Back then, due to the intelligence of the Dark Elf spy then, I had learned that if Lord Yongye was the one sealed, the Dragon Empress would not dare to lift the seal. The Underground World would also treat it as an extremely dangerous existence that should remain sealed forever. If Lord Yongye really were to reappear… Maybe, the battle between the surface and the underground could be stopped and turn into an alliance army to hunt down Lord Yongye.

"Ah Dang, change to your flying model. Allow me to enter."

Ah Dang nodded his head. With a stomp of his feet, he was immediately shrouded within a dark fog. A few seconds later, when the dark fog scatters with the light of the divine arts, the lively Dwarf disappeared. On the ground where he had been standing on was a beautiful Silver-Plated Sky Dragon. It was more than 20-meter long without any legs. There wasn't a strand of hair on its entire body and instead, there were 6 gigantic metal wings.

Ah Dang's entire body was equipped with a heavy metal armour that seemed as solid and heavy as the city walls. But, looking carefully, the tough armour was all fused with the flesh. Even more so, the triangular-shaped Dragon head was filled with traces of metal all around. Countless spare parts were lodged into the flesh. The gears of its 4 limbs were rotating a high speed. This was a perfect harmony between machine and a body of flesh. The Sky Dragon seemed like a perfect art work, totally different from the common idea of an Abomination.

"Ah Dang, Ah Dang, roll out!!!"

Elisa and I walked into the control room within the Dragon's body. After the dragon roared with traces of a child's voice within, the 6 wings of the Dragon stretched out and a crimson-red inferno shot out. Just like a rocket car, Ah Dang used the counter-force to launch himself out.

It may seem smooth within the control room, but gauging from the rapidly retreating scenery, a normal gigantic Dragon probably didn't even qualify to eat his dust.

An Abomination that could transform? Sounds incredulous? Actually, it wasn't. It was the cornerstone and shackles for his existence.

The original sin that Ah Dang represented was 'Gluttony'. Gluttony, to be direct, simply meant excessive appetite and appetite was the most basic need of a living being.

Living beings needed to ingest food and digest them as nutrients. The basic motive was for survival and to grow stronger so that they could achieve victory in the cruel natural world and gain the opportunity to evolve.

Gluttony = Evolution + Survival.

When this equation formed in my brain, history's smallest Abomination was born. It was only 1.2 meter tall and couldn't even raise a pebble. His only ability was to eat…

Abominations were basically the melding together of corpses, making it suited to meld together with other living beings and evolve without boundaries.

He was able to integrate the strength of the prey he ate into his own flesh and very soon, after several wars, a mountain-like Corpse Monster had become the nightmare of all living souls. But then, on one occasion after he was ingesting, he self-exploded.

I analyzed the reasons for failure and discovered that it was because no living or dead being could evolve continuously and exceed the limits of their physical body. Overly powerful strength, due to the complex structure of the flesh, would only lead to deformity and self-destruction.

Then, with the added the equation of excessive evolution = self-destruction had been formed, the next step was to set a goal, direction and limit for his evolution… Fine, I admit that I copied a certain masked knight¹ with many forms in this process.

The experiments weren't all smooth-sailing. More than a dozen of experimental subjects self-destructed, the only one successful was Ah Dang.

After that, I set certain goals for Ah Dang. A transformation for normal battles, a transformation with flight ability, a transformation with diving ability, a full offensive transformation and such, then I allowed him to eat as he pleased to evolve.

For example, no matter how many genes that were suited for high-speed flying were swallowed, they were only limited to the flight transformation. For example, after ingesting the wings of a Sky Dragon and the wings of a Phoenix, he would use the better gene to build his own wings while the weaker gene would serve as backup and ration… After swallowing and merging like this a couple of times, naturally, the perfect flying transformation would be created.

Stealing the claws of the Behemoths, stealing the wings from the gigantic Dragons and stealing the talent to use Holy Light from the Angels, Ah Dang was really the perfect living being and a terminal existence.

Fine, this design concept had succeeded, but without doubt, I had gone too far… In theory, Ah Dang who was always evolving could eventually evolve to the point where he could slaughter Gods. Of course, in order to reach such a level, he first had to consume several SemiGods without bloating himself to death. However, I had the premonition that before this could happen, Mother Earth would first send down a hand to slap me to death for creating this unnatural monster capable of destroying the world.

