Episode-938
Chapter : 1875
Ben didn't dodge. He didn't raise a shield. He simply walked forward. As the orange rust cloud touched his golden armor, it didn't hiss or burn. It simply stopped. It hit the aura of Absolute Stasis surrounding Ben and froze in place, suspending the chemical reaction of oxidation before it could even begin. The rust fell to the floor as harmless orange powder.
"Your tricks rely on chemistry, Uncle," Ben said. His voice was deep and resonant, sounding like heavy machinery vibrating underground. "You rely on time to decay things. But I control time. I control density. My steel is too dense for your rot to penetrate. It is absolute."
Rubel scrambled to his feet, panic taking over his mind completely. He looked around the room for a weapon, a shield, anything. He grabbed a heavy iron bar that had fallen from the ceiling debris. He swung it wildly at Ben’s head.
Clang.
Ben caught the iron bar with one hand. He didn't even flinch. His golden fingers wrapped around the metal. With a simple squeeze, he activated his Steel Blood. He didn't melt it; he compressed it. The solid iron bar crunched like tinfoil, folding in on itself until it was a dense, heavy ball of scrap metal in Ben’s palm.
Rubel stared at the crushed metal, his mouth open in horror.
"You... you monster," Rubel whispered. "You mastered the Steel Blood? Without the Codex? How?"
"I didn't need a book," Ben replied, dropping the scrap metal with a heavy thud. "I had rage. And I had a lot of broken metal to practice on. You broke me, Rubel. You rusted me. And then you gave me the fuel to rebuild. In a way, I should thank you. Without your betrayal, I would never have found this strength."
Ben took another step. The stone floor beneath his boot pulverized, unable to support his increased mass.
"Stay back!" Rubel shrieked. He turned and tried to run toward the side of the room, hoping to find a crack in the wall, a shadow to hide in, anything to escape the golden demon walking toward him.
Ben didn't run. He didn't need to chase. He simply raised his right hand, palm open, fingers spread wide. The mana in the room obeyed him instantly. The metal debris scattered across the floor—the broken bars, the shattered armor of the Shadow Knights, the remnants of the throne—began to shake.
"Ironwood Art," Ben commanded, his voice booming. "Absolute Cage."
The metal debris flew into the air. It wasn't a chaotic storm; it was a guided missile system. Dozens of sharp, twisted metal shards flew toward Rubel. They didn't strike him; they slammed into the ground and walls around him.
Clang-clang-clang-clang!
In less than a second, the metal fused together. It formed a tight, intricate cage around the traitor. The bars were thick and glowing with Ben’s golden mana. There was no door. There was no gap wider than a finger. Rubel was boxed in, trapped like a rat in a trap made of his own failures.
Rubel grabbed the bars, trying to shake them, but pulled his hands back instantly. The metal was immovably dense.
"Let me out!" Rubel yelled, slamming his shoulder against the cage. "You can't do this! I am a Ferrum! I have rights! I am a noble of the Kingdom!"
Ben walked up to the cage. He stopped inches from the bars. The gravitational pressure coming off him made it hard for Rubel to breathe.
"You surrendered your rights," Ben said, his tone flat and cold. "You gave up your name when you sold Mina to the killers in the first timeline. You gave up your rank when you led the devils to our doorstep. You aren't a noble, Rubel. You aren't even a human. You are just a variable that needs to be deleted."
Rubel fell to his knees inside the cage. Tears of fear and rage streamed down his pale face. "Please," he begged, his voice dropping to a whimper. "We are blood. You can't kill your own blood. Lloyd! Tell him! Tell him to stop! You're the sensible one!"
Rubel looked past Ben, trying to find Lloyd Ferrum. He hoped the engineer would be more logical, more merciful.
Lloyd was standing by the far wall, leaning against a pillar, checking the charge on his Nova Cannon. He looked up when he heard his name. His face was bored, his expression unreadable behind his visor.
