Chapter 164 – Evolve

"How's the new body?"

Dream asked Aegis as he sat and observed. He could feel the connection between them that had strengthened by leaps and bounds. They could sense each other's thoughts, and because of that, Dream knew that Aegis had undergone drastic changes mentally. In fact, he still wasn't entirely done evolving.

Aegis looked at Dream, then down at his hands. After a minute or so, he responded.

"I... I protect."

"Who do you protect?"

"...You, my lord."

"Mm. I'm glad. You're radiating intense power though, so I'm wondering if I'll have to give you a device for stealth."

Dream took a deep breath as he felt Aegis's aura. Well, it was the heart's aura, but Aegis was now theoretically in control of the heart. 

The aura coming off him was powerful, to say the least. Dream felt pressure just sitting there. It was a pressure that came from sheer, absolute power. Dream felt suppressed, and although he could fight against it, one had to remember that this was just a heart from a dead person. He couldn't imagine how powerful the person was when he was alive. 

"Whoever it was, they were definitely beyond class 4. Class 5 maybe? I've never seen one, so I have no idea. But would the difference in power really be so vast?"

[You have to remember that you're only a class 3. Although I don't know how big the jump in power will be when you form this core during advancement, you'll definitely be much more powerful. Especially your soul.]

"Mm. Still. This heart is really something else. It transformed Aegis."

"...My lord..."

"Mm? Wait... Your aura..."

Dream's eyes went wide as he felt Aegis's aura. At first it was still the same as the heart's, but now, it was beginning to change. The aura fluctuated with intent, something the heart didn't really have. Dream could also sense his own mana within Aegis getting overwritten by another signature.

Wielding intent and writing signatures to mana can only be done by souls.

[I can't believe he's getting a soul. I can detect it!]

"So can I... Did I just create life?"

[No idea. Would that mean he's your son?]

"Uhh, who's the mother?"

[The heart, I guess?]

"That's weird. I don't even know who this heart belonged to. Hopefully not a dude. Although how would you give birth to a robot?"

[You've always wondered how robots would fare when souls were introduced. Now you have a live example.]

"Mm. Hey Aegis."

"My lord."

"Do you have a status?"

Dream looked toward Aegis. If he did have a status, then he would be an entity of his own.

"...I am not sure."

"Say Status."

"Status."

"..."

Dream waited, but after a minute, Aegis never said anything. 

"...Did anything happen?"

"No, my lord."

"So there's nothing in your vision or mind?"

"No."

"Hmm..."

[It's surprising, but I understand. Maybe it's similar to my case. I'm part of a soul, but I have no status.]

"Maybe only those who are birthed like me can be granted a status. Although he has a soul, it must not be a fully developed one."

[We can soul search him.]

"...I'd rather not. He's only just developing and I don't want to hurt him. Anyway, Aegis, are you capable of what you were before."

"My lord, I am capable of all the functions you granted me."

"Oh, sweet. Now what about the heart? Is there anything about it you can sense?"

"...I am unsure about the extent of the heart's capabilities. However, I do know that it supplies large amounts of power, and it has overwritten the enchantments that existed prior."

"So it overwrote my enchantments, but you still retain the same functions?"

"That is correct, my lord."

"Interesting... Maybe the heart ate them. Now, here's the big question. Are you still capable of acting as my armor?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Show me."

"Of course."

Aegis bowed, and Dream put out his hand. He expected him to flow onto his body like before, but after he bowed, Aegis disappeared.

"Hm?"

[He's in the 4th dimension! So the heart really is a 4 dimensional material!]

Dream's eyes widened as he concentrated on his mana sense. Sure enough, Aegis had entered the 4th dimension and moved over to his soul. 

When it came to Dream, there were two parts of him that existed in the 4th dimension. His soul and his mana pathways. These two things connected to his body in the 3rd dimension, and it's where he pulled his magical power from.

When Aegis moved into the 4th dimension, he placed his heart right next to Dream's soul. Not only that, but his blood vessels moved to encompass and mix with Dream's mana pathways. This didn't disturb Dream's pathways at all. In fact, he could immediately feel Aegis's power coursing through him.

