Episode-894
Chapter : 1787
He took a sip of water, his eyes drifting upward to the massive glass dome that covered the ballroom. It was a marvel of architecture, a masterpiece of reinforced glass and steel that allowed the guests to dance under the stars. It was beautiful.
It was also a tactical liability.
Lloyd narrowed his eyes. The stars above... something was wrong with them.
One of the stars was moving.
It wasn't twinkling. It was growing. It was getting brighter, shifting from a pinprick of white light to a harsh, burning red.
And then he heard it.
It started as a low thrum, barely audible over the chatter of the guests. It was a vibration that he felt in his teeth. The water in his glass began to ripple, creating concentric circles.
The vibration grew louder. It wasn't the roar of a dragon. It wasn't the rumble of an earthquake. It was a mechanical whine. The sound of high-output thrusters fighting against gravity.
The glass dome above them began to shake.
"Everyone down!" Lloyd shouted.
His voice was amplified by a quick, instinctual pulse of Void magic. It boomed across the hall, drowning out the King, the orchestra, and the laughter.
The guests froze. They looked at him in confusion. Why was the hero of the North yelling? Was this part of the show?
"What is the meaning of—" a Duke started to say, looking offended.
He never finished his sentence.
The red star above them wasn't a star. It was an engine.
CRASH.
The world shattered.
________________________________________
It rained glass.
Millions of shards, sharp as razors and glittering like diamonds, fell from the sky. The beautiful architectural masterpiece of the dome disintegrated in a fraction of a second.
The sound was deafening—a mixture of shattering crystal and the roar of jet engines. The guests screamed. The illusion of safety, of a peaceful wedding reception, was gone instantly.
Nobles scrambled in panic. Tables were overturned. Expensive wine spilled onto the floor, mixing with the falling glass. People dove under chairs, covered their heads with silk jackets, and huddled together in terror.
Through the gaping hole in the roof, five shapes descended.
They didn't fall uncontrollably. They descended with the controlled, terrifying precision of machines.
Jets of blue flame erupted from their undersides, slowing their fall. They hit the marble floor with a heavy, metallic CLANG that shook the very foundation of the palace. Dust and debris billowed out in a cloud, obscuring them for a moment.
As the dust cleared, the guests gasped in horror. They were used to fighting monsters. They had seen trolls, goblins, even demons. But they had never seen this.
These were not creatures of flesh and blood. They were nightmares of steel and chrome.
Bio-Drones.
They looked like spiders, but massive—each one the size of a carriage. Their bodies were sleek, armored pods made of a dark, non-reflective metal. Glowing red lines traced the contours of their armor. Eight multi-jointed legs extended from the central hub, each one ending in a sharp, hydraulic claw that dug into the marble floor.
Hiss.
Steam vented from their joints as they stood up to their full height. Their optical sensors—clusters of red glass lenses—whirred and clicked as they scanned the room.
[Target Acquired.]
A synthetic voice boomed from the lead drone. It was loud, distorted, and utterly devoid of emotion. But the most terrifying thing wasn't the volume. It was the language.
It wasn't speaking the common tongue of the continent. It wasn't speaking the guttural language of the demons.
It was speaking English.
"Scanning for High-Value Target: KM Evan," the drone announced. "Secondary Designation: Lloyd Ferrum."
Lloyd felt a chill go down his spine that had nothing to do with magic. It was the cold shock of recognition.
Firefly.
They were here. The Corporation. The entity that had destroyed his previous world, the force he had spent two lifetimes trying to escape. They had crossed the stars, crossed dimensions, just to finish the job. They didn't care about the wedding. They didn't care about the kingdom. They were here for him.
"Run!" Lloyd roared at the guests, snapping out of his shock. "Get out! Now!"
The nobles didn't need to be told twice. They stampeded toward the main doors, a chaotic mass of silk and fear.
The drones didn't care about the nobles. They ignored the screaming crowd completely. Their red eyes were locked onto one person.
Lloyd.
Chapter : 1788
The lead drone stepped forward. Its leg smashed a banquet table into splinters as if it were made of balsa wood. A panel on its back slid open with a mechanical clack, and a rotary cannon emerged. The barrels began to spin, emitting a high-pitched whine.
