Episode-808
Chapter : 1615
"Calibrated," Alaric said. "But Master, if you turn it on, you won't be able to use your own magic. You'll be cut off from your Spirits. You'll be blind to the Void."
"I don't need magic," Lloyd said, touching the cold metal. "I have physics. Physics doesn't run out of mana."
He walked to the front of the machine. The chest piece was open, revealing the cockpit. It was a tight, claustrophobic space lined with screens and controls. In the center, embedded in the back of the seat, was the Golem Heart. It was glowing with a deep, rhythmic red light, pulsing like a living organ.
Lloyd took a breath. This was it. The point of no return.
"Clear the room," Lloyd ordered.
"Master?" Lyra asked. "We should stay. In case something goes wrong. We can—"
"If something goes wrong," Lloyd said, turning to look at them, "this room is going to turn into a crater. I don't want you here. Go. Wait behind the blast doors."
They hesitated, but they saw the look in his eyes. It was the look of a man who had already made his peace with death. They bowed and retreated, the heavy blast doors grinding shut behind them with a seal of finality.
Lloyd was alone with the monster.
He climbed the ladder. He stepped into the chest of the Aegis.
It was tight. The suit wrapped around him like a second skin. He sat in the pilot's seat. He strapped himself in.
"Okay," Lloyd whispered. "Let's see if you can walk."
He pressed the activation rune.
The chest plate hissed and slid shut. The world went dark.
For a second, there was only silence and darkness. Lloyd could hear his own breathing, loud and ragged in the confined space.
Then, the Golem Heart woke up.
THUMP.
It wasn't a sound. It was a vibration that shook Lloyd’s bones. A surge of raw, ancient power flooded the circuits of the suit.
Blue lights flickered on in the darkness. Screens illuminated, showing the view from the external cameras. He could see the lab, bathed in the green tint of night vision. He could see telemetry scrolling down the side of his vision—fuel levels, structural integrity, energy output.
But that was just the machine waking up. Now came the hard part.
"Neural Link," Lloyd commanded. "Engage."
The Lilith Stones, embedded in the helmet of the suit, activated.
Pain.
It wasn't a headache. It was a lightning bolt striking his brain. The Lilith Stones didn't just read his mind; they synchronized with it. They dug into his neural pathways, translating his thoughts into electronic signals.
"ARGH!" Lloyd screamed, his body convulsing against the straps.
It felt like ice water was being injected into his spine. It felt like his mind was expanding, stretching to fill a body that was twelve feet tall and made of steel. He could feel the hydraulic fluid pumping like blood. He could feel the cold air on the outer armor as if it were his own skin.
His perspective shifted. He wasn't a man sitting in a chair anymore. He was the Aegis.
The pain receded, replaced by a strange, cold clarity. The "Combat Instincts" he had copied from his own mind took over. The suit stopped feeling like a cage and started feeling like an extension of his will.
System Check, a voice echoed in his head. It wasn't the Administrator. It was the suit. It was his own voice, but metallic, stripped of emotion. It was the voice of the Golem Heart responding to his blood.
Power levels: Optimal.
Weapons: Online.
Null-Field: Standby.
Pilot Vitality: Acceptable.
Lloyd opened his eyes. Or rather, the suit's optical sensors flared to life.
The eyes of the Aegis glowed a menacing, piercing red.
He moved his arm.
It wasn't a clumsy, robotic motion. The massive steel arm moved with the fluid grace of a martial artist. The servos whined—a high-pitched, predatory sound. He clenched his fist. The sound of metal grinding on metal was loud, heavy, and satisfying.
"I can feel it," Lloyd whispered. His voice was amplified by the suit's speakers, turning his whisper into a deep, resonant growl that vibrated the tools on the workbenches.
He felt... complete.
For weeks, since Jasmin died, he had felt hollow. He had felt weak. He had felt like a fragile bag of meat waiting to be crushed by a god.
But inside the Aegis, he didn't feel weak. He felt heavy. He felt solid. He felt like he could punch a hole in the moon.