After Aegis placed his heart and vessels in the 4th dimension, he moved his armored body back out into the 3rd. When he did, the armor reappeared on top of Dream's body.

When it appeared, the armor began to adjust itself to perfectly fit Dream. It also communicated magically with Dream's bodily enchantments, providing another source of power for them as well as making the movement between the two seamless.

After Aegis was fully adjusted, Dream clenched his fists. He could feel massive power surgingthrough him, more than he ever had before. In fact, it was a bit too much power, and only after 10 seconds of equipping Aegis, Dream could feel his body enchantments destabilizing. It felt very uncomfortable.

"Agh... Aegis, turn down the power."

"...I am unable to do that, my lord."

"Seriously? Damn... Sophia, how bad is the destabilization?"

[The enchantments are barely holding. Although it won't really injure you now, give it enough time and it will.]

"Hmm..."

Hearing that, Dream's forehead creased. The whole point of this was for Aegis to be his armor, but now he was finding out he couldn't use him. 

"...It would ruin the point if I couldn't work with Aegis. The enchantments are destabilizing, so I just need to restabilize them right? And I need better enchantments... If I can control the power and stabilize it externally, the enchantments should improve, right?"

[That's... possible.]

"Then I'm doing it! Hrnghh!"

Focusing his power, Dream began to put pressure on the power that was flowing through his body. He controlled every enchantment in his body and forced them to retain their shape no matter how much mana was flowing through them.

Unfortunately, the heart was dumping out too much power. Even after 10 whole minutes of trying to control everything, the enchantments were still destabilizing. Not only that, but Dream could feel lots of pressure on his soul when trying to do that.

"Damn. It's not working!"

[Too much power. It needs an outlet.]

"But if I release it, I'll start radiating mana. That'll cause too many problems."

[Then don't radiate it. Focus the surplus energy into something. Either way, you need to let some go. The pressure of the heart is too much for you to fight against, at least right now.]

As Sophia spoke, Dream was looking inward at the heart and blood vessels.

After equipping Aegis, Dream had become aware of a few things about the heart. First, the heart didn't release unlimited energy. It was like a water pipe. The pipe had a certain water pressure, and only by blocking the pipe could you stop and control the flow. Unfortunately, Dream didn't have the power to completely block the flow, and neither did Aegis. Although Aegis helped a lot, much of the power still leaked.

While Dream could actually seal the power entirely, it would result in his bodily enchantments destabilizing. So he had two routes. Either improve his enchantments, or let the power radiate.

The first option wasn't something he could solve right now, and he wouldn't take the second option. At least not permanently. So Dream did a bit of pondering over Sophia's suggestion, and he soon had an idea.

"Focus the power... You know, I haven't done a lot of fighting recently."

[Oh? I like where this is going.]

"Huhu. Locate the nearest demon army on the human continent. Contact the family too. It's time to do some hunting."

[The family is actually out fighting an army of 2 million. How does that sound?]

"Like music to my ears. Let's go."

Smiling, Dream levitated and flew his way over to exit the factory. Soon, he was out in space where he saw a plotted path to the continent.

"To infinity... and beyond!"

.........

.....

As Dream exited the factory, Luna and Iris along with Riddick and Selene were fighting in a hilly region on the south portion of the human continent.

As Dream was off doing his own things, the family would often come out to locations like this and have Sophia find them a demon army to fight. Sometimes the army numbered in the hundreds of thousands, sometimes they numbered in the millions. They didn't really mind as long as the number didn't get too high. If it did, there was a high chance of multiple class 4's being present.

As for the army of 2 million they were fighting, it only had two class 4's in it. Both were detected by Riddick, and as the girls went on a slaughter, he would hold both of them back. This wasn't too difficult on his part. Even if it was, Riddick was also trying to get stronger, so this served as great practice.

As of this moment, they had already been fighting for a few hours and had cut down several tens of thousands. It wasn't much, but the girls weren't trying to destroy the army by themselves. They were mainly experimenting with their skills, taking whatever time they wanted to try things out.

Out of nowhere though, they all got a notification in their vision. It was from Sophia and told them that Dream was on his way. Seeing this, the girls smiled and got excited. Riddick and Selene frowned though, both thinking the same thing.

