Episode-820
Chapter : 1639
The spirit tilted her head. It was a mimicry of curiosity, but it felt hollow.
"Data not found," she said pleasanty. "My memory banks are initialized at zero. I am the Diamond Queen. I am your shield."
A chime sounded in Lloyd’s head. A System notification window popped up, hovering next to her blank face.
[Summon Successful]
[Class: Spirit - Diamond Queen]
[Rank: Variable (Scalable)]
[Memory Engram: NULL]
[Personality Matrix: DEFAULT / SUBSERVIENT]
Lloyd read the words. Memory Engram: NULL.
He fell into his chair. The room spun. He had spent a fortune. He had nearly killed himself. He had broken the laws of nature.
And he had bought a doll.
________________________________________
Lloyd stared at the thing wearing Jasmin’s face.
She stood patiently, waiting for input. She didn't fidget. Jasmin always fidgeted. She used to play with her apron when she was nervous. This creature stood with absolute, terrifying stillness.
"Administrator," Lloyd hissed in his mind. "What is this? Where is she?"
[Clarification: The user requested a Spirit Reconstruction. The physical and magical parameters of the target were perfectly recreated using the combat data logs. However, the System cannot capture the 'Soul' or 'Consciousness'. Those data points are metaphysical and dissipate upon biological cessation.]
"You gave me a shell," Lloyd accused. "You gave me a zombie."
[Correction: I gave you a Spirit. It is a high-grade combat asset. It possesses all the reflexive capabilities of the original subject, amplified by Spirit physiology. It is a perfect weapon.]
"I didn't want a weapon!" Lloyd shouted. He grabbed a paperweight and threw it at the wall. It shattered.
The Spirit Jasmin reacted instantly. Her arm blurred, turning into diamond. She didn't intercept the paperweight because it wasn't aimed at Lloyd, but she shifted into a defensive stance, ready to protect him from... himself?
"Threat assessment: Negative," she droned. She returned to her neutral standing pose.
Lloyd put his head in his hands. This was a nightmare. It was worse than her being dead. This was a mockery.
He thought about Mrs. Weaver. He had promised to bring her daughter. Could he bring... this?
If he brought this robot to Mrs. Weaver, the woman would know instantly. A mother would look into those dead eyes and see the truth. It would be cruel. It would be monstrous.
"I should dismiss you," Lloyd whispered. "I should unsummon you. Send you back to the void."
He looked at her again. It was so hard to look at her and not see his friend.
"Jasmin," he said testingly.
"Yes, Master?"
"Smile."
She smiled. It was a perfect anatomical contraction of the zygomaticus major muscles. It showed teeth. But it didn't reach her eyes. It was a mask smiling.
Lloyd shuddered. "Stop. Don't... don't smile."
She stopped instantly. Her face went back to neutral.
Lloyd felt a wave of nausea. He had created a slave. A slave made out of his dead friend's memory.
"I can't undo it," he realized. "If I dismiss her... she's gone forever. The data is used. The coin is spent. This is all that's left of her."
He couldn't throw her away. It felt like killing her a second time.
He stood up and walked over to her. He reached out and touched her arm. It felt warm, but not like human skin. It felt like sun-warmed glass. Solid. Unyielding.
"I'm sorry," he whispered to the spirit. "I'm so sorry I did this to you."
"Apology unrequired," she replied smoothly. "My function is to serve."
"Your function," Lloyd muttered bitterly.
He paced the room. He had to think. He was a strategist. He had a new asset. A flawed, horrifying asset, but an asset.
"Okay," Lloyd said, his voice shaking. "We need to... we need to calibrate. I need to see what you can do. Maybe... maybe the memories are buried. Maybe if I trigger them..."
It was a desperate, foolish hope. But it was all he had.
"Follow me," Lloyd commanded.
"Following," she said.
Lloyd walked to the door. He paused. He couldn't let anyone see her yet. Not Mina. Not his father. If they saw this... this hollow thing... they would think he was a necromancer. They would think he had gone mad.
Maybe he had.
He activated his [Spatial Power]. He opened a portal directly to the Soul Farm.
"Step through," Lloyd said.
Spirit Jasmin stepped into the swirling vortex without hesitation. Lloyd followed her.
They emerged in the sanctuary of the Soul Farm. It was night in the pocket dimension. The stars were cold and distant.
Chapter : 1640
Lloyd looked at his creation standing in the grass.