Fortunately, perhaps due to its excessive strength and limitless potential, he was envied by the heavens. No matter how much I had tried, I had been unable to increase Ah Dang's intelligence. Magic and martial arts couldn't be executed on instincts itself. The lack of sufficient intelligence restricted him from maximizing the potential of his flesh. This was also why, despite obviously having the strength to be #1 among the Senators, he was ranked first from the last.

However, if we were to separate the physical body and the brain, then put someone into the physical body to serve as a pilot, then the lack of intelligence wouldn't be a problem anymore. Fine, I admit that I copied from the gigantic robots who always bullied those little monsters for Ah Dang's design concept… However, a hero's origin wasn't one to be questioned. No matter whether it was a black cat or white cat, a cat that could catch a mouse was a good cat, ,right?

"Ah Dang, how many transformations do you have that are at least of A rank?"

"There are a total of 12. 9 of the battle transformations are S rank and above and among them, the Ferocious Beast Form and City Siege Form have reached SS rank."

Hearing that, I couldn't help but click my tongue. Back then, Ah Dang only had 7 designs out of which, only 4 of them had barely reached S-rank. But today, there was actually one which reached the SS rank currently under my evaluation…

"Under the condition that the pilot is skillful, it should be able to shock even SemiGods… Don't turn into your SS rank transformation in front of other people. We should only require a S rank transformation to deal with today's matters."

Greed and Gluttony were the type which started out extremely weak but had unlimited growth potential. Nevertheless, Ah Dang's rate of evolution still surprised made. Initially, I thought that it would take him a thousand years before he could reach such a state.

"Ah Dang, don't eat living beings from now on, stop your transformation temporarily. Turn your attention into improving your fighting techniques and your control over magic." Excessive evolution wasn't a good thing neither for him nor for this world. He should be receptive to my orders.

"Yes, Ah Pa. We are here."

Glancing downwards, we had indeed arrived. The spectacle below was a battle between gigantic monsters.

The 6th Senator 'Demonic Bone Beast' Crimspur, the 10th Senator 'Ant King of Corrosion' Lamost and the 11th Senator 'The Great Mathematician' Penny Horst. Apart from the 11th Senator who, as a Lich, had the normal size of a human, the other opponents were gigantic beasts more than 30-meters tall.

On the defensive side, Ancient Red Dragon and Bone Dragon Queen weren't losing much in terms of physique compared to them. Right now, the Red Dragon was fighting with the Demonic Bone Beast while the blue crystal Bone Dragon that kept creating a dissonance was soloing the remaining two Senators.

As they rolled on the ground, a whole bunch of buried goblin landmines exploded, but that wasn't even sufficient to scrape their skin. The cannon fire from the goblin had yet to stop, but similarly, it had been totally neglected.

"Ah Dang, Ah Dang wants to eat meat!"

With a battle cry, the Silver-Plated Sky Dragon disappeared within the black fog and an enormous ape appeared on the ground. Its muscles were well-developed and its arms were muscular to the point of deformity shining with the radiance of metal. He was the tallest and strongest among the giant beasts here.

"Koseidon¹, coming to visit!" The gigantic ape stretched out its arm and did a weird pose.

Noticing the strange gazes the people in the surrounding were looking at it with, a composite voice diffuses from Ah Dang's body.

"As expected, I shouldn't use this kind of old joke that reveals my age, look at how awkward the crowd is. Then…"

That gigantic ape beast crossed his hand in a ?-shape at 90 degrees, changing on into another weird pose aiming towards Crimspur.

"Hehe, look at my Action Beam¹… No, Ultra Beam!!"

Alright, the crowd still remains awkward…

"Boom!" Nevertheless, a laser really shot out from the arms, pushing Crimspur down.

"Hah, you thought that I was just faking it?"

Then, facing the strong enemies who started surrounding us, the ape beast suddenly raised both his hands and did a handstand…

"Un, so that button was actually the cannons. Right, where's the punching button? Is it here? Don't bother me, Elisa. I am very skilled in fighting games. Un un, so this was kicking? Okay, now that I am used to the basic controls, now it's time for Chinese Martial Arts to sweep the foreign world off its feet!"