The Heavenly Martial Empress Returns: An OP Xianxia Returnee LitRPG

Chapter 146: Clash Of Mechanical Gods! Ra Versus Set!

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Set, the god of deserts, storms, disorder, violence, and foreigners. A God often seen as an antagonist in Egyptian Mythology, a rival of Horus, and the Lord of the Red Land, the endless deserts of the world. In some myths, Set had a positive role, helping Ra repel Apep, the Serpent of Chaos.

But most notably, he was well known for his Myth where he slaughtered his own brother, Osiris, cutting him into shreds and then throwing him into the Nile, where Isis, Osiris’ sister-wife, would reassemble his body parts and temporarily revive him with the help of the Nephthys.

Then, after Osiris brief revival, he and Isis had a son, Horus, who would be destined to free Egypt from their new tyrant, Set, who had taken over his brother’s throne.

Therefore, the power that Set’s Mechanical God carried was tremendous. Using ancient technology, not only did the Egyptians of this Parallel Earth create these tremendously strong robots.

But they also imbued them with “Stories” and “Myths” within their very Cores, forged using the fragments of a strange meteor they once found, a crystal imbued with cosmic powers capable of absorbing stories and myths and turning them into power.

Therefore, Neferteri knew very well that her Mechanical God, Set, was perhaps among the strongest there was!

Having defeated Osiris and even being feared by the other Gods and even making Ra wary of him, was there any stronger Deity she could rely on?

With a furious expression in her face, she flew out of the Golden Pyramid, reaching the skies outside at the same time as several more Divine Machines started flying out of her pyramid-shaped spaceship.

The Set was much larger than the other Mechanical Gods, being at least three to four times larger than Anubis or Ra; its entire mechanical form was densely packed with several plates of armor; and its internal circuits were greatly reinforced to not be easily destroyed.

Its entire body was mostly composed of red and black colors, with a humanoid form and big, long, sharp claws. Set’s head was the strange one, resembling a bizarre combination between a dog and a donkey.

His appearance was directly based on what Set looked like back in Ancient Egyptian Myth paintings; even to this date, researchers have been unable to find out what exactly Set was based on.

A blazing aura surged from his entire mechanical body as steam gathered around it, and then countless particles of red-colored sand began to spin around the gigantic mechanical god.

Bing Xue floated in midair, watching the titanic being approach her. She smiled lightly.

“Impressive, so this is the Machine that the Queen pilots?” she wondered, laughing a bit. “It is indeed much stronger than the other ones! But at the end of the day, it’s not even your own strength.”

“You… Just who do you think you are?!” Neferteri roared angrily. “You come here out of nowhere, kick my fleet into the desert, and then you begin to insult me and the Mechanical God?! Preposterous! Blasphemous! Whatever hell you crawled from, demon, I’ll bring you right back! Set! {Crimson Sandstorm}!”

FLUOSH!

The red sand around Set expanded even further, creating a giant sandstorm that engulfed Bing Xue immediately. Each grain of sand was incredibly tough; Bing Xue quickly felt they were trying to shred her into pieces.

“Each grain of sand is at least as hard as a diamond... No, even harder?” she squinted her eyes. “That is impressive. I can see why this huge monster would make an entire Empire undefeated; entire armies would be shredded to pieces. I did good in coming to stop her personally.”

“Hahaha! Does it hurt?! I bet you’re already being shredded into nothing!” laughed Neferteri. “Don’t worry, I’ll ease your pain!”

Her voice echoed around the endless sandstorm; most normal people would be afraid, as they would only be able to see the crimson sand and hear her sadistic voice as she laughed at their misfortune.

Yet…

FLASH!

In that very moment, as Set’s fist emerged amidst the sandstorm and rushed towards Bing Xue, the woman swung her hand downwards, then upwards at the same time.

“{Soul Blade}”

SLAAASH!

A single slash carrying the power of her Soul and her Ki erupted, slicing through the titanic mechanical hand like a hot knife through butter.

“W-Wha…?!”

The scream of Neferteri echoed across the sandstorm as Set’s second fist rushed from below, yet Bing Xue looked down at it with indifference.

