Angel Monarch

On the infinite grass field Sera was currently doing stretches and a few basic katas, trying to get used to her virtual body.

This VR machine was truly magical. It had the ability to create scenarios that are very realistic. It wasn't hundred percent the same as real life since the enemies created by it had more restrictions than actual humans or monsters, but it worked well for anything at the low transcended level.

If you try to simulate something stronger, the reality will actually begin to break down since it requires to much processing power to keep the calculations going.

When Sera gotten used to her new self she spoke to the A.I., which controlled the simulations.

"Third Warmup Preset!" She said in a low voice. It wasn't actually necessary to talk, she could've just thought of a command and the A.I. would've obeyed. This was a feature Sera had quickly turned off, because it often changed the scenario based on her thoughts.

"Understood Angel Monarch! Third Warmup Preset will begin in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

NOW!" The voice said the last word a bit louder and in that moment everything changed around Sera.

The large grass field became a mountainous cold terrain. The visibility decreased because of strong snowfall and wind. From somewhere behind her a loud roar shook Sera's very bones.

Without moving Sera held out her hand and summoned her glaive. She didn't summon anything else, not her armor, or her wings. She wouldn't use anything other than her glaive for the entire training session.

The roar reverberated again, but this time it was from much closer and from two directions.

This time Sera actually began to look around. There were supposed to be three beasts in this simulation, but every time the A.I. spiced it up in some way since its main purpose was to simulate real life.

Sera heard a very light footstep on her left and instinctively she ducked to the right. There was a brush of air above her and the sound of something large landing nearby.

There wasn't much time to think, since she heard another small sound from behind her. This time she didn't roll, but jumped into the air. Her legs propelled her nearly six meters above the ground. In the air she made a flip at the apex of her jump, which gave her just enough room to avoid the creatures claws.

While still in the air, Sera looked down at the beast. It had pure white fur and it resembled a giant lion of sorts. While falling she made her weapon elongate another meter so it would reach the creature's back and cut through the muscles on its left shoulder.

The monster roared in pain and rage, but Sera was already moving in another direction. She still found no signs of the third beast, but the other two were trying to encircle her.

One on her left, one on her right, they moved with impossible synchronization. One attacking from down, the other from up, this left her no room to evade, so instead she moved her glaive in the way of the lion aiming for her legs.

The creature didn't seem to care for the blade heading towards its head. It knew that its body's momentum would still be carried over to Sera, when its corpse hit her.

This was one problem when it came to simulations. A computer only thinks rationally, a fight for it is more like a game of chess, where you can sacrifice pieces to win the game. This was exactly what the A.I. was doing with the snow lion.

Luckily Sera knew about this quirk of the machine, so she anticipated this self sacrifice.

Her glaive moved cutting through the lion's skull, but before the corpse could've fell on her and keep her pinned to the ground, she placed the butt of her glaive on the rocky ground, and flipped the monster over her head.

Her muscles strained with effort. The creature weighed probably half a ton or more, but her ascended muscles and knowledge of levers in physics, helped her use the monster momentum to her advantage.

The dead creature fell on the ground about five meters away, but Sera was already running towards the other. The creature didn't even have time to turn before Sera cut its throat. The lion fell on the ground in a bleeding pile.

Sera looked around the snowy mountaintop and tried to listen to the last monster's footsteps. Suddenly the sound of the wind increased, which made Sera laugh a bit. It seemed like the computer finally adjusted the sounds so she couldn't identify the direction of the attack as easily.

With the loss of her hearing, she began turning in place trying to pierce the wall of snow around her, but it was just simply impossible. After waiting a few minutes, she decided to try a different plan.

Dismissing her glaive she sat on the snowy ground cross-legged and closed her eyes. She also tried to keep out the sound of the wind and only concentrate to the vibrations coming from the rocky ground.

At first she felt nothing, but as she concentrated more and kept out the sound of the wind, she finally felt something. It was very small, almost unnoticeable, but Sera didn't need another second to know where the lion was.

