Episode-904
Chapter : 1807
Lloyd felt the impact travel through his arms, down his spine, and into his legs. It felt like catching a falling building. His bones groaned under the stress. His muscles screamed as they tore and instantly knit back together, held in place by the mana-infused iron in his blood.
He didn't break.
He slid.
"Nngh!" Lloyd grunted, his teeth clenched so hard he thought they might crack.
The force of the blow sent him skidding backward. His boots, reinforced with the same steel power, acted like plows. They carved two deep, jagged furrows into the reinforced concrete floor of the arena. Dust and sparks flew up in a rooster tail behind him.
Ten feet. Twenty feet. Thirty feet.
The Mech pushed, its engines screaming as it tried to follow through with the strike, trying to drive Lloyd into the ground.
Lloyd held the block. He could feel the heat of the Vibro-Blade against his skin. The friction was incredible. His sleeves disintegrated instantly, burning away to reveal his arms.
They weren't cut. They weren't bleeding. They were gleaming with that dark, metallic luster. The blade was grinding against his skin, throwing off showers of bright yellow sparks, but it couldn't bite. It couldn't find purchase.
"Is that... all you've got?" Lloyd strained, his voice tight.
He dug his heels in. He channeled more mana into his legs, increasing his density, increasing his weight. He became an immovable object.
Forty feet. Fifty feet.
He stopped.
The skid ended. Lloyd stood there, fifty feet from where he had been hit, smoke rising from his boots and his arms. The Mech stood over him, its blade still pressed against his guard, its engine whining in protest.
The machine seemed confused. Its logic processors couldn't understand why the soft biological target hadn't been bisected.
"Target integrity... intact," the Mech synthesized, its voice glitching slightly. "Error. Weapon malfunction? No. Target density... exceeding parameters."
Lloyd looked up. He was sweating. His arms throbbed with a dull ache that would probably turn into a bruise the size of a dinner plate tomorrow. But he was whole. He was alive.
He slowly lowered his arms. He pushed the massive blade away with a casual shove.
He looked at his forearms. There was no blood. There was no cut. Just a faint, silver metallic sheen where the blade had made contact, like a smudge of graphite on paper. He rubbed it with his thumb. It wiped off.
Lloyd let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He looked up at the observation deck, where King Liam was leaning over the railing, looking like he had just seen a magic trick he couldn't explain.
Then, Lloyd looked back at the Mech. He smirked. It was the arrogant, sarcastic smirk of a man who knew he had just defied physics and won.
"A bit slow on the refresh rate, isn't it?" Lloyd asked the machine.
The Mech pulled its arm back, retracting the blade. It took a step back, its sensors whirring as it re-evaluated the threat level.
"Threat reassessment," the machine said. "Target classification upgraded. Designation: Hard Target."
"You think?" Lloyd scoffed. "I just tanked a sonic sword with my bare hands. I think 'Hard Target' is a bit of an understatement. You should try 'Boss Level'."
He shook his arms out, feeling the circulation return. The [Steel Blood] ability receded, his skin returning to its normal color, though it still felt hot to the touch.
"Okay," Lloyd said, cracking his neck. "You had your turn. You threw missiles. You brought a knife to a fistfight. You tried to turn me into roadkill."
He looked at the machine. It was impressive. It was deadly. But it was just a machine. It was built by engineers who thought armor and shields were the answer to everything. They didn't account for a guy who could turn his blood into steel.
"My turn," Lloyd said.
He didn't summon a weapon yet. He just stood there, analyzing. The Mech was covered in armor plates. Heavy, composite armor designed to stop tank shells. But every machine had a weakness. Every design had a flaw.
"James said this was a captured unit," Lloyd muttered to himself. "That means it's been repaired. Patched up. It's not factory fresh."
He activated his eyes. Not the steel ones. The other ones.
The world shifted. Colors faded away, replaced by lines of force and energy. He looked at the Mech, and he didn't see a monster anymore. He saw a schematic. He saw the flow of mana in its core. He saw the stress points in its joints.
And he saw something else.
Chapter : 1808
"There you are," Lloyd whispered.
The game had changed. He wasn't defending anymore. He was dissecting.