“{Primordial Spiritual Body Arts}: {Photon Injection}”

Her legs were wrapped in Divine Photon Essence, resembling needles. With them, she kicked the fist, injecting it with her deadly Divine Photon Energy.

And then…

BOOOM!

The entire mechanical fist exploded into pieces, with thunder, light, and a gold-like substance emerging from every crack before it broke down into pieces.

“Ahh!”

Neferteri’s voice only became more desperate; the crimson sand became stronger and more furious, rampaging around Bing Xue.

With the power to shred through most matter in a matter of seconds, even though she felt slightly annoyed, its power, as it compressed, was tremendous.

“I don’t know what you are…! But you will die by my hand today! {Crimson Sand’s Tomb}!”

RUMBLE!

In that very moment, the crimson sand compressed to a molecular level, covering every inch of Bing Xue’s body and sealing her within an endlessly compressing sphere of crimson sand.

“Oh my, well, this is interesting…”

It unified so much due to the pressure that it transformed into red glass, a beautiful jewel that continued becoming smaller and smaller and smaller.

“Hahaha! You fool! You shouldn’t have stayed within the sandstorm range…! Set is invincible!”

Neferteri remembered all those times Set was piloted by her husband, admiring its tremendous, overwhelming power.

Entire alien fleets in outer space were shredded into pieces, and massive alien machines were destroyed in a matter of seconds.

Even nuclear-powered weapons of mass destruction were annihilated.

Since then, she has admired and desired such power.

When she went to chase after Merneith who had stolen her Mechanical God, she managed to convince the Emperor to lend her Set so she could find Ra very quickly.

And now, she could finally have it; she could finally feel it!

Set’s unmatched power!

“CRYAAAAH!”

“Huh?!”

However, the Empress was startled as the cry of a hawk or a falcon echoed from behind her. A massive humanoid bird-like Mechanical god descended from the skies, with winds and thunder encompassing its body.

“Is that Ra?!”

“Stepmother! Let Bing Xue go!”

Neferteri immediately recognized that damned voice, her face growing furious as she gathered the crimson sands around Set’s body, the mechanical arms that Bing Xue destroyed regrowing anew, now completely made of red diamonds.

“Merneith! This… This is all your damn fault!”

With a furious roar, the Empress of the Empire of the Sun rushed where the voice emerged, facing Ra with all of Set’s strength! Ra’s blazing bird claws reached Set’s enormous body, which used its red diamond fists to intercept the bird’s blazing talons.

CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!

Explosions of fire and red sands echoed around the skies as the heavens above were split apart, the clouds dissipated, and everything below started crystalizing into glass due to Ra’s tremendous heat.

“You…! You killed my mother!”

Merneith’s voice echoed from Ra, as she was crying inside her Mechanical God. After having learned from Akhenaten that his mother had poisoned Merneith’s mother, the princess had changed.

And she desired nothing more than revenge!

“Hah! So my failure of a son told you, huh?!”

Neferteri smiled, quickly using Merneith’s unstable emotions to her advantage. As she was tanking Ra’s deadly blows with Set’s immense physical defenses, she quickly laughed.

“Yes! I killed her! So what?! She was a bitch that just got in the way!”

“I HATE YOU!”

“CRYAAAAHH!”

Merneith screamed, her emotions and her mind fusing with Ra as the giant mechanical god overflowed with flames, spreading out its wings with tremendous firepower.

“DIEEEE!”

Merneith materialized two giant spears made of plasma, attacking Set through Ra’s sheer firepower; each blow would easily blow off a piece of Set.

If it wasn’t because of Neferteri’s trickery.

“{Crimson Sand Mirage}!”

The crimson sandstorm shifted and transformed as several mirages resembling Set appeared at once, rushing towards Merneith at the same time as Set.

“W-What’s this?! Mirages?”

Merneith panicked slightly but quickly decided she simply had to destroy all the mirages, pushing her powers to their limits as Ra unleashed a devastating barrage of attacks at once.

“I’ll kill every one of you if that’s necessary to get to that murderer!”

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Each piercing blow from her Plasma Spears generated loud explosions that shook everything. The Mirages were tough, however. Made of the hardened crimson sand, they were as hard as red diamonds. Merneith had to strike them three times before they shattered into pieces, considerably slowing her down.

