Episode-801
Chapter : 1601
It was a quiet, dusty voice. Lloyd didn't turn. He couldn't look away from Jasmin.
Headmaster Valerius stepped up beside him. The ancient mage looked exhausted. His robes were stained with soot and dust. He held a small wooden box in his hands.
"There wasn't... there wasn't much left," Valerius said, his voice trembling slightly. "The attack... it shattered her form. She turned into diamond dust. I... I used a gathering spell. I collected every speck I could find from the courtyard."
He placed the box on the bier, next to her feet.
"But her body..." Lloyd whispered. His voice sounded strange to his own ears. Hollow. "Her body is here."
"The spirit shattered," Valerius explained gently. "The physical form... it remained. But the damage..."
Valerius stopped. He didn't need to explain. The [All-Seeing Eye] was already active.
It had happened involuntarily. Lloyd’s panic had triggered his survival instincts, and the Eye had snapped open.
Usually, when he looked at a person, he see a galaxy of biological light. He saw the pulsing red of the heart, the blue flow of the nervous system, the golden hum of the spirit core. He saw life.
Now, he saw nothing.
He looked at Jasmin through the Eye, and it was like looking at an empty room. There was no heat. There was no electrical impulse. The complex, beautiful machinery of her biology was silent.
But the worst part was the core.
In the center of her chest, where her Spirit Core should have been—the glowing ember that made her a Spirit User, the source of her Diamond Queen—there was a void.
It wasn't just broken. It was erased. The core had been pulverized into dust. The channels that carried her mana were burned out, scorched black by an overwhelming energy.
She is gone, the System Administrator whispered in his mind. Biological function: Ceased. Spiritual signature: Null. Revival probability: 0.000%.
Lloyd gripped the edge of the bier. His knuckles turned white. He squeezed until the wood creaked.
Why?
The question screamed in his head. Why her? She wasn't a soldier. She wasn't a lord. She was a maid. She liked honey-cakes. She sang to the orphans. Why is she the one on the table?
He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was heavy.
He turned his head slowly.
Ken Park was there. The stoic bodyguard. The man who never showed emotion. The man who had faced armies without blinking.
Ken was on his knees.
He had collapsed beside the bier. His head was bowed, his forehead resting against the wood. His shoulders were heaving. He was making a sound Lloyd had never heard before—a low, ragged keening sound, like a wounded animal.
Ken had loved her. Not romantically, he had loved her like a sister. Like a bright spot in his dark world. They were the servants of the monster. They were the ones who kept Lloyd human.
And now she was dead.
Lloyd looked back at Jasmin. He reached out and touched her cheek. It was cold. It wasn't the cold of winter. It was the cold of an object.
"Jasmin," he whispered.
He waited for an answer.
There was no answer.
The finality of it hit him like a physical blow. This wasn't a puzzle he could solve. This wasn't a trap he could think his way out of. He couldn't build a machine to fix this. He couldn't negotiate with death.
He had become a god of industry. He had become a master of war. He had defied kings and demons.
But he couldn't save his handmaiden.
A shadow fell over them.
Lloyd looked up. His father, Roy, was standing in the doorway of the infirmary. He was leaning heavily on a crutch, his face pale and covered in a sheen of sweat. He shouldn't have been walking. He looked like he was about to collapse.
But he dragged himself into the room. He limped toward the bier. The crowd parted for him, terrified by the look on his face.
Roy stopped at the foot of the bier. He looked at his son. He looked at the dead girl.
"Lloyd," Roy rasped.
Lloyd stared at his father. He felt a sudden, irrational surge of anger. Why are you alive? the dark thought whispered. You are the Arch Duke. You are the soldier. Why is the little girl dead and you are standing there?
He crushed the thought. But the pain remained.
"Tell me," Lloyd said. His voice was a flat, dead thing. "Tell me what happened."
Chapter : 1602
Roy closed his eyes. He took a shuddering breath.