Whirrrrrr.
"Threat Assessment: Minimal," the drone announced to its squad. "Local technology level: Medieval. Magic capability: Negligible. Commencing purge."
Lloyd laughed. It was a dry, humorless sound that scraped his throat. He stepped forward, putting himself between the machines and his wives.
"Minimal threat?" Lloyd muttered, cracking his knuckles. He could feel the Void energy surging in his blood, responding to his anger. "You forgot one variable, you rust-buckets. I’m not a local."
He tapped the communication rune hidden in his ear. "Ken! Titan Squad! Drop the hammer! We have a Code Extinction! I repeat, Code Extinction!"
"On our way, sir!" Ken Park’s voice shouted back, static-filled but urgent. "We’re two minutes out!"
Two minutes. That was an eternity in a firefight. Lloyd had to buy time.
The drone’s cannon reached full spin speed.
"Target locked," the machine said. "Say goodbye, Major General."
ZAP.
The cannon fired. A stream of high-velocity bullets tore through the air, moving faster than sound. They ripped through the spot where Lloyd had been standing, shredding the marble floor like it was paper. Stone chips flew everywhere.
But Lloyd wasn't there.
He had activated his [Void Steps].
The air fractured. Lloyd vanished in a blur of blue distortion. He reappeared instantly on the back of the lead drone, crouching on its armored hull.
"Access denied!" Lloyd yelled.
He channeled his Steel Blood. His hand turned into a solid block of super-dense metal, gleaming like dark diamond. He didn't use magic; he used pure kinetic force. He punched the drone directly in its sensor array.
CRUNCH.
Metal buckled. Glass shattered. The drone staggered under the impact, its legs scraping against the floor. It let out a mechanical shriek of error tones.
"Error! Hull breach!" the drone screeched.
Lloyd jumped off, landing gracefully on the floor. He hoped that would be enough to slow them down.
But the other four drones didn't hesitate. They didn't care that their leader was leaking hydraulic fluid and sparks. They were networked. They were efficient.
They simply pivoted. Their legs adjusted, anchoring them to the floor. Their rotary barrels began to hum with that lethal, high-pitched whine as they recalibrated.
Lloyd realized with horror that they weren't aiming at him anymore. They had calculated that he was too fast. So, they switched targets.
They aimed at the crowd. They aimed at Faria, who was frozen in shock. They aimed at Amina. They aimed at the door where Mina had just exited.
"Secondary Targets Acquired," the drones announced in unison. "Eliminating emotional anchors."
The guests, once joyous, were plunged into a state of primal terror as the cold, humming machines prepared to unleash a technological slaughter upon the unsuspecting nobility.
Lloyd stood alone in the center of the chaos, his fists clenched. The game had changed. This wasn't a duel anymore. It was a massacre waiting to happen. And he was the only thing standing in the way.
Before the drones could squeeze their triggers, the temperature in the ballroom spiked by forty degrees. Faria Kruts didn’t care about the technical classification of these metallic intruders or the humming vibration that made everyone’s teeth hurt. All she saw was that these 'cockroaches' had shattered the ceiling of her wedding reception, ruined the ambiance, and—most unforgivably—covered her hand-selected dessert table in a fine layer of drywall dust. Fueled by a cocktail of royal indignation and protective fury, she stepped forward, her hands already wreathed in a terrifying, incandescent glow.
"You rude, metallic cockroaches!" Faria screamed, her voice echoing through the massive room. "Do you have any idea how long it took to select those pastries? Do you know the waiting list for this venue? Burn! Just burn!"
She didn't wait for a response. She didn't wait for Lloyd to come up with a plan. She just did what she did best: she set things on fire.
Faria raised her hands, and the air in the room instantly grew hot enough to bake bread. A massive, swirling vortex of crimson flames erupted from her palms. This wasn’t normal fire, the kind of heat that could melt stone and turn iron into a puddle of sad, glowing soup. It roared across the room like a dragon made of anger, aiming directly for the cluster of five machines that had just landed on the marble floor.