Episode-903
Chapter : 1805
Its movements became sluggish, like it was moving through molasses. The rotary cannon spun slower and slower. The blue force field flickered and finally died, the generator overheating and shutting down to prevent an explosion.
"Shield down!" Lloyd yelled, raising his fist. "Finish it!"
He recalled Iffrit and Fang Fairy, wanting to deliver the final blow himself. The demon and the wolf spirit vanished, leaving Lloyd standing alone before the overheating giant.
Lloyd prepared to strike, thinking the battle was won. But he had underestimated the Firefly Corporation’s engineering. They didn't build machines that just died quietly.
Just as Lloyd stepped forward, a high-frequency vibration rippled through the machine’s chassis. The air around it began to warp.
"Emergency Purge Initiated," the Mech croaked, its voice dropping an octave into a demonic bass. "Protocol: Overclock."
BOOM.
A massive shockwave of sonic energy exploded from the Mech’s armor. It wasn't an explosion of fire; it was a wall of sound. It hit Lloyd like a physical truck.
The steel chains binding the vents shattered like glass. Lloyd was thrown backward, skidding across the concrete floor, tumbling end over end until he hit the far wall.
He gasped, tasting blood. He looked up.
The machine wasn't dead. The vents were open again, spewing black smoke. But the Mech was standing up straighter. The crimson mono-eye flickered, then changed color. It turned a violent, flickering purple.
It was no longer just testing Lloyd. It was no longer following safety protocols.
"Limiters Disengaged," the Mech roared. "Target Execution Mode: Active."
Lloyd wiped his mouth and stood up, his legs shaking slightly. "Okay," he said, staring at the purple eye. "Now it's a fight."
Refusing to let Lloyd breathe, the Mech's back panels slammed open again. This wasn't a standard volley; it was a desperate, full-magazine dump. Twelve homing missiles hissed out of the smoke, their boosters burning a jagged white-hot as they spiraled toward Lloyd with newfound aggression.
The sound was unmistakable to anyone who had lived through a technological war, a sharp thwip-thwip-thwip of compressed air launching projectiles, followed immediately by the roar of solid-fuel boosters igniting. Smoke trails spiraled into the air, painting white streaks against the dark ceiling of the underground testing arena. These weren't the clumsy, mana-guided arrows Lloyd was used to seeing in this world. These were heat-seekers. Smart weapons. They didn't just fly; they hunted.
Lloyd stood his ground, his hands in his pockets, watching the death swarm approach with a look of mild annoyance. He could see the tiny sensors on the nose cones of the missiles adjusting their flight paths, locking onto his thermal signature. They were correcting for wind, for gravity, for his potential movement. It was impressive engineering, really. It was almost a shame he had to break them.
"Standard spread pattern," Lloyd noted, his voice calm amidst the rising roar of the engines. "They're trying to box me in. Create a kill zone where the splash damage overlaps. Cute."
He didn't run. Running was for people who didn't understand physics. If he ran, the missiles would just turn. If he teleported, they would re-acquire. He needed to blind them. He needed to confuse their little electronic brains.
"Iffrit," Lloyd said, his voice dropping an octave. "It's getting a little chilly in here. Turn up the thermostat."
The air in the arena warped. It wasn't a subtle shift. It was a violent tearing of the atmospheric fabric. A pillar of crimson light erupted from the floor in front of Lloyd, screaming with the sound of a thousand burning souls. From the inferno, Iffrit emerged. The Demon King of Annihilation didn't look happy about being summoned to fight a machine, but he looked ready to break something.
"A wall," Lloyd commanded, pointing at the incoming swarm. "Don't hit them directly. Just make it hot. Sun-surface hot."
Iffrit grunted, a sound like tectonic plates grinding together. He didn't swing his massive sword. Instead, he opened his mouth and roared. A tidal wave of fire erupted, but it didn't travel forward in a beam. It swirled. It expanded. It formed a massive, rotating cyclone of super-heated plasma directly in the path of the missiles.
This wasn't normal fire. This was Absolute Annihilation Fire. It didn't just burn; it consumed the air, the dust, and the very concept of "cool." The temperature in the arena spiked by a thousand degrees in a fraction of a second.
The effect on the missiles was instantaneous and catastrophic.