"What about his search for the mana source at the Empire?"

"Maybe he gave up? Or did he actually find it..."

Both of them pondered for a bit, but just decided that they would ask him when he got here. 

They refocused back on their fights, but suddenly, Luna and Iris looked up.

"Dream?"

Both of their eyes went wide as they looked at the sky. Neither of them could see anything, but they could sense his connection. Odd thing was, it was extremely powerful. 

Not longer after they noticed, they saw a small figure moving quickly towards their direction. It quickly got bigger. In fact, it was moving so fast that they started backing away. 

"What the hell is he..."

*BOOM*

An explosion rang out as the figure crashed into the ground. The crash brought forth shockwaves that shook the hill they were on like an earthquake and all demons in the area were instantly killed, turning into limbs and chunks of flesh that were blasted away.

After that, everyone in the area felt a stifling pressure radiate out from the crash site. Everyone aside from Riddick felt pressure on their souls, and the mana in the area immediately turned to liquid, flowing outwards like waves.

"Hehe... HahaHAHAHAHA..."

Maniacal laughter rang out from the crater in the ground as the figure inside rose up. The family looked over.

"So it is Dream." (Luna)

"You're laughing like a madman!" (Iris)

"What is that pressure?" (Riddick)

"Hi guys!"

Dream smiled brightly as he flew over. When he did though, the pressure on everyone increased and they subconsciously backed away.

"Boy? What's up with you? What's that pressure?"

"You're radiating mana like a geyser." (Luna)

"...Oh that, how about you take a wild guess."

Dream smiled at them as he removed his helmet and reigned in some of the energy. Everyone looked at him for a bit, but it was Selene that spoke first.

"You actually got it..."

"So you could tell what it was."

"I've lived within that mana since I was a little girl. Although it's much more powerful up close, I can recognize it. Can we see it?"

"I can't really take it out of me. It's part of Aegis now. But I can give you the rest of the data."

Saying that, Dream had Sophia send everyone data on the heart. They all soon saw it in their vision. Not only that, but they could see the altar it had been on as well as its location underneath the Empire.

"I managed to grab it rather easily. The enchantments guarding the place couldn't handle me, so I was able to get in and out totally undetected."

"I can't believe you actually went and did it. What about the Empire?" (Riddick)

"Oh, they're going batshit crazy. Especially the class 4's. They've been scrambling the place for hours trying to find the thief, but have turned up nothing."

"...Not trying to judge your decision, but was it okay to do that?"

Iris asked unsurely, prompting the other three to ponder the question. Dream understood where it was coming from as he had already asked himself the same question. But he also had an answer.

"From a purely objective standpoint, no, I guess it wasn't okay to do that. But from my standpoint, It kind of was. I got ahold of a super powerful item that was just wasting away in a dark room, and I'm going to use it to its utmost capability. Or at least I'll try. It's still difficult to control all its power."

"But... You took away a treasure from an Empire. It was providing the entire Empire with a large mana density, which is definitely beneficial to millions of people. Not only was it not yours, but they were using it."

"Well it actually wasn't theirs either. Sure they possessed it, but they had taken it from somewhere else too. I just decided that it would be better in my hands than theirs. I mean, using this thing just for mana density is a wastage I can't even begin to comprehend. With this, I'll be able to make weapons that could help wipe out the demons! And all they were using it for was freaking mana density! Ugh! I cringe just thinking about it!"

"I mean, I guess."

"Plus, I'll think of it as payment for everything I'm doing for them. I'm providing a revolution in the field of communication. I've used up thousands of tons of materials for them, all for free. I think I can help myself to a bit of compensation."

"Huh, I actually forgot about that."

"Lastly, there's one more, very simple reason why I went and grabbed it."

As he spoke, Dream walked over to Iris while sucking in the radiating power. He put hands on her face, pulling it close to his with a smile.

As he approached her and grabbed her face, Iris flushed a bit. She knew that smile. It was the one he had while dominating her...

"I wanted it. Mwah!"

Giving her a smooch, Dream laughed and rustled her hair. She just shrunk her head back with a 'Hmph!' when she realized he was teasing her.