Episode-918
Chapter : 1835
He looked at the dark sludge clogging her core again. It was a lack of maintenance, plain and simple. It was like a cooling system in a nuclear reactor that hadn't been flushed in five hundred years. It was like a fuel filter that was completely blocked by gunk.
He remembered a specific project from his past life on Earth. He had been working on a high-end combat exosuit for the military. The suit was a masterpiece of engineering, but it had a fatal flaw. It used a specialized hydraulic fluid that was incredibly powerful but unstable. If the fluid sat for too long without being cycled through the pumps, it would turn into a thick gel. Once it gelled, it would seize the joints of the suit.
He remembered the pilot trapped inside that suit, unable to move, panicking as the systems failed one by one.
Monalisa was just a much more expensive, much more magical version of that combat suit. And just like that pilot, she was trapped inside her own power.
She was still staring at him with those half-closed, sapphire-blue eyes. She thought she was hiding her weakness perfectly. She thought the "Sultry Queen" persona was an unshakeable mask that fooled everyone. She didn't realize that the man in the black armor standing ten feet away was currently looking at her liver and deciding it looked more like a piece of granite than an organ.
Lloyd decided to drop the pretense. There was no point in dancing around the subject. He needed to shock her system. He needed to break through the centuries of apathy she had built around herself.
"I’m not here to fight you, Monalisa," Lloyd said.
His voice was calm. It was amplified by the speakers in his helmet, cutting through the heavy, mana-saturated air of the hall like a laser scalpel. It wasn't a shout; it was a statement of fact.
"I’m here because you are at the end of your rope," he continued. "You call it 'The Eternal Sleep.' Your followers worship your stillness. They think it's a sign of your divinity. But looking at you with my eyes, I don't see a curse, and I don't see a destiny."
Lloyd paused for effect. He took a step closer, ignoring the low, menacing growls of the guards.
"I see a catastrophic design flaw in your primary mana circulation."
The words hung in the air, alien and jarring in this ancient fantasy setting.
Ben, standing a few paces to the side, let out a short, sharp bark of laughter. He didn't tense up; he relaxed, resting the weight of his massive lance on his shoulder pad. He looked at the demon guards with a predator’s smirk.
"He called you a lemon," Ben taunted, his voice dripping with arrogance. "He’s saying your warranty has expired, princess. You’re leaking oil."
Monalisa’s lips curled into a slow, amused smile. She didn't seem offended; rather, she looked intrigued, like a cat watching a bird land just out of reach. "A lemon? Such strange words you humans use. And you, little lion..." She shifted her gaze to Lloyd, her voice dropping to a purr. "You are staring. Do you like what you see under the silk? Or are you just looking for another dance?"
"Lloyd," Ben said, not bothering to whisper. "Why are we talking to the hardware? If she's broken, she's useless to us. Let's just raid the treasury and leave. I’m getting bored."
"Patience, Ben," Lloyd said, keeping his eyes on Monalisa.
The demonic guards stepped forward, their obsidian armor clanking loudly. They raised their spears, their eyes burning with loyalty and rage. How dare these humans insult their mistress? How dare they speak to the Queen of Sloth with such disrespect?
Three of the elite guards, massive insectoid demons, chittered and lunged toward Ben, intending to spear the insolent human.
Ben didn't even flinch. He didn't raise his shield. He simply glared at them.
"Spirit: Sloth. Domain of Weight," Ben whispered.
The air around Ben distorted. He didn't create chains like Lloyd; he manipulated the physics of the space around him. The gravity in a ten-foot radius around him multiplied instantly.
CRACK.
The sound was sickening. The guards slammed into the invisible wall of heavy gravity. Their armor buckled. Their spears shattered into splinters under their own weight. Ben’s prosthetic arm grew heavier, the molecules packing together until the limb weighed as much as a small car.
He swung his free hand in a lazy backhand.
BOOM.
Chapter : 1836
Ben’s heavy metal hand connected with the lead guard’s chest plate. The kinetic force launched the demon backward across the room as if hit by a wrecking ball, crashing into a pillar and sliding down, unconscious.
Ben didn't even look at the fallen enemy. He looked at the other two guards, his single eye narrowing.
"Sit down," Ben commanded, his voice cold and absolute. "The adults are talking. Unless you want me to turn you into scrap metal too?"
He tapped his chest plate, challenging them. He wasn't afraid. He was insulted that they thought they could touch him.
Monalisa watched Ben with a flicker of genuine appreciation. "Iron and arrogance... you remind me of my brother Beelzebub, though he has less charm. But you..." She turned her gaze back to Lloyd, her eyes glinting.
She didn't move, but the atmosphere in the room changed instantly. The temperature dropped ten degrees in a second. Frost began to form on the edges of Lloyd’s visor. The air became heavy, a physical weight that pressed down on the servos of the Aegis Suit, making them whir in protest.
This was the Prince’s killing intent. It saturated the hall, filling every corner with a promise of death. It was her way of saying, Stop talking, or I will end you.
Lloyd felt the pressure. It was like standing at the bottom of the ocean. His Golem Heart beat faster to compensate, pumping energy into his shields to keep the crushing weight off his body. But he didn't flinch. He didn't step back.
Ben snorted. He flared his Spirit: Sloth fully. The crushing pressure washed over him and simply... stopped. Time around Ben slowed to a crawl, rendering the intimidating aura irrelevant. He yawned inside his helmet.
"Is that it?" Ben asked. "I've felt scarier breezes in the shower."
Lloyd ignored Ben’s provocation and focused on the Queen. A small, mocking smile appeared on his face, hidden safely behind his black helmet.
"Kill me if you want," Lloyd challenged. His voice remained a steady, flat monotone. He sounded like a customer service representative discussing a warranty, not a man facing a god. "Go ahead. Crush me. Turn me into dust."
He crossed his arms, the metal of his suit clinking softly.
"But just remember this: the next person who walks through that door won't have a toolkit. They won't know what Abyssal Sediment is. They won't know how to filter a mana core. The next person who walks through that door will have a shovel to bury what’s left of you."
The All-Seeing Eye had stripped away the Prince’s regal facade, and Lloyd refused to let her put it back on. He was relentless.
"I can see the sludge, Monalisa," Lloyd said, his voice dropping lower, becoming more intimate. "It's dark. It's jagged. It scratches against the walls of your mana veins like glass shards. Every time your heart beats, it pushes that grit deeper into your core. It's grinding the gears of your soul to a halt. It hurts, doesn't it?"
Silence descended on the room. It was absolute. Even the guards stopped breathing.
For the first time in five hundred years, Monalisa’s expression cracked.
The mask of bored seduction shattered. Her eyes opened fully, revealing a depth of blue that was swirling with emotions she hadn't felt in centuries. There was shock. There was a thrill. But mostly, there was a look of genuine, ancient need.
She realized that this human wasn't guessing. He wasn't bluffing. He had looked inside her and seen the secret she had hidden from the entire world. He had diagnosed her like a broken tractor.
She looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time since the wedding. She didn't see a toy or a dancer. She saw someone who understood the mechanics of her pain.
"You..." Monalisa whispered. Her voice was no longer the heavy, sleepy drawl of a god. It was trembling slightly with excitement. "You can see the sediment? You lead well, little lion. But can you finish the dance?"
"I can see it," Lloyd confirmed. "And I can remove it."
The offer hung in the air. It was a lifeline thrown to a drowning woman.
Lloyd remained calm, the Aegis suit whirring softly as it regulated his temperature. He knew he had won. The power dynamic in the room had shifted completely. He was no longer a guest begging for a favor. He was the only mechanic in town, and she was the owner of a broken machine that no one else could fix.