Leo reached out to touch the armour floating several feet from him, the armour was smooth to the touch. His fingers almost slid off the smooth edges.
The armour looked to be made of smooth black metal, it's colour was like black ink and surging like it was alive. Its arm had spaulders gleaming on the shoulders, there were slight contours on the side of silver lines etched into them. And huge dark boots.
The figurehead of the piece of armour was that of an animal, with two holes in its eyes filled with silver light. There was menacing look of a wide grin showing silver fangs, it looked more hideous than pleasant. The sides of the figure head had a slight hint of silver lines on them.
On the chest of the armour was the insignia of a silver wolf howling at the heavens.
The armour in its entirety was both magnificent and terrifying at the same time. The concept of having an armour type artifact had barely crossed his mind, the added power and defence one would give him would increase his battle exponentially. But only if he could properly integrate it into his battle style.
The sphere spoke in a loud boom.
[You have received an artifact]
After hearing this he watched the armour fizzle out of existence and flow into his astral form. Leo pulled his mind out of the spatial world within the ring and found himself back within the world of Hellscape.
He felt himself left slightly drained and overwhelmed by the strain it had put on him, it felt like his head was spinning.
He took a few deep breaths to recover his senses fully.
He summoned his information to display itself and went straight to the page with his artifacts.
Artifacts: — [Red Needle] [Moonfall's Bride]
A bit excited to check out the armours properties he willed the information portraying to it to open up.
Artifact Name: Moonfall's Bride.
Artifact Type: Armour.
Artifact Rank: Transcendent.
Artifact Description: Moonfall lost his bride due to his own faults, he cherished her beauty still in steel and blood.
Artifact Enchantments:
—Moon's Love- The armour will self repair itself.
—Lost Memories- Soul damage attack will be neglected to some extent.
Leo's eyes continued to widen till they were on the verge of bursting from their sockets.
"A transcendent tier, I can't believe it." He said to himself dumbfounded.
A transcendent tier weapon was a full tier above an awakened meaning it would be more durable and reliable than an awakened tier artifact. It was a great addition to his repertoire, except for one catch.
Unlike awakened artifacts whose enchantments could be used at any time within their specifications a transcendent tier artifact was different. Leo was sure that he could only bring out at most 20% of its current strength and that was due to the fact that a transcends rank superhuman used mana to operate them.
And mana could only be achieved when he reached that level.
Leo did not let any of this hold him back regardless, he summoned the black armour to appear. A few seconds passed before shimmers of gold light weaved around his body, the armour slowly took its shape, growing and shrinking to accompany his size.
After a few seconds he was clad in the fine black armour. Leo could only see through the two eye holes in its visor, he had expected that there would be some obstruction in it but there was very little. Granted he could not see as well as he did without a visor on, he would not say that this debilitated his performance in any considerable way.
He took in a deep breath to get the scent of what it felt like to be in armour, his noses perceived only the stench of his sweat causing him to recoil. He did not expect his heightened nose to pick up the smell so cleanly.
"Well I guess a bath is in order one of these days." As he spoke his voice sounded different, much deeper and almost menacing.
He could not help but feel grateful to have received such an armour that provided not only good protection for his physical body but also for his identity.
Not wasting any more time Leo decided to do some advanced forms of movement and test his performance in the suit of armour.
He summoned his sword and barely felt it's weight in his now iron grip, he started his series of coordinated attacks on the air before him. What he came to respect more than anything was the breathability of the artifact around the joints where he was supposed to have free movement.
He had heard of people saying that their armour type artifacts were clunky and hard to maneuver in but he did not have this problem. After almost an hour of testing out the artifact, Leo dispelled it alongside red needle.
He slumped down on the grass beneath a tree and watched the setting sun, his chest heaved and his clothes reeked of sweat. He could not tell how good the defensive capability of Moonfall's Bride was but one thing was for certain, he was not going to be incorporating the menacing suit of armour any time soon.
After his training session Leo had come to realise that he was not ready to equip and armour into his battles yet. It was true that it provided him more protection during battle but it came at the cost of his mobility.
One thing Leo liked above all else was the freedom of movement, while the transcendent artifact did not limit his mobility too much he was very unfamiliar with having the weight of something metal on him. He was sure he could learn to deal with it with time but at the moment he could not stand to have something thrown off his balance even by the slightest millimeter.
Nightime was coming and he would be making his move soon, cutting through a grassland of infested death critters unharmed would not be an easy task and he needed all his strength for that.
Leo felt his throat itch reminding him of his lack of hydration, he groaned and looked at the sky. There did not look to be any source of water in the area so he was faced with two options.
The first was simply to go back to Glory base with the things he had achieved, and the second was simply to push through on a wild goose chase and pray he found water before he died of thirst.
'As always the odds are not with me.' He groaned.