Chapter 42: Suit Up

Ein cleaned up Soukai city. There was still a lot fatalities as the civilians were defenseless from even the most basic honkai beasts.

He stored all the corpses and returned to HQ. After a few hours Mei and Mobius were waiting for him to come back.

"How's the damage report? MOTH soldiers have already arrived and there were no honkai beasts in Sapphire." Mei received some reports from Himeko and Elysia personally.

He sighed. "They did a lot of damage, though I quickly intercepted them so it's manageable. Soukai wasn't as damaged as Sapphire but a lot of people still died." He frowned, not expecting a honkai eruption.

Mei nodded. "Let's leave it to the government then, you should continue working with Vill. It's vital that you finish making good weapons." The honkai is relentless, humans will die out at this rate. I need to prepare other projects as well.

He then went to the workshop that's being constructed. "Vill, sorry about that. A honkai eruption happened nearby and I had to save the city." He scratched the back of his head.

Vill was shocked. "You what!? How did you take care of it so quickly though? The soldiers would need travel and fight their way to the city. You must have developed some awesome weapons for them to exterminate the honkai beasts." Her eyes glimmered with excitement.

He sighed, "No. I killed all of them of course, that's why I was so quick. It isn't that important though, just read this file for now and see what I could do. My greatest creation is myself after all." He handed her his file with all the data about his abilities.

She quickly read it, keen to unravel all of his secrets. "You can what!? Nobody could survive these procedures. What the hell are you?" She squinted her eyes.

"I'm the only exception. That's why we need to create armor and good weapons for our elites. I could fight herrschers and emperor class beasts, but what about our soldiers?" He said in a grave tone. Our forces are getting thinner by the minute.

Vill nodded with a frown. "I'm not privy to the situation of MOTH yet, but you're right. You can't be at a lot of places at once, we'll need to make this quick. With your soulium, we are going to engineer the very best!" She smiled widely and laughed.

He patted her head. "Oh, sorry. Habit, let's start on upping the survival of the soldiers. Remember the alloy that I made first? It's the sturdiest material we could use immediately."

She propped up. "Ohh, the base alloy for soulium right? Do you have lots of it?" She read up on it. The coating alone is 100 times stronger than steel.

He nodded as he took out a chunk of it. "I have just the right idea about this." He thought of the suits of armor in halo. The mjolnir. We could power it up with a soulium battery and absorb the ambient honkai energy in the atmosphere. This suit of armor would have an exoskeleton so they won't get crushed by the weight, they aren't spartans after all.

He pitched the idea to Vill as they drew blueprints and started to make a prototype for now.

...

Himeko arrived with Hua and met up with Ein. "Ein! I have a recruit with me, her name is Hua. Go on, introduce yourself to Dr. Einheri." She pushed her to the front as she was looking around the base.

"Uhh, hello sir. I'm Hua, I'm a survivor from Sapphire. Captain Himeko brought me here to train me as a soldier, please take care of me." She bowed deeply.

Ein patted her head. "Such a polite kid. You don't have to be so serious Hua. I'm Einheri, you can call me Ein. Don't be too stiff around me, I'm not gonna bite you know~?" He smiled and ruffled her hair.

Hua was confused. This man is one of the leading members of Fire Moth right? Though it's good that he's easygoing.

Himeko sighed. "You know that we're not that far apart in age right? We're 17, why are you calling her a child?"

Hua almost choked. 17!? This big shot is so young!? "Uhhh, you're so young sir... I didn't expect that." She mumbled.

"Ahh, we're turning 18 though Hime. So it's not that important. And look at her, she's so small and cute just like a little bird. You said you'll train to be a soldier? How old are you?"

Hua frowned. Is it because of my breasts? She looked down at her small chest. "I'm 14 sir, can I apply for the soldier program? I practice martial arts. I'm physically fit." She got worried that she won't be accepted.

Ein sighed. "14 huh, so young." They stared at him weirdly, especially Himeko. After all he could beat up a templar when he was 16 at mortal combat. "You could be at Himeko's squad, she could teach you everything you should know. And you can come to me as well, I taught your captain you know." He winked.

Himeko nodded. "He's very thorough Hua, you can learn a lot from him. He's strong as hell too." She remembered his technique. They are flawless and his body moves like flowing water, his every move calculated like a machine.

Hua raised a brow. "He taught you captain? Isn't he a researcher here at MOTH?" She got confused again.

Himeko patted her on the back. "He's also a soldier you know? And he became a squad leader in a matter of weeks. He's also the strongest soldier, ever." She said sagely.