"I'm going to call you Jasmin," Lloyd said. "Because I can't call you anything else. But you aren't her. I know that."
"Designation accepted: Jasmin," the spirit said.
"We're going to test you," Lloyd said. He felt cold inside. "We're going to see if you're worth the price of my soul."
He summoned Iffrit. The fire demon materialized, looking massive and terrifying.
"Iffrit," Lloyd said. "Training mode. Level 5."
Iffrit looked at the new spirit. He looked at Lloyd. The demon seemed confused by the familiar face with the empty scent.
"Master?" Iffrit rumbled. "That is the cleaning girl. Why does she smell like static?"
"She's not the cleaning girl," Lloyd said. "She's the Diamond Queen. Attack her."
Iffrit hesitated. "But..."
"Attack her!" Lloyd roared.
Iffrit shrugged. He raised a massive, flaming fist and swung at the small girl.
Lloyd watched, holding his breath. Please, he thought. Please show me something real. Scream. Run. Do something human.
Spirit Jasmin didn't flinch. She didn't scream.
She moved.
________________________________________
The fight in the Soul Farm wasn't a spar; it was a physics demonstration.
Iffrit’s fist, a boulder wreathed in magma, descended with enough force to crush a tank. Spirit Jasmin didn't dodge. She didn't block in the traditional sense.
In the split second before impact, her skin shifted. It didn't just harden; it transmuted. Her flesh turned into translucent, faceted crystal. She angled her body perfectly, catching the blow on her shoulder.
CRACK.
The sound was sharp, like a hammer hitting an anvil. But she didn't buckle. The force of the blow slid off her angled armor, redirected into the ground. The earth shattered beneath her feet, but she remained standing.
"Counter-measure initiated," she stated calmly.
Her arm shifted. The diamond flowed like water and then snapped rigid, forming a long, jagged blade extending from her forearm. She spun, using the momentum of Iffrit’s attack to fuel her own. She slashed at the demon’s chest.
SHING.
The diamond blade cut through Iffrit’s magma armor like it was butter. The demon roared in surprise and stumbled back, a line of cooling lava marking the wound.
Lloyd watched, his mouth slightly open. The human Jasmin had been brave, but she had been clumsy. She scrambled. She panicked. She used her power instinctively, defensively.
This spirit was a machine. Her movements were mathematically perfect. She wasted no energy. Every step was calculated for maximum efficiency. She was faster than the original. Stronger.
"Iffrit, fire breath!" Lloyd commanded.
Iffrit inhaled and unleashed a torrent of crimson flame. The heat turned the sand to glass.
Jasmin didn't run. She raised both hands. The air in front of her shimmered. She grew a wall of diamond from her palms, a faceted shield that curved to deflect the flames.
But she didn't just block. The diamond wall acted as a prism. It caught the light of the fire, concentrated it, and fired it back as a blinding laser beam of heated light.
The beam hit Iffrit in the face, blinding him.
"Combat efficiency: 94%," Jasmin announced from behind her shield.
Lloyd felt sick. It was incredible. It was magnificent. And it was horrifying.
He remembered teaching the real Jasmin how to hold a knife. She had been shaking. She had been afraid of cutting herself. This thing... this thing felt no fear. It felt no pain. It felt nothing.
"Stop," Lloyd whispered.
The combatants didn't hear him. Iffrit was angry now. He roared and summoned his greatsword.
"STOP!" Lloyd shouted, amplifying his voice with Void power.
Iffrit froze mid-swing. Jasmin instantly returned to her neutral standing pose, the diamond armor dissolving back into skin.
Lloyd walked over to her. He examined her shoulder where Iffrit had hit her. There was no bruise. No scratch. Just perfect, unblemished skin.
"Are you hurt?" Lloyd asked.
"Damage assessment: Negligible," she replied. "Structural integrity at 100%."
Lloyd looked into her eyes. He was desperate for a flicker of fear. Adrenaline. Anything.
"Did that scare you?" he asked. "A giant demon tried to burn you. Did you feel anything?"
"Fear is a biological response to perceived threat," she recited. "I am a conceptual entity. I cannot be terminated by conventional means. Therefore, fear is illogical."
Lloyd closed his eyes. Illogical.
The real Jasmin was terrified of spiders. She cried when she cut onions. She loved bad romance novels. Those weren't logical things. Those were human things. And they were gone.
He had built a perfect soldier. He had upgraded her. And in doing so, he had erased her.