Recognizing that the Mech’s armor is made of "Null-Alloy" that resists direct elemental attacks, Lloyd activates his [Blue Ring Eyes].
The world instantly lost its color. The gray concrete, the red paint of the Mech, the bright lights of the arena—it all desaturated into a high-contrast world of black, white, and gray. But overlaid on top of this monochromatic reality were vibrant, pulsing lines of energy.
Lloyd saw the world as a blueprint. He saw the ley lines in the earth. He saw the magical wards protecting the walls. And most importantly, he saw the internal workings of the Executioner Mk. IV.
"Let's see what makes you tick," Lloyd murmured, his eyes—now black sclera with glowing blue rings—narrowing in focus.
The Mech wasn't just metal. It was a complex web of mana conduits and electrical wiring. The armor plating, which looked solid to the naked eye, glowed with a dull, resistance field in Lloyd’s vision. That was the Null-Alloy. It was designed to disperse magical energy. If he hit it with a fireball, the fire would just splash off like water on a duck. If he hit it with lightning, the current would be grounded instantly.
"Smart," Lloyd admitted. "Firefly knows how to fight mages. They built a tank that wears a magic-proof raincoat."
But nothing was perfect. Entropy was the one law that even the Firefly Corporation couldn't bribe.
Lloyd scanned the chassis. He ignored the big, flashy guns. He ignored the thick chest plate. He looked for the scars. He looked for the history of the machine.
King Liam—James Khan—had said he repaired this thing. Repairs meant seams. Repairs meant patches.
His gaze drifted to the back of the Mech, near the dorsal spine. There was a heat exchanger there, a massive vent designed to dump the excess thermal energy from the reactor.
"Zoom in," Lloyd commanded his own brain.
His vision magnified. He looked past the metal grate. He looked past the fans.
There it was.
Deep inside the primary cooling vent, buried under layers of machinery, was a hairline fracture. It was tiny. Microscopic. A legacy of whatever battle James Khan used to capture it five years ago. Maybe a lucky shot from a railgun, or a stress fracture from a hard landing. It had been welded shut, patched with a slightly different alloy, but the structural integrity wasn't 100%. It was maybe 98%.
To anyone else, it was invisible. To Lloyd, it was a neon sign that said "INSERT EXPLOSION HERE."
"Found you," Lloyd whispered.
The Mech, sensing Lloyd’s stare, shifted its stance. It raised its rotary cannon again.
"Target analyzing," the Mech droned. "Initiating suppression fire."
"Too late," Lloyd said. "I've already read your diary."
He needed to hit that crack. But he couldn't just hit it with a bullet. A bullet would bounce off the grate. He needed something that could pierce, but also something that could flow. He needed liquid fire delivered at the speed of light.
He needed a fusion.
"Nova," Lloyd called out in his mind. "I need the cannon. But we're going to try a new recipe today."
The white light of the Nova spirit enveloped his right arm again, forming the massive, futuristic cannon. It hummed with its usual clean, clinical power.
"Iffrit," Lloyd called to his other spirit. "I know you're tired of being a wall. How would you like to be a bullet?"
A bullet? Iffrit’s voice rumbled in his head, sounding intrigued. I am a king, not a projectile.
"You're a king who is going to melt a giant robot," Lloyd promised. "Just get in the gun."
Acceptable, Iffrit grunted.
"Fusion Protocol," Lloyd announced. "Spirit Synchronization: 100%."
He didn't summon Iffrit’s physical body. Instead, he channeled the demon’s essence—his raw, concept-burning magma—directly into the Nova Cannon.
Usually, the cannon fired white plasma. Pure, clean energy.
But as Iffrit’s power flowed into the chamber, the white light changed. It darkened. It swirled. Veins of angry, molten red began to snake through the white. The gold circuitry on the cannon turned a deep, burning orange. The hum of the weapon changed from a high-pitched whine to a low, guttural roar, like a dragon gargling lava.
The air around Lloyd began to distort from the heat. The floor tiles cracked under his feet just from the ambient temperature radiating off the gun.
"Warning," the System whispered in his ear. "Weapon energy density exceeding safety limits. Chamber breach probable."
"Safety limits are for people who don't have health insurance," Lloyd retorted.