"Aww you're making me blush Himeko~ I could still remember the first time I fought a honkai beast. It was a 3 meter tall templar and I sliced it up real good." He reminisced.

Hua's eyes widened. His first battle was with a templar? I heard that those things massacres squads on the regular. And he fought it on his own? "Umm, I see... Please take care of me Dr. Ein, I'll work hard." She pumped her fist.

He petted her and walked away. "Captain, how strong is he? Did he really fought off a templar? But that's impossible..."

"Is it? That was when he was using mass produced weapons. You haven't even saw him fight using his real weapon. He could erase a city within an hour. Honestly, that guy is inhuman." She shrugged.

Hua almost choked on her saliva. "He can what!?" She froze on the spot, internalizing her words. "That's not even just strong anymore captain... He's already like a god amongst normal humans."

Himeko just laughed and lead her to register as a soldier.

...

Ein and Vill made a prototype power armor that was a 3 piece suit of protection. The first layer was a mesh of the material and was loaded with nano tech that could repair damaged tissue. The second layer was a thin plate that have a bit of soulium, powering up the suit and could deploy an energy shield. It also has a neural network that's similar to the black carapace of astartes. It acts as the buffer for the exoskeleton of the thickest part of the armor. The 3rd layer, it has thick metal plates made out of the base alloy of soulium, it also has thrusters in key areas to make it more maneuverable and soldiers can jump great heights.

Ein painstakingly programmed the nano tech and the 2nd layer to make the suit semi autonomous, making the soldiers less susceptible to sneak attacks and let's them fight more efficiently in group combat. Prometheus helped a lot in this regard.

"Phew, we finally made a prototype. due to the nano tech it could also be worn by multiple people of differing sizes. I think this would increase efficiency and the survivability of our troops." He nodded with satisfaction.

Mei looked at the suit curiously. "This is incredible. It's like the suit on those games that Nuwa plays."

Vill puffed up her chest and spread her arms wide. "This is our latest creation! Pretty neat huh? I designed the armor while Ein made the intricacies like the nano tech. In my opinion though, he overloaded it too much. This thing could make a normal person into a super soldier just with the neural network." She nodded sagely.

"It's only natural, this would cost tons of materials but at least we won't lose too many soldiers. Besides, the hardest part was the programming. Making the black carapace will be easier with automation." Implanting those things would kill a lot of people, making an astartes legion is not reliable. A geneseed using my genome would be dope ngl.

Vill latched onto Ein. "Hey Ein. Could I examine you? You're loaded with soulium right? I wanna know how you function, I maybe able to combine your physiology with my engineering." She pleaded with puppy dog eyes.

He looked at her. That's a good idea actually. "Let's partner up with Mobius Vill. We could probably get something from this idea of yours. After we test this baby." He patted the suit.

Quickly wearing it. Ein was now in the suit, he squeezed his hand gently as to not fracture the hands. He made his weight to match an average human with the suit included by lifting himself with honkai energy a bit. "Okay, test one Mei, Vill. Bring an impact of a seraph class."

They nodded and the tests started. He was hit on the chest by a metal that was shaped like a seraph. He backpedalled from the impact a few meters away, limiting his strength. "Okay, according to my hud, there's no breach, the nano bots are repairing the suit too."

He then deployed the shields, powering it up with his honkai energy. "Projectiles next, pelt me with some honkai propelled bullets." His shield glowed as it rippled, the projectiles stopped successfully.

Mei and Vill nodded in satisfaction. "These will really help us. Let's start production immediately." Mei noticed the potential of the armor.

Ein took off the suit, he high fived Vill. "Yosh, our creation is a success Vill. But I had something more in mind, the specialized suits for elites." He wanted a series of battle suits that could rival herrschers in power, it's impossible. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Vill's eyes shone. "You want something better than this? I think this thing is already one of the best I could make already." She thought ways of improving the suit.

He shook his head. "This is just the basics of the culmination of our specialties Vill. Aren't you forgetting that I could make battle suits as strong as I like? Finding someone that could use it is the problem. I don't need it, I need more help in dealing with increased honkai beasts."

Vill nodded. "Then let's make something magical!" She jumped up excitedly.

"Ein, I also made some new discoveries. The herrscher cores siphon energy from another dimension. You were right, we can't connect to it for now. But we could try to, if we could, then someone can use herrscher powers as long as their bodies could keep up."

"Okay then guys, we have tons of work. The 5th is near, let's develop our projects as much as possible."

They then started to make humanity stronger as a whole.

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Thanks for reading guys, I'm really fascinated by the key of blankness. So I started to introduce it. Humanity grows stronger with power armor, although it's just a reason to make the godsbane suits. Ciao