Chapter : 1616
He wasn't flesh and blood anymore. He was steel and fire. He was an equation that had been solved.
He took a step.
CLANG.
The footfall cracked the concrete floor of the lab. The sheer weight of the machine was immense, but the hydraulics handled it effortlessly. He took another step. Then another. He walked around the lab, the movement becoming smoother with every stride as the Lilith Stones calibrated to his gait.
He stopped in front of a large, polished sheet of metal he used for testing reflections.
He looked at himself.
He saw a demon. A demon of technology. Matte black armor, glowing blue veins of energy, red eyes burning in a skull-like faceplate. It was a nightmare given form. It was exactly what he wanted to be.
He raised his right arm. The railgun barrel extended with a mechanical clack-clack.
He raised his left arm. The Vibro-Blade slid out of its sheath, humming with a sound so high-pitched it made his teeth ache even inside the helmet.
"This isn't a suit," Lloyd said, the metallic voice filling the room. "This is a reckoning."
He felt the Golem Heart pulsing against his back. It was eager. It wanted to be let off the leash. It remembered the destruction of the old world, and it wanted to bring it to the new one.
"Not yet," Lloyd told the heart. "Save it for the Target."
He turned toward the blast doors. He keyed the comms.
"Open the doors," Lloyd commanded.
There was a pause. Then the grinding sound of the heavy doors opening.
Lloyd stepped out into the corridor. The alchemists scrambled back, pressing themselves against the walls. They looked at him with pure terror. They didn't see their master. They saw a monster.
Lloyd didn't comfort them. He didn't open the faceplate to smile and say it was okay. He wanted them to be afraid. He wanted the world to be afraid.
He walked past them, the floor shaking with every step. He headed for the freight elevator that led to the deep underground testing chamber.
"Going down," Lloyd said. "It's time to test the god."
________________________________________
The underground testing chamber was a vast cavern carved out of the bedrock beneath the estate. It was reinforced with magic wards and steel plates, designed to contain magical experiments gone wrong. Today, it was going to contain physics gone right.
Lloyd stood at one end of the chamber. At the other end, a hundred yards away, stood a block of solid adamantite.
Adamantite was the hardest metal in the world. It was used to make the shields of kings. It was supposedly indestructible by physical means. To break it, you needed high-level magic or a Transcended Spirit's attack.
Lloyd locked his targeting sensors on the block. A red reticle appeared in his vision, zooming in until he could see the grain of the metal.
"Test One," Lloyd recorded, his metallic voice echoing in the cavern. "Kinetic Impact. Standard Punch. No hydraulics."
He walked up to the block. It was a cube, five feet on each side. It weighed twenty tons.
He pulled his arm back. He twisted his hip. He threw the punch.
It was a simple, boxing jab.
BLAM.
The sound was like a car crash. The Aegis fist slammed into the adamantite. The block didn't break, but it slid backward ten feet, gouging deep trenches in the stone floor.
"Force output: Acceptable," Lloyd noted. "Test Two. Hydraulic Assist. Maximum output."
He stepped up to the block again. He braced his legs, the pistons in his calves hissing as they locked into place. He pulled his right arm back. This time, he engaged the pile-bunker mechanism.
HISS-CLICK.
The hydraulics pressurized. The Golem Heart flared, dumping energy into the pistons.
"Delete," Lloyd whispered.
He punched.
As his fist made contact, the pile-bunker fired. A tungsten spike shot out of his knuckles, driven by ten tons of instant pressure.
CRACK-BOOM.
The air in the cavern compressed. A shockwave of dust and sound blasted outward.
Lloyd stepped back.
The adamantite block was gone.
It wasn't cracked. It wasn't broken in half. It had shattered. The upper half of the block had been reduced to shrapnel and dust. The lower half was cracked down the middle.
Lloyd looked at his fist. The paint was scratched, but the metal was intact.
"Physics," Lloyd said, a dark satisfaction curling in his gut. "Mass times acceleration equals goodbye."
He turned away from the rubble. He walked back to the starting line.