Episode-889
Chapter : 1777
Lloyd stood up and began to pace the concrete floor of the manufactory. The metal soles of his boots clicked rhythmically.
"My life on Earth..." Lloyd muttered. "Eighty years. Becoming KM Evan. The engineering. The military contracts. The ruthless efficiency. None of that was an accident?"
"It was a tempering process," the Reflection explained. "The Administrator knew that the 'Original Lloyd'—me—failed because I was too soft. I was too emotional. I let my feelings blind me to logic. So, you were sent to a place where logic is king. You were sent to Earth to learn how to build, how to calculate, and how to shut off your heart when necessary. You were forced to become the opposite of me."
Lloyd stopped pacing. He looked at his hands. They were calloused from working with metal in this life, just as they had been in his life on Earth.
"And the System?" Lloyd asked. "The Shopping Tree? The tasks? 'Feed the dog'? 'Slap the bully'? Was the Administrator controlling me like a puppet?"
"Not a puppet," the Reflection said. "Think of it as... training wheels. The System is just a user interface designed to bridge the gap between your Earth logic and this world's magic. You understand commerce. You understand blueprints. So, the Administrator gave you a power that looks like a shop."
The Reflection let out a dry, humorless chuckle.
"As for the tasks... well, I might have had a little influence there. Just a nudge."
"You?" Lloyd narrowed his eyes. "You told me to slap that noble in the academy?"
"You were too passive!" the Reflection argued, throwing his hands up. "When you first came back to this world, you were trying to lay low. You wanted to hide. I knew that if you hid, you would die. Again. I needed you to be aggressive. I needed you to have a spine. So, I used the System prompts to push you into conflicts. I bribed you with coins to make you stand up for yourself."
Lloyd stared at the ghost. He wanted to be angry. He wanted to scream about free will and manipulation. But as he looked at the Reflection, he didn't see a mastermind. He saw a desperate, broken version of himself who had spent lifetimes trying to fix a mistake.
"You were trying to save me from becoming you," Lloyd realized.
"I was trying to save us from making the same mistake twice," the Reflection said softly. "I died in the mud, Lloyd. I died hating the person who loved me. I spent an eternity in the void regretting that last moment. I didn't want you to die with that kind of weight on your soul."
The ghost looked around the manufactory. He looked at the advanced machinery, the steam engines, the modern weapons Lloyd had built using his Earth knowledge.
"And it worked," the Reflection said, a hint of pride entering his voice for the first time. "Look at you. You aren't the weeping boy in the rain anymore. You are the Major General. You are the Kinetic Engineer. You built a tank in a world of swords. You did what I never could."
"I did it because I had tools," Lloyd said, dismissing the praise. "I had the System. I had the Ferrum bloodline."
"I had the bloodline too," the Reflection reminded him bitter-sweetly. "But I didn't have the mind for it. I tried to use it like magic. I tried to cast spells. You... you use it like an engineer. You understand the physics of the metal. That is why you are strong. That is why you can win."
Lloyd leaned against the Aegis suit, the cold metal pressing against his back.
"Win?" Lloyd asked. "I've just been surviving. I've been building this empire to pay for my cultivation so I don't get crushed by the next monster that comes along."
"That was the tutorial," the Reflection said, his face darkening. The flickering of his form became more erratic. "The survival phase is over, Lloyd. You have established your base. You have gathered your allies. Now, the real game begins."
The atmosphere in the room shifted. The air grew colder, but not from the temperature. It was a psychic coldness, a warning of something ancient and hungry.
"The Administrator didn't bring you back just to sell soap," the Reflection warned. "And Rosa didn't save you just so you could get rich. You were brought back because there is a rot at the center of this world. And you know his name."
Chapter : 1778
Lloyd nodded slowly. He remembered the golden figure in the valley. He remembered the voice that sounded like coins rubbing together.
"Mammon," Lloyd said.
"He is the one," the Reflection confirmed. "Bael is loud. He breaks things. Lucifer is arrogant. He wants to be worshipped. But Mammon... Mammon is the architect of our misery."
The ghost hopped off the workbench. He drifted closer to Lloyd, his eyes intense and desperate.
"You need to understand something, Lloyd. The Mammon you saw in the dream? That was him playing with a helpless boy. He won't play with you. He knows you are dangerous now. He knows you have Earth knowledge. He knows you have the System."
"So he'll send an army?" Lloyd asked.
"No," the Reflection said. "That would be too simple."
________________________________________
The Reflection stood toe-to-toe with Lloyd, or at least he would have if he had physical feet. He floated inches above the concrete, his form becoming more transparent by the second.
"Listen to me closely," the Reflection said, his voice urgent. "Mammon is the Devil of Greed, but he doesn't just deal in money. He deals in value. He finds out what you value most, and he holds it hostage."
Lloyd crossed his arms. "I have the Aegis. I have the Spirit Citadel. I have an army of modernized soldiers. Let him try to take my things."
"He won't come for your things!" the Reflection shouted, his voice echoing with a spectral distortion. "He will come for your heart! He will come for the people!"
The ghost pointed a trembling finger at Lloyd’s chest.
"In my timeline, he took Mina because she was my anchor. He took Rosa because she was my shield. He isolated me until I was just a raw nerve of pain, and then he manipulated me into destroying myself. He will do the same to you."
Lloyd felt a chill run down his spine. He thought of his current wives. He thought of the fragile alliances he had built.
"He will look for the cracks," the Reflection continued. "He will whisper to your allies that you are using them. He will whisper to your wives that you don't really love them, that you only see them as political assets. He will try to turn your own logic against you. He will try to make you paranoid."
"Paranoid..." Lloyd repeated. He realized with a start that he was already prone to paranoia. It was his nature as an engineer to look for points of failure.
"Yes," the Reflection said. "He will use your 'Black Box' mentality against you. He knows you suppress your emotions. He knows you rely on data. So, he will feed you false data. He will forge evidence, just like he forged that map. He will make the truth look like a lie and the lie look like the only logical conclusion."
The ghost leaned in close, his face inches from Lloyd’s.
"You must be better than me, Lloyd. When the evidence says your wife is a traitor... trust your heart, not the paper. When the logic says you should abandon your friends to save the mission... break the logic. You are the Sovereign of Logic, which means you must master it, not be a slave to it."
Lloyd looked into the eyes of his past self. He saw the pain of a man who had failed that test. He saw the regret of a husband who had killed his wife with hatred in his heart.
"I understand," Lloyd said quietly. "I won't let him rewrite the story this time."
"Good," the Reflection sighed. He looked relieved. The tension left his spectral shoulders. "Then my job is done. The Administrator's script has run its course. The tutorial is finished."
The ghost began to dissolve. His legs turned into mist. His torso began to scatter like smoke in the wind.
"Wait," Lloyd said, reaching out a hand instinctively, though he knew he couldn't grab a memory. "What happens to you now?"
The Reflection smiled. It wasn't the cynical smirk he usually wore. It was a genuine, peaceful smile.
"I go to the silence," the Reflection said. "I go to the sleep I should have had a hundred years ago. I'm tired, Lloyd. Being the voice in your head... it's exhausting work."
"Thank you," Lloyd said. He meant it. "For everything. For the tempering. For the truth."
"Don't thank me," the Reflection said, his voice fading to a whisper. "Thank her. Thank Rosa. She bought this second chance for us. Make it count."