"Lucifer," Roy said.
________________________________________
"Lucifer," Roy repeated. The name sucked the remaining air out of the room.
Lloyd stood frozen. His mind, usually a high-speed processor of tactics and strategies, ground to a halt. Lucifer. The Devil King of Pride. One of the Seven Monarchs of the Abyss.
"He came alone," Roy rasped, leaning heavily on the bier as if it were the only thing keeping him upright. "He descended from the sky. He crushed the guards with gravity. He broke the gates with a word."
Roy looked at his son, his eyes filled with a shame so deep it looked like physical pain. "I fought him, Lloyd. I summoned Gog and Magog. I used the full power of the Steel Blood. I threw everything I had at him."
Roy looked at his bandaged shoulder, at the empty space where his arm used to hold a sword. "He played with me. He used an artifact... a Lodestone. He stripped my power. He crumbled my spirits. He put me on my knees in the dirt."
Lloyd listened. He didn't blink. He absorbed the data. A King-Level Devil. An anti-metal artifact. Total defeat.
"He was going to kill me," Roy whispered. "He formed a spear of darkness. The Spear of Nihil. It erases the soul. He was going to put it through my heart. I was dead, Lloyd. I had accepted it."
Roy looked down at Jasmin’s face. His expression broke. The iron mask of the Arch Duke shattered, leaving only a grieving old man.
"She... she jumped," Roy choked out.
Lloyd’s eyes widened. "What?"
"She was hiding," Roy said, tears spilling down his cheeks. "She was safe. He didn't know she was there. She could have stayed in the shadows. She could have lived."
Roy gripped the edge of the bier. "But she ran. She ran into the pressure that flattened knights. She turned herself into diamond. She threw herself between the spear and me."
Lloyd looked at Jasmin’s small body. He imagined it. He imagined her terror. She was terrified of loud noises. She was scared of thunder. And yet...
"She caught it," Roy whispered in awe. "For one second... she stopped a god. She held the spear. She bought me time. The explosion of her spirit... it deflected the blow. It saved my life."
Roy looked up at Lloyd, his eyes burning with intensity.
"She didn't do it for me, Lloyd. She barely knew me. I was just the Lord. I was just the boss."
Roy reached out and grabbed Lloyd’s arm. His grip was weak, but desperate.
"She died for you," Roy said.
The words hit Lloyd like a hammer to the chest.
"She knew," Roy said. "She knew that if I died... if the House fell... you would be alone. She knew you needed a father. She knew you needed a home to come back to. She sacrificed herself to save your world, Lloyd."
Lloyd staggered back. He pulled his arm from his father's grip.
"No," Lloyd whispered. "No."
"Yes," Roy insisted. "Her last thought... I felt it. Her spirit projected it. She wanted me to tell you. She wanted you to know she did her job. She wanted you to know she was your shield."
Lloyd looked at the girl. The shield. The Diamond Queen.
The weight of it crashed down on him. It wasn't just a casualty of war. It was a transaction. Her life for his comfort. Her future for his father's survival.
She had paid the price for his war.
The silence returned. But now it was heavy with the truth.
Lloyd looked at Jasmin, and the present faded. The infirmary dissolved. The sobbing of Faria and Mei Jing faded away.
He was back in the past.
Flashback.
The manufactory. It was late. The air smelled of rosemary and lye. Lloyd was working on a formula, frustrated, muttering to himself.
"Master Lloyd?"
He turned. Jasmin was standing there, holding a tray. A steaming mug of tea and a plate of those honey-cakes she liked.
"You looked... like you forgot to eat," she said shyly. "Again."
She smiled. It was a small, hesitant smile. The smile of a girl who was used to being invisible but was learning to be seen.
Flashback shifts.
The white void of his pocket dimension. Training. Jasmin was on the ground, panting, sweating. She was trying to summon her diamond skin.
"I can't do it," she cried. "I'm not strong enough. I'm just a maid."