Episode-957
Chapter : 1913
From the side of the room, a lazy, amused voice floated through the air.
"Oh, look at him," Monalisa purred.
The Prince of Sloth was floating on a cushion of shadow near the dark pool. She rolled over, resting her chin on her hand, watching them with half-closed eyes. She looked like a cat watching a mouse she planned to play with later. She was pale, her arm still grey and heavy from the petrification curse, but she didn't seem to care.
"So dramatic," Monalisa teased. "Honor. Pride. Freedom. It’s all very tiring, isn't it? Just wear the necklace, sister. Who cares who holds the leash as long as the food is good? Lucifer seems happy enough."
She floated closer to Lloyd. She reached out and poked his armored shoulder with a long fingernail. Scratch.
"Little Lion," she said, smiling. "You realize that without that little box, my dear sister is stuck here? Forever? She can't leave. She is a prisoner in her own pretty castle. Is your pride worth that much? Personally, I would wear a collar if it meant I could go take a nap on a warm beach somewhere. Being a Sovereign is exhausting."
Ben shifted his weight. His metal legs clanked loudly on the stone floor. He turned his head slowly to look at Monalisa. He looked at her like she was a bug he couldn't be bothered to squash.
"That is because you have no standards," Ben said arrogantly. "You are happy to be a pet. A Sovereign does not negotiate their existence. That is the difference between a King and an animal."
Monalisa’s eyes flashed with dangerous green fire. For a second, the air in the room got heavy and hard to breathe. The playful cat was gone, replaced by a Devil Prince who could rot flesh with a look.
"Careful, Tin Man," she hissed. "I saved you from Beelzebub. I might decide to melt you down for scrap if you keep talking."
"You could try," Ben replied. He didn't look worried at all. He just looked bored.
"Enough," Lloyd said, stepping between them. He pushed Monalisa’s hand away from his armor. "We aren't fighting each other. And Ben is right. We aren't accepting the collar."
Monalisa pouted and floated back to her cushion. "Fine. Be boring. But don't blame me when you're stuck here for another century. I'm just saying, freedom is overrated."
Lloyd turned his back on the hologram. The "Major General" part of his brain was taking over. He stopped thinking about feelings and started thinking about engineering.
He started pacing around the table, his hands moving like he was building something invisible in the air.
"Okay," Lloyd said, talking fast. "So the Firefly tech is a trap. We can't use their hardware. It’s compromised. But the physics... the physics work. The idea of creating a small atmosphere around the body is solid. The problem isn't the engine; it’s the lock."
He stopped and looked at Ben.
"Ben, you were Firefly Black Ops. You know how they code. Is the Kill Switch hardware or software?"
Ben walked over to the table. He shoved Monalisa’s floating cushion out of his way without even looking at her. She hissed at him, but Ben ignored her. He leaned over the hologram, his red mechanical eyes whirring as they zoomed in on the drawing.
"It is integrated," Ben stated. His voice was bored but knowledgeable. "It is both. The signal receiver is a physical part, but the kill command is buried deep in the software. If you try to cut the red wire, the system notices and explodes. It is a fail-deadly design. Firefly does not trust its assets."
Ben stood up straight and looked at Lloyd.
"You cannot modify this device, Lord Lloyd. It is a closed system. If you try to hack it, you will trigger the bomb and kill the user. Firefly does not leave backdoors open for amateurs."
"I’m not an amateur," Lloyd snapped. "And I’m not going to hack it."
He raised his hand and swiped through the air. The hologram of the Firefly device shattered into a million pixels of light and vanished.
"We aren't going to fix their trash," Lloyd said, a cold grin spreading across his face. "We are going to build our own."
________________________________________
Eun-ha looked at Lloyd, surprised. She knew her husband was smart, but this was a crazy idea.
Chapter : 1914
"Build our own?" she asked. "Evan, you know the complexity. It took Firefly decades to miniaturize the field generator. You want to build one from scratch? Here? With what tools?"
