Episode-926
Chapter : 1851
As Lloyd drained the "Blood Array," the infrastructure of the city began to fail. In the distance, the sickly yellow lights of the feeding stalls flickered and died. The magical torches lining the streets sputtered out. The "warmth" of the cobblestones vanished, turning into a biting, unnatural cold as the mana was ripped from the earth.
Demons hiding in their shops and homes screamed as their localized wards failed. The "noise" of the city—that constant, hungry hum—was silenced, replaced by the terrifying sound of a vacuum.
The massive purple vines, the "Garden of Hunger," were the first to die. They didn't just fall; they underwent rapid cellular decay. The vibrant, bruised color drained from them, leaving behind a dull, sickly white. The thorns turned to dust and blew away. The vines that were crushing Ben lost their strength, turning brittle and snapping like dry twigs.
"Look at that," Lloyd muttered, his voice sounding like two stones grinding together. He felt his mana reserves refilling, overflowing, and then doubling. "The vacuum is out of breath."
He pushed the roots even deeper. He wasn't satisfied with just the vines. He followed the "nerves" of the trap all the way to the palace foundations. He felt the massive reservoir of power Rubel had been hoarding—the "Gluttony Reserves." This was the energy meant to power the city’s shields for a decade.
He opened his mouth and let out a sound that wasn't human. It was the roar of the Life-Eater.
The suction increased by ten-fold. The grey roots on his arms grew thick as ship’s cables, pulsing with a blindingly dark light. The stone floor of the square began to sink as the energy holding the earth together was harvested. The red tiles turned grey and crumbled into sand.
Ben, who had been in stasis, felt the crushing weight vanish. The grey bubble of his Sloth spirit flickered and died as he woke up. He gasped, sucking in air, and looked up. He watched as the "invincible" garden was reduced to grey powder in a matter of seconds.
He saw Lloyd suspended in the center of a swirling vortex of ash and mana, looking less like a man and more like a conceptual error in the Abyss’s logic. The air around Lloyd was warping, bending under the weight of the gravity well he had created.
Lloyd’s HUD was a mess of red and green data, scrolling so fast it was a blur.
[Mana Reserves: 100%... 150%... 200% (OVERFLOW)]
[Aegis Suit Integrity: Stabilizing.]
[External Grid: 88% Depleted.]
[Warning: Host body temperature critical. Cooling systems engaged.]
The Aegis Suit whined, its high-grade servos screeching under the mechanical stress of containing a mana surge that far exceeded its design specifications. The matte-black plating vibrated so violently that the sound became a high-pitched, uncomfortable hum, audible even through the thick protective layers of the armor. Thick plumes of white steam hissed and erupted from the thermal vents located in the shoulders and back, a desperate and automated attempt by the suit’s internal cooling systems to prevent a total mechanical meltdown. Deep within the chest plate, the Golem Heart of Anubis hammered at a dangerous, erratic rhythm, struggling to stay synchronized with the frantic, wet pulsing of the grey roots that were still physically tethered to Lloyd’s flesh.
"Time to shut it down," Lloyd whispered, his eyes narrowing as he watched the final data streams redline across his internal visor.
He didn't simply stop the siphoning process; he executed a lethal "Core-Jam" protocol. With a precise mental command, he gathered a massive, concentrated pulse of stagnant, unusable Void energy and hammered it back down through the roots into the city’s magical plumbing. He intended to "clog" the Blood Array's intake valves with spiritual garbage, ensuring the parasitic trap could never be reset or reused against them.
The results were immediate and seismic. The ground beneath his feet groaned with a deep, agonizing, subterranean rumble—a sound that felt like the heart of Gator City itself was suffering a massive cardiac arrest. The vibration was so intense it shattered the remaining windows in the central square and caused the nearby obsidian buildings to list dangerously to the side. Above them, the red sky of the Gluttony State flickered erratically before fading into a dull, muddy brown. The city’s legendary defensive shield, a structure that had stood for decades as a symbol of demonic superiority, suddenly shattered into millions of invisible mana shards with a sound of breaking glass that echoed for miles across the plains of the Abyss.
