Episode-927
Chapter : 1853
With a final, wet snap, the last of the grey roots withdrew into his skin, leaving no mark behind. Left in the palm of his black armored glove was a single object.
It was a fruit.
It was roughly the size of a large apple, but that was where the resemblance ended. The skin of the fruit was a deep, vibrant crimson, so dark it almost looked black in the dim light of the Underworld. Veins of glowing red light pulsed beneath the skin, beating in time with Lloyd’s own heart. The fruit was heavy—far heavier than any piece of food should be. It felt dense, like holding a solid ball of lead wrapped in velvet.
Lloyd stood up slowly. His servos whined in protest, the joints stiff from the intense pressure of the battle. He held the fruit up to the bruised purple sky, inspecting it with his [All-Seeing Eye].
Streams of blue data scrolled across his internal visor, analyzing the object in his hand with cold, mathematical precision.
[Item Analysis Complete]
[Name: Fruit of Attrition (Grade A)]
[Origin: Void Wood Conversion Protocol]
[Composition: 95% Concentrated Gluttony Mana, 5% Void Residue]
[Effect: Instantly restores 100% of Mana and Stamina. Permanently increases mana density by 2%.]
[Warning: Highly addictive flavor profile. Do not consume if core is unstable.]
"Well," Lloyd muttered, his sarcasm returning as the adrenaline faded. "That is certainly convenient. Although, knowing this place, it probably tastes like despair."
He lowered his hand and looked over at Ben.
The Ironwood Sovereign was not slumped in defeat. He was leaning against a broken stone pillar twenty feet away, but he was upright, his posture rigid and defiant. His heavy armor, usually polished and imposing, was scorched black and dented in multiple places from the crushing pressure of the vines. His prosthetic limbs were silent and still; the magical batteries that powered them had been completely drained by the fight. Without power, his limbs were just dead weight, anchors of solid steel dragging him down.
Ben was breathing in shallow, controlled gasps, his face pale and covered in a mixture of grime and sweat. The trap had nearly killed him, draining his Steel Blood mana to the absolute limit. He looked like a tank that had run out of fuel, but his single eye burned with a furious, analytical light. He wasn't waiting for rescue; he was running diagnostics on his own failure.
"Ben," Lloyd called out, his voice amplified by his helmet speakers. "Status report."
Ben spat a mouthful of red dust onto the ground. He didn't look at Lloyd; he glared at his own frozen metal hand. "Critical system failure," Ben rasped, his voice dripping with frustration. "My core is empty. The Stasis Field I used to survive the crush... it took everything. I'm operating on fumes, Lloyd. My limbs are locked. I am essentially a statue."
"Hold on," Lloyd said, walking over. The debris crunched under his heavy boots. "I found a resource."
Lloyd looked at the crimson fruit in his hand again. His engineer’s brain told him this was perfectly safe. The Void Wood had acted as a biological filter. It had stripped away all the malice, the corruption, and the madness from the demonic mana, leaving only raw, purified fuel. It was essentially a high-capacity battery in organic form.
But his human brain hesitated for a split second. Eating something created from a death trap felt wrong. It felt like eating a bullet that had been fired at him.
However, the tactical necessity was overwhelming. His body was screaming for energy. The Void Wood technique had a high calorie cost, and he was running on fumes. His stomach growled loud enough for the suit's internal microphone to pick it up.
"Here goes nothing," Lloyd muttered.
He took a bite.
Crunch.
The skin of the fruit snapped with a crisp, satisfying sound. Instantly, an explosion of flavor flooded his mouth. Lloyd’s eyes widened behind his visor. He expected it to taste like iron, or ash, or perhaps like rot.
It didn't. It tasted like electricity mixed with sugar. It tasted like strawberries that had been soaked in lightning. It was the taste of waking up after a perfect ten-hour sleep, fully rested. It was the taste of raw power.
Chapter : 1854
A warm rush spread from his stomach to his chest, then out to his limbs. The fatigue that had been weighing down his bones vanished in a heartbeat. His vision, which had been slightly blurry at the edges, sharpened to crystal clarity. The ache in his muscles disappeared. He could feel his mana reserves, which had been critically low, shooting back up—50%, 80%, 100%.
And it didn't stop there. The energy continued to climb, overflowing his capacity, causing his skin to buzz with static electricity.
"Oh," Lloyd said, swallowing the bite. "That is... very effective. High octane."
He took another bite, then another, devouring the fruit in seconds. He felt energized, powerful, and ready to fight an entire army. The heavy weight of the Abyss seemed to lift off his shoulders.
He wiped the red juice from his chin and looked at what was left in his hand.
There was a single seed.
It was small, black, and hard as a diamond. It pulsed with a faint, grey light—the signature of the Void Wood.
As Lloyd looked at the seed, the world around him seemed to freeze. A sudden, brilliant connection clicked in his mind. The gears of his intellect began to spin, connecting dots that he hadn't realized were related.
He thought back to Monalisa Belphagor, the Prince of Sloth.
He remembered the diagnosis he had given her only hours ago in the Palace of Stillness. Her body was failing because her mana had stagnated and turned into "Abyssal Sediment"—a thick, sludge-like waste that clogged her veins and turned her to stone. He had performed a temporary fix using steel tubes and filters, but he knew it was just a patch. The sludge would return because her own body produced it. She was a machine destined to clog itself.
But this fruit...
"This fruit was made by sucking out energy," Lloyd realized, speaking his thoughts aloud to the empty square. "The Void Wood latched onto the city’s battery, sucked out the raw power, filtered it, and condensed the waste and energy into this fruit."
He turned the black seed over in his metal fingers.
"If I use the Void Wood on Monalisa... I don't need to build a machine. I don't need pumps. The Void Wood is a natural filter. I can plant the roots in her mana veins, suck out the 'Abyssal Sediment,' and the tree will automatically filter the bad energy."
His eyes began to glow with excitement.
"The tree will turn her sickness into a fruit," Lloyd whispered. "I can cure a Prince of Hell, and in the process, I get a high-grade mana battery to eat. It’s a perfect recycling loop. It is the ultimate efficiency."
This changed everything.
Before, he only had a tentative alliance with Monalisa based on a temporary medical treatment. She tolerated him because he was useful. But if he could offer a permanent cure—and a simple, painless one at that—he wouldn't just be a useful human. He would be her savior.
A Prince of Hell would owe him a life debt. And in the dangerous game of politics he was playing, having the Prince of Sloth in his debt was a card that could win the whole game.
"Ben!" Lloyd shouted, his voice echoing in the quiet square. "I figured it out! I figured out how to fix the lazy queen! It's a bio-filtration loop!"
Ben looked up, his expression one of immense irritation. He scoffed, the sound harsh and metallic. "You're solving medical puzzles while we're standing in a kill-zone? Focus, Lloyd. I don't care about the Queen's health plan. I care about the fact that my legs are currently paperweights."
Lloyd chuckled. He carefully wrapped the black seed in a piece of clean cloth from his pocket and placed it deep inside his Spatial Inventory. This seed was now one of the most valuable items in his possession. It was a bargaining chip worth more than gold.
"Right," Lloyd said, shaking off his epiphany. "Priorities."
He walked over to Ben, his heavy boots crunching on the debris. He stopped in front of his cousin, looking down at the immense, powerless armor. "You drained yourself completely using Sloth to freeze the vines, didn't you? Stasis consumes mana exponentially against active threats."
"It kept me alive," Ben retorted, his pride bristling. "I didn't ask for a critique on my resource management. Just give me a jump start so I can get back to killing."
"I can do better than a jump start," Lloyd said.