Chapter : 1876
"Don't look at me," Lloyd said, shrugging his shoulders. "I'm just the technician. I fix the pipes. He is the wrecking ball. You'll have to take it up with management."
Rubel looked back at Ben. He saw no mercy in the knight’s single glowing eye. He only saw judgment.
"This ends now," Ben said.
He pulled his right fist back. The air in the room began to scream. It was the sound of air pressure dropping rapidly as Ben concentrated all his mana into a single point. His fist began to glow brighter and brighter, turning from gold to a blinding white. The stone ceiling above them began to crack from the sheer vibration of power.
Rubel curled into a ball, covering his head with his hands. "No! No! I don't want to die!"
"This is for my father," Ben shouted, his voice shaking the foundations of the Sanctum. "And this is for the family you sold!"
Ben punched.
It wasn't a fancy technique. It wasn't a magic spell. It was a brute-force physical strike backed by the weight of a Sovereign spirit.
CRASH.
Ben’s fist didn't just break the cage; it pulverized the bars. The metal disintegrated into golden dust. His fist continued forward, unchecked, and connected squarely with Rubel’s chest.
There was no blood. The impact was too heavy for bleeding. The force of the punch sent a shockwave through Rubel’s body that liquefied his internal organs instantly. The traitor’s Abyssal armor shattered like glass.
BOOM!
A cone of golden light blasted out from Rubel’s back, punching a massive, ten-foot hole through the thick stone wall of the Inner Sanctum. The force of the blow cleared the dust from the room instantly.
Rubel didn't scream. He didn't have time. His eyes went blank. His spirit core, the source of his stolen magic, shattered into a million pieces. His body went limp, collapsing against the back of the broken cage.
The traitor was dead. His existence had been negated by the very bloodline he tried to destroy.
Ben stood there for a long moment, his fist glowing. He took a deep, ragged breath. The blinding light around his body began to fade, dimming from white back to gold, and then to a dull, cooling grey. The gravity in the room normalized.
He lowered his hand. He looked at the body of his uncle. He didn't feel happy. He didn't feel joy. He just felt heavy, as if a weight he had been carrying for years had finally been dropped.
"It is done," Ben whispered to the silent room. "Target eliminated."
Lloyd pushed himself off the pillar and walked over. The metal boots of his Aegis suit crunched on the debris. He stopped beside Ben and looked at the body.
"Good work, Rook," Lloyd said quietly. He reached out and patted Ben’s armored shoulder. "That was a solid hit. You hit him so hard his ancestors probably felt it. The system is clean."
Ben turned to look at Lloyd. He looked exhausted. The temporary boost from the fruit was fading, leaving his muscles aching and his mind drained.
"I feel... empty," Ben admitted. "But it's a good kind of empty. Like a job finished."
"That's called peace," Lloyd said. "Savor it. It’s rare in our line of work."
Lloyd looked around the ruined sanctum. "We need to loot the room and get out. Rubel might have some intel on his computer, or maybe a stash of stolen items. And we need to find an exit before the structural integrity of this place fails completely."
Ben nodded, taking a step back. "Right. Let’s go home. I need a drink. And a mechanic."
But the universe, it seemed, had other plans.
The moment of victory lasted exactly ten seconds.
Just as Lloyd turned to scan the room for loot, a sound cut through the silence. It wasn't a physical alarm. It wasn't a bell or a shout. It was a spiritual scream.
WREEEEEEEEEEEEE!
It sounded like a high-pitched violin string being tightened until it snapped, but it echoed inside their skulls, not their ears. Lloyd grabbed his helmet, wincing as the sound drilled into his brain. Ben fell to one knee, clutching his head.
"What is that?" Ben yelled over the psychic noise. "It feels like a drill!"
"A signal," Lloyd shouted back, his eyes widening as he looked at his HUD. Red warning lights were flashing across his vision. [Warning: Massive Mana Spike Detected. Warning: Dimensional Breach Imminent.]