And Neferteri knew this, using this opportunity to sneak behind Merneith using the sandstorm to her advantage, and then attacking as she gathered the crimson sand around her, which seemed endless.

“You have no chance, girl. {Crimson Sand Armory}”

“Aah!”

Merneith’s eyes widened as her Golden Bloodline Ability activated, and a swirling tornado of winds, rain, snow, and thunder gathered around her as she used her Horus’ Domain of the Sky to defend.

CLASH! CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!

However, at the end, several of the spears ended up reaching Ra, piercing through its joints, slowing down or outright paralyzing his limbs.

“C-CRAAAHH!”

Ra seemed to be annoyed and struggling. Merneith rapidly gathered her Golden Bloodline powers to a small point and fired an attack.

“{Horus’ Domain of the Sky: Thunderbolt}!”

With all her powers, Merneith unleashed dozens of thunderbolts against Neferteri; she had her own powers now and didn’t have to just leave everything to Ra anymore.

The thunderbolts reached Set within seconds, impacting it several times in a row and pushing the Mechanical God back, yet it seemed unscathed by such attacks.

“Ra!”

Using that time, Merneith quickly gathered her energies and tried to heal Ra, using her Golden Bloodline’s second innate ability, the power to heal Mechanical Gods.

This was something that not many Golden Bloodline users would awaken so easily as she did, and their potency over this ability was also usually weak.

However, after Bing Xue awakened her powers, Merneith’s Golden Bloodline had grown tremendously strong too!

“Bing Xue, where is she?!”

As Ra took out the red diamond weapons, stopping his movements, Set appeared from above, carrying a giant red hammer. Neferteri smiled from inside the Mechanical God, swinging the hammer down with all of Set’s power.

“Now that you’re here, I’ll finish the job I started and kill that whore’s daughter too!”

“Ahh!”

BAAAM!

With tremendous force, Ra was struck down by Set’s massive hammer, and the Mechanical God fell from the skies like a dying phoenix, leaving behind a huge trail of flames.

“R-Ra!”

Merneith panicked as she saw several warning signs inside Ra’s control panel: the Mechanical God had taken critical damage.

“Hahaha! You’re way too weak and unexperienced using Ra! Even I was better, you stupid child!”

Neferteri appeared above Ra again, rushing down with Set’s tremendous speed despite its enormous bulk. She quickly summoned more red diamond weapons made from her crimson sandstorm.

“Ah, I’ve always wanted to do this!”

With a smile filled with malice, she fired dozens of giant projectile weapons against Ra, piercing through its body constantly.

CLASH! CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!

“No… No, no! Ra!”

Merneith started panicking; she was trying to constantly heal him, but because of this, she was slowing down her ability to control the Mechanical God, and her Horus’ Domain of the Sky ability had to be deactivated.

“If only I could go into Awakening Mode again…!”

However, no matter how hard she tried, Awakening Mode was simply not emerging, it was only in that very moment that Merneith’s resolve blazed like the flames of Ra when the Mechanical God accepted her powers and transformed.

But right now, as much as she supplicated Ra to Awaken, it wasn’t happening.

“W-What do I need to do for you to awaken, Ra?!”

She started crying, feeling frustrated.

“Please tell me!”

As she despaired, Neferteri pushed down her entire sandstorm against Merneith, surrounding her within a bubble made of red sand.

“This is it, Merneith!” she laughed. “I’ll avenge my foolish son and kill you this very instant! Death to your filthy bloodline!”

As this was about to happen, suddenly...

“Mother!”

“Ah! Akhenaten?!”

The voice of her son echoed from behind her as she saw a huge black-colored Mechanical God appear.

And it was…

“Anubis?! So it’s you, my son! Have you finally broken free? Come join your mother then-”

“{Black Star}”

“Huh?!”

However, the voice of a girl echoed from within Anubis, and as Neferteri realized she had been tricked, the voice of Akhenaten actually came from Anubis himself, reproducing what it had recorded of Akhenaten’s voice.

But before she could react, a huge sphere of pure black matter imbued with spiritual energies reached her, engulfing her in a potent explosion that disintegrated all her projectiles!

BOOOM!

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