Chapter : 1806
Guided missiles rely on delicate sensors. They rely on thermal imaging to find their target. When Iffrit’s firewall materialized, the ambient temperature became hotter than the target the missiles were tracking. Their sensors were flooded with white noise. They went blind.
"Target lock lost," the Mech’s synthetic voice announced, sounding confused. "Thermal overload."
The missiles panicked. Their guidance systems, overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of the heat blooming in front of them, tried to correct for a target that was suddenly everywhere at once. They wobbled. They spun. And then, the heat melted their internal gyroscopes.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
The air detonated. Twelve high-explosive warheads triggered simultaneously, not on Lloyd, but fifty feet in the air, crashing into Iffrit’s wall of fire. The explosion was spectacular. Shrapnel flew everywhere, pinging harmlessly off the energy shields protecting the observation deck where King Liam stood. Smoke and fire mixed in a chaotic cloud, obscuring everything.
Lloyd stood behind Iffrit, completely untouched. He brushed a speck of ash off his shoulder.
Iffrit snorted, smoke curling from his nostrils. Metal flies. Annoying.
"Don't relax yet," Lloyd warned. "That was just the opening act."
The smoke began to swirl. Something big was moving through it. Something heavy. The ground vibrated with the rhythmic thud-thud-thud of heavy hydraulic steps.
The Firefly Mech wasn't done. It didn't care about the smoke. It didn't need thermal sensors to know where Lloyd was standing. It had a memory. It had a last known position. And it was angry.
Through the wall of dissipating fire, the crimson giant emerged. It moved with terrifying speed for something that weighed twenty tons. It lowered its shoulder, engaging its thrusters for a dash maneuver.
"Here it comes," Lloyd muttered. "Close quarters."
The Mech raised its right arm. A blade extended from the wrist housing. It wasn't a normal sword. It was a Vibro-Blade. The metal hummed with a high-pitched frequency that made Lloyd’s teeth ache. It was oscillating thousands of times a second. That kind of weapon didn't just cut; it separated matter at a molecular level. It could slice through tank armor like it was wet paper.
Lloyd watched it come. He calculated the trajectory. He calculated the speed.
He could use [Void Steps]. He could teleport to the other side of the room and laugh. He could summon Fang Fairy and dodge. He could use a hundred different tricks to avoid the hit.
But King Liam was watching. This was a test. The King wanted to know if Lloyd could handle the physical reality of war, not just the magical one. He wanted to know if Lloyd could take a hit.
"Fine," Lloyd whispered. "Let's see what this body can do."
He dismissed Iffrit. The demon vanished, leaving Lloyd standing alone in the path of the charging juggernaut.
Lloyd planted his feet. He took a deep breath, centering his core. He reached out with his mind, not to the spirits, but to the world around him. To the iron in the concrete floor. To the trace metals in the air. To the iron in his own blood.
"[Steel Blood]," Lloyd commanded.
Usually, he used this power to create chains. He used it to bind, to constrict, to attack from a distance. But that was external. Today, he was going internal.
He pulled the power inward. He visualized his skin, his muscles, his bones. He commanded the iron to reinforce them. He commanded the mana to condense, to harden, to become a lattice of unbreakable density.
His skin took on a faint, dark gray sheen. It didn't look like rock. It looked like polished, dark diamond. It was the ultimate defensive application of his bloodline.
"Diamond-Toughness," Lloyd gritted out. "Maximum density."
The Mech was on him. The Vibro-Blade slashed down, a blur of gray death aimed directly at his chest.
Lloyd didn't flinch. He didn't try to parry. He raised his crossed forearms in a classic blocking stance.
"Hit me," Lloyd challenged.
The blade connected.
CLANG.
The sound was not the wet thud of metal hitting flesh. It was the ringing, bell-like impact of metal striking an anvil, amplified a thousand times. It was a sound that shattered the remaining windows in the observation booth high above.
The force was unimaginable. The Vibro-Blade, humming with sonic destruction, slammed into Lloyd’s crossed forearms. The oscillation tried to vibrate his cells apart. The kinetic energy of a twenty-ton machine moving at sixty miles per hour tried to turn him into paste.
The concrete floor beneath Lloyd’s feet didn't just crack; it pulverized. It exploded into dust.