With one hand she pushed herself up from the ground, in her other hand the white flames coalesced into a golden spear. She threw it exactly where the vibration originated from and a giant cry of pain resounded on the mountaintop.

She didn't need to check the corpse to know it was dead, since the female voice immediately after the roar stopped, began talking.

"Congratulations Angel Monarch for completing Third Warmup Preset! Your results are splendid as always! What training would you like to do next?"

Sera thought for a bit. Now that she felt a bit better and more comfortable, it was time to start the actual training session.

"Fifth Human Training Preset." She said in a whisper. Her surroundings changed again, this time into an urban environment. Around her people fought each other in large numbers.

This was actually one of her memories which she uploaded into the machine for training purposes. The reason she uploaded it was because in this battle she came very close to actually dying.

She was currently standing in a gigantic circular building, which was called a Colosseum if she remembered correctly. This was one of the few buildings that withstood the thousands of years since it was built.

This giant fight was exactly what it seemed like, the siege of Rome. It was a victory, but not without a large cost both in soldier and civilian life.

With anticipation Sera looked towards the upper part of the Colosseum, which in the next moment exploded into rubble from an artillery shell. With a small hidden sadness or maybe regret in her eyes, Sera summoned her glaive and waited for what came next.

Suddenly seemingly out of nowhere five ascended jumped her at the same time. If they would've been from the weaker kind, it wouldn't have been an issue, but these were the elites of the United Front.

Killing machines bred for war. She still didn't quite remember how she survived this encounter. At that point the battle was going on for hours and she had already died once, which meant if they killed her again there would've been no resurrection for her.

The fight between the six of them began and by the next minute a large circle was left empty where they fought. Around them evolved fought their personal battles, but they didn't have a death wish to engage in whatever horror Sera and the other ascended were unleashing on each other.

The battle wasn't heading in the direction Sera wanted it to. She was currently losing, each move nearly costing her life. These ascended were truly elites. Every opening she created through loads of effort was covered by another member of their cohort.

When she was about to die from a sword heading towards her heart suddenly all five ascended froze, it was like their whole existence was stopped in time. Sera had already knew this would happen and with a dejected sigh she decapitated her nigh killer.

At that moment another person appeared next to her. He was a bald, tall, average bodied man, with dark skin that shined like a snake's scales.

His name was David and he saved her by stopping the five ascended in time. Sera knew him quite well, but she always pretended not to since it was crucial for her future plans.

He was an ascended as well, and he also led a smaller city like Sera. Behind him, his team approached and with their help Sera took out the five ascended with ease.

As the simulation ended again the A.I. woman spoke in her mind.

"Congratulations Angel Monarch on completing Fifth Human Training Preset! Your results are amazing as always! What training would you like to do next?"

After this she spent the next few hours doing most of her training presets. Some were scenarios made from her memories, others were made by her scientists and a few was made and customized by Sera herself.

She stood in the infinite grasslands for a long time, then with a quick move turned off her watch. When she was sure that nobody would see her next actions, she made a silent command inside her head.

"Turn off active surveillance and pattern saving! Open hidden scenario named 'Nothing', code: 'Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust!"

Her surroundings changed again, this time it was much different from before. She was underground in a large facility that had machines, cables, tubes with live specimens and lab equipment everywhere.

Sera looked around a bit, when she heard the voice of the A.I. again.

"Warning scenario too high level! The result of this simulation won't even be remotely close to real life! Don't take the results seriously!"

When the female voice went silent a person came out from behind one of the machines.

He was in his usual lab coat and welding glasses. He had no weapon, but she knew that an impossible fight was about to commence.

Harold just laughed a bit hysterically, then said, "Really? Another try? Wasn't the previous 1547 losses enough? You want to get you ass kicked again?... *sigh* Well, don't mind if I do!"

In Sera's hand her golden glaive appeared and in the next moment all hell broke lose!

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