Episode-881
Chapter : 1761
"No!" the crossbow knight shrieked as his own arm began to move against his will. The metal plates of his pauldron ground together, forcing his hand to turn the sword toward his own throat. "Stop it! My arm! It's breaking!"
"The steel is the architect now," Lloyd said, his face a blank porcelain mask. "You are just the building."
With a sharp, downward motion of Lloyd’s fingers, the magnetic pull peaked. The knights were forced to perform a simultaneous, ritualistic end. They fell into the mud, not by Lloyd’s hand, but by the weapons they had spent their lives carrying.
Lloyd stood in the silence of the forest. He lowered his arms, and the remaining ten swords fell back into the muck with a series of dull, hollow thuds. The rain continued to fall, washing the blood from the iron, but Lloyd knew that some stains weren't on the surface.
"Target status: Terminated," Lloyd whispered.
He didn't look at the cabin. He didn't look at the bodies. He simply turned toward the hill where the main manor lay. He walked with a steady, mechanical pace, a ghost of iron moving through a world that no longer had a heart.
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Five miles away, nestled on a cliffside overlooking the valley, the secondary Ferrum manor glowed like a dying ember in the storm. Inside the master study, Viscount Rubel was no longer the confident conspirator. He was a man who had seen the face of a god and realized it was a machine.
Rubel paced the length of his expensive rug, his boots clicking frantically. On his desk, a heavy silver-framed scrying mirror lay in pieces. He had watched the entire battle through the glass, mesmerized by the slaughter, until the moment Lloyd had looked into the "camera" and the sheer magnetic pressure of his bloodline had shattered the crystal from miles away.
"He's a monster," Rubel hissed, his hand shaking as he tried to pour a glass of brandy. The liquid splashed onto the mahogany desk, looking like a fresh pool of blood. "That's not Lloyd. That’s not my nephew. He’s... he’s a demon. He’s a ghost in the armor."
"Demons are far more predictable, I assure you."
Rubel jumped, the brandy glass shattering against the floorboards. He spun around, his eyes wide with terror, looking toward the high-backed velvet chair near the fireplace.
A young man was sitting there. He was dressed in the height of capital fashion—silks that shimmered with the color of spilled oil, and boots made from the skin of creatures that didn't exist in the mortal realm. His eyes were the most striking feature; they were the color of polished, glittering gold. This was Mammon, the Devil Prince of Greed.
"Master Mammon!" Rubel gasped, falling to his knees. "Did you see? He killed them all! He didn't even use a sword! He’s coming for me! You promised me the estate! You said he would be a broken boy!"
Mammon didn't look at the trembling noble. He was staring into the fire, his golden eyes reflecting the dancing flames. "I said he was a boy who could be broken. And I was right. Look at him now. He is a masterpiece of fractured logic. He has traded his grief for physics. It is... exquisite."
Mammon stood up, his movements fluid and unnatural. He walked to the window, watching the lightning strike the distant forest where Lloyd was marching.
"You don't understand!" Rubel shrieked, his voice reaching a fever pitch. "He’ll be here by dawn! He’ll tear this house down with his bare hands!"
"He will certainly try," Mammon purred. "But Lloyd Ferrum has a flaw that he hasn't accounted for. He believes that logic is a shield. He thinks that because he can calculate the strength of a beam or the weight of a blade, he can calculate the truth. But truth is a very flexible thing, Rubel."
Mammon turned away from the window. His golden eyes glowed with a predatory hunger. To Rubel, Mammon looked like a savior. To the universe, he was the thing that whispered into the cracks of the world.
"I don't care about your land, Rubel. I don't care about your title. I hoard something far more valuable. I hoard the moment of realization. The second when a man realizes that his entire life was a lie. That is the true gold of the Abyss."
Chapter : 1762
Mammon began to walk toward the door. As he moved, his form began to flicker like a candle in a draft. His broad, noble shoulders narrowed and sloped. His expensive silks turned into ragged, mud-stained linen. His face, once sharp and handsome, softened and rounded. His golden eyes faded into a watery, innocent blue.
By the time he reached the doorway, the Devil Prince was gone. In his place stood a small girl, no older than ten. Her hair was a matted bird's nest of brown curls, and her face was smudged with soot and fake, shimmering tears. She looked like the most helpless creature in the world.
"What are you doing?" Rubel whispered, his voice trembling with a new kind of fear.
"I am going to provide the Major General with a new set of data," the girl said. Her voice was high, sweet, and perfectly innocent, but the words were as cold as a grave. "Lloyd is searching for a reason for his pain. He wants a villain. He wants a story that is big enough to explain why the girl in the cabin had to die."
The girl practiced a sob, her small shoulders shaking with simulated misery. It was a terrifyingly perfect performance.
"He thinks he was betrayed by a petty, greedy uncle like you," Mammon continued, her voice echoing in the hallway. "But that is too simple for a man who thinks in blueprints. He needs a grander tragedy. He needs to believe that the person he still secretly trusts... is the one who sold him out."
"Rosa," Rubel breathed.
"The Ice Queen," the girl giggled. The sound was high and childish, making the hair on Rubel’s neck stand up. "I will tell him a story, Rubel. I will tell him that the map to the cabin was signed with a Siddik seal. I will tell him that Rosa sold Mina’s location to buy your loyalty for her own throne. It’s a very logical story. It explains her coldness. It explains her silence."
The little girl skipped toward the staircase, her bare feet making no sound on the stone floor.
"He is a creature of logic now," Mammon’s voice drifted back from the darkness. "And logic dictates that the person who gains the most is the culprit. Rosa gains a husband who has no one else to turn to. She gains a Ferrum line that is broken and easy to dominate. It makes perfect sense."
The girl stopped at the top of the stairs, looking down into the shadows of the lower floor.
"He will believe the lie because he wants to believe it. He wants a reason to let go of the last piece of his humanity. And once he kills her... once he stands over her body and realizes he has murdered the only person who actually tried to save him... the despair he produces will be enough to feed me for a thousand years."
Mammon vanished into the darkness of the manor, leaving Rubel alone in his study.
The storm outside peaked. Lightning illuminated the valley, showing the silhouette of a lone figure marching through the mud. Lloyd Ferrum continued his walk, his Ferrum Steel blood pulsing with a cold, rhythmic beat. He thought he was the hunter. He thought he was the architect of his own revenge.
But as he walked, he didn't realize that the devil was already weaving the story that would end him. The Ghost Assassin was moving toward his target, and the logic of the steel was about to lead him straight into a lie that would burn the world.
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The rain in this timeline never seemed to stop. It wasn't a cleansing rain; it was a cold, grey curtain that turned the world into a blur of mud and misery.
Lloyd Ferrum sat in the corner of a roadside tavern called "The Broken Wheel." It was a miserable place near the border of the Ferrum lands. The air inside smelled of wet wool, stale beer, and unwashed bodies. The tavern was mostly empty, save for a few terrified locals who were trying very hard not to look at the young man in the corner.
They had heard the rumors. They knew there was a ghost walking the North—a man who didn't use magic, didn't use a sword, and left behind rooms full of people who had been dismantled like broken toys.