Chapter : 1852
Lloyd did not retract the roots. Unlike previous times he had utilized the Void Wood, he allowed the grey conduits to remain extended from his forearms, acting as temporary storage vessels for the sheer volume of energy he had just harvested. The grey roots were visibly swollen, their lunar-colored bark glowing with a deep, internal crimson heat as the stolen life force began to condense. He fell to one knee for a moment, landing in a crouched position as the excess energy crackled across his armor like static electricity. His black coat was shredded, hanging from his frame in scorched ribbons, and every inch of his armor was coated in a thick, choking layer of grey ash.
However, through his visor, his eyes were burning with a terrifying, overcharged brilliance. He didn't look like a man who had just survived a death-trap; he looked like a man who had successfully consumed a star and was now looking for the next course. He stood up slowly, the servos of the Aegis Suit whirring and grinding with newfound, raw power as the Golem Heart began to regulate the massive influx of energy.
He turned his gaze toward the palace balcony, which was now shrouded in total darkness as the city’s power grid collapsed into failure. "Uncle Rubel," Lloyd said, his voice carrying with mechanical clarity through the silent square. "You really should have checked the voltage and the filtration on your trap. It was far too low for a technician of my caliber."
He began walking toward Ben, his heavy, mana-saturated roots dragging slightly across the shattered red tiles of the square. Each step he took left a faint glow on the ground as the energy within the roots began to knot and coalesce near his wrists, preparing to manifest the literal fruit of his victory. He didn't look back at the destruction he had caused; to his engineer’s mind, this wasn't a miracle or an act of heroism. It was simply a successful "re-piping" and "system flush" of a fundamentally broken machine. The war for the city had just entered its final phase, and the engineer was now fully fueled and ready for the harvest.
The deafening roar of the battle had vanished, replaced by a silence that felt heavier than the stone buildings surrounding them. In the central square of Gator City, the dust began to settle. It coated the broken red cobblestones in a layer of fine, grey ash—the only remains of the massive, carnivorous vines that had tried to consume Lloyd Ferrum and Ben just moments ago.
The air was hot and thick. It smelled of ozone, burnt magic, and scorched earth. It was the smell of a machine that had been pushed past its breaking point and then destroyed.
Lloyd remained on one knee in the center of the crater he had created. He didn't move immediately. He was listening to the sounds of his own survival. His Aegis Suit was hissing loudly, like a steam engine venting pressure. Thick plumes of white steam erupted from the thermal vents located on his shoulders and back, releasing the incredible heat generated by the Golem Heart during the rapid energy transfer. The suit’s internal cooling fans whirred aggressively, vibrating against his ribs as they struggled to bring the internal temperature down to a safe level.
Inside his helmet, red warning lights blinked on his display, slowly turning to amber, and finally to green.
[System Alert: External Threat Neutralized.]
[Mana Siphon: Disengaged.]
[Cooling Sequence: Active.]
Lloyd let out a long breath, fogging up his visor for a second. He looked down at his right arm.
The grey roots of the [Void Wood] were still attached to him. They had burst from his skin to consume the enemy trap, acting as high-speed conduits for the city’s energy. Now, they were no longer thrashing or seeking fuel. They were retracting. The thick, gnarled wood pulsed with a deep, rhythmic crimson light. It looked less like dead timber and more like living veins carrying a massive amount of pressurized blood.
The roots were pulling back into his forearm, moving with a wet, shifting sound that made Lloyd grit his teeth. It wasn't painful, exactly, but it felt deeply unnatural—like snakes moving under his skin. The wood was condensing all the stolen mana from the city’s "Blood Array" into a single point in his palm.
"Processing complete," Lloyd whispered, his voice raspy and dry. "Output ready."