"With these," Lloyd said.
He held up his right hand. The skin turned dark, changing instantly into the hard, unbreakable metal of his [Steel Blood]. It wasn't just metal; it was a living material that obeyed his thoughts. Then, his eyes flashed. The whites of his eyes turned pitch black, and a glowing blue ring appeared in the center—the [Blue Ring Eyes] of the Austin bloodline.
"Firefly relies on circuits, silicon, and batteries," Lloyd said, his voice vibrating with power. "They rely on factories. They are limited by what they can solder and weld. They are limited by normal physics."
He clenched his fist, and the steel rippled like water.
"But my power... my Void Power... it lets me mix creation with substance. I don't need to solder wires. I can forge the idea of the device directly into the metal. I can skip the factory entirely."
Ben looked at Lloyd’s hand. For the first time, the arrogant look on his face cracked a little. He looked genuinely interested. He leaned in, his mechanical eyes analyzing the energy coming off Lloyd’s skin.
"Open source," Ben muttered. "You want to build an open-source Reality Anchor. Using magical metal instead of microchips."
"Exactly," Lloyd said. "A 'Clean' Reality Anchor. No remote control. No kill switch. No corporate logo. Just pure function."
He turned to Eun-ha.
"I need the specs," Lloyd demanded, all business now. "I need the math. I need the exact pressure differential numbers you calculated. But we aren't going to use their casing design."
Eun-ha stared at him. She saw the man she had fallen in love with back on Earth. The man who didn't care if a problem was "impossible." He only cared if he had enough coffee and a screwdriver.
"You really think you can out-engineer an interstellar corporation?" Eun-ha asked, a smile touching her lips.
"I think they are lazy," Lloyd said dismissively. "They mass-produce things. They cut corners to save money. I’m building a custom job. One of a kind."
He looked at the empty space above the table where the hologram used to be.
"They want to put a collar on you," Lloyd said, his voice dropping to a low growl. "I’m going to build you a suit of armor."
Monalisa sighed loudly, rolling her eyes. She flopped back onto her shadow cushion, looking incredibly bored. She floated upside down, her long hair dangling toward the floor.
"Oh, Darling," she groaned. "You are so aggressive when you talk about machines. It’s delicious, really. But do you have any idea how boring this is going to be? Math? Diagrams? Can’t we just go kill someone? It’s much faster."
She reached out and tugged on Lloyd’s cape.
"You promised to fix me, Little Lion," she whined. "My arm is turning to stone. It hurts. Why are you talking about boxes?"
Ben turned his head slowly to look at her. "Violence without a plan is just noise," he stated coldly. "Lord Lloyd is proposing a tactical shift. If we can get the Professor to the surface, our advantage increases by 400%. Try to keep up."
"Don't lecture me, Tin Man," Monalisa snapped, her eyes narrowing. "I saved your master from Beelzebub. If I hadn't stepped in, you would be fly food right now. You should be worshipping me."
"You intervened because you didn't want your toy broken," Ben countered. "It was possessiveness, not kindness. Do not confuse me with someone who cares about your feelings."
Lloyd ignored them both. He was already drawing new designs in his head.
"The alloy is the key," Lloyd said to Eun-ha, pacing again. "We know Star-Frost Ore blocks mana leakage. But raw ore is brittle. If I build a casing out of it, and you get hit in a fight, it cracks. If it cracks, you explode."
"We discussed this," Eun-ha said. "That is why Firefly uses Null-Steel. It is flexible."
"I don't have Null-Steel," Lloyd said. "But I have something better."
He looked at his own hand again. The Steel Blood.
"My blood," Lloyd said. The idea hit him like a lightning bolt. "If I mix my Steel Blood with the Star-Frost Ore... I can make a living metal. It would respond to your mana. It would expand and contract like skin. It wouldn't be a box; it would be a graft."