Episode-958
Chapter : 1915
Eun-ha’s eyes widened. "Biological metal. That... that might actually work. It would bypass the need for mechanical seals. It would be a seamless shell."
"But there is a catch," Lloyd said, looking at her seriously. "If I use my blood as the base, the device will be linked to me. It will need my mana to maintain its structure. You won't be a slave to Firefly... but you will be tethered to me. If I die, the armor fails. If I run out of mana, the suit weakens."
Eun-ha smiled. It was a soft, genuine smile that made her look less like a demon queen and more like his wife.
"I am already tethered to you, Evan," she whispered. "That is a price I am happy to pay. I trust you with my life."
Ben scoffed again, though it lacked his usual bite. "Sentimental nonsense. But efficient. A biometric lock is harder to hack. It removes external variables."
"It’s settled then," Lloyd said. He felt a rush of adrenaline. This was it. This was the mission. He wasn't just fighting to survive anymore. He was fighting to create.
He looked around the room. He had the resources. He had the team.
The conversation about building a new body for Eun-ha had died down, leaving a strange, vibrating silence in the vast crystal hall. The immediate crisis of the Firefly Corporation and the looming war with the Lucifer Faction felt heavy in the air, like the pressure before a thunderstorm.
Lloyd Ferrum stood near the obsidian map table, his hand resting on the cool, dark stone. He had a plan for the war. He had a plan for his wife. But there was one more thing—one heavy, jagged stone in his heart that he hadn't put down yet.
He looked at Eun-ha. She was currently adjusting the magical flow of a nearby crystal pillar, her movements efficient and precise. She looked every bit the Sovereign of Efficiency, the CEO of Hell.
"Eun-ha," Lloyd said. His voice was quiet, stripped of the sarcastic edge he usually wore like armor. "There is one more thing. It’s personal."
Ben Ironwood, leaning against a pillar with his massive metal arms crossed, let out a sharp, dismissive breath.
"Emotions," Ben grumbled, his voice deep and dripping with arrogance. "We have a war to plan, Lord Lloyd. We have a galactic corporation trying to turn this planet into a battery. Do we really have time for your sentimental side projects?"
Ben’s red mechanical eyes whirred as he scanned the room, looking for threats, or perhaps just looking for something more interesting than feelings.
"This isn't sentiment, Ben," Lloyd shot back, his eyes narrowing. "This is a debt."
Lloyd turned back to Eun-ha. "You've organized the Abyss. You've cataloged everything. You treat this place like a giant warehouse."
"It is a warehouse, Evan," Eun-ha replied, turning to face him. Her violet eyes were calm. "It stores mana. It stores potential. It stores power."
"Does it store people?" Lloyd asked. The question hung in the air, heavy and sharp.
Eun-ha paused. She tilted her head, her black horns catching the dim light. "You are asking about souls."
"I am asking about Jasmin," Lloyd said. The name tasted like iron in his mouth. "My handmaiden. The Diamond Queen. She died protecting my father. She died protecting my house."
He clenched his fist, remembering the sight of her shattered diamond body in the courtyard.
"I tried to bring her back," Lloyd continued, his voice tight. "I used the System. I spent a fortune to reconstruct her spirit. But what I got back... it wasn't her. It was a doll. It was a robot with her face. The System told me her soul was gone. Deleted."
From her floating cushion of shadow, Monalisa Belphagor let out a low, sultry laugh. The Prince of Sloth rolled onto her stomach, kicking her legs in the air like a bored teenager.
"Oh, Little Lion," she purred, looking at Lloyd with hungry, possessive eyes. "You broke your toy, and now you want to glue it back together? That is so adorable. Humans are so attached to their little friends."
She floated closer, her grey, petrifying arm dangling limp at her side.
"Souls are tasty, you know," she teased, licking her lips. "Beelzebub likes them crunchy. Mammon likes them desperate. But me? I think they are too much work to chew. I prefer to just... absorb."
Chapter : 1916
"Quiet, witch," Ben snapped. He didn't even look at her. "If you interrupt again, I will test the tensile strength of your neck."
Monalisa’s eyes flashed green. "You are very rude for a piece of scrap metal. Keep talking, Tin Man. I might decide to turn you into a paperweight."
"Enough," Lloyd said, stepping between them. He looked at Eun-ha, ignoring the bickering monsters. "I read the journals of Anubis. The alchemist who built the Golem Heart. He wrote about a 'Soul Vault.' He wrote that the Abyss doesn't destroy souls—it captures them. He said that to get a soul back, you don't pray to the gods. You steal from Hell."
Lloyd took a step forward, his intensity radiating off him like heat.
"Is she here, Eun-ha? Is Jasmin in this place?"
Eun-ha sighed. It was a long, tired sound. She walked down the steps of the dais and stopped in front of Lloyd. She looked at him with a mixture of pity and scientific detachment.
"The concept of 'death' in the human realm is a transition," she explained, her voice taking on her old lecture-hall tone. "When a biological unit ceases function, the energy—the soul—has to go somewhere. The Law of Conservation of Energy applies even to spirits. Energy cannot be created or destroyed; it only changes form."
She waved her hand, and the map on the table changed. It showed a swirling vortex of white lights flowing down into a dark pit.
"The Abyss acts as a gravity well," she said. "It pulls in the loose spiritual data from the surface. When a human dies with strong regrets, or strong magic, or—in your friend's case—a connection to a powerful Void ability, they don't just dissipate. They fall down here."
"So she is here," Lloyd said, hope flaring in his chest.
"She is... archived," Eun-ha corrected gently. "She will be a glitch."
"I don't care," Lloyd said stubbornly. "If the data is there, it can be recovered. I just need the right software."
"It isn't that simple," Eun-ha said. "The Abyss is vast, Evan. There are billions of souls here, compressed into the bedrock, floating in the rivers, fueling the fires of the Seven Princes. To find one specific soul... it would take a search algorithm I don't possess."
She looked away, toward the dark windows.
"And even if I could find her... I don't have the authority to release her. I am a Prince, yes. But I am a Prince of the Living Demons. The souls of the dead? They belong to the Deep Dark. They belong to the layer of Hell that even I don't touch."
"Who controls it?" Lloyd demanded. "Lucifer? Mammon?"
"No," Eun-ha said. "They are just managers. They skim off the top. But the Vault itself... the core of the Abyss where the souls are kept... that is guarded by the Old Laws."
Monalisa sighed again, sounding bored by all the technical talk. "You are making it sound so complicated, sister. Just tell him the truth. Tell him about the Big Guy."
Lloyd frowned. "The Big Guy?"
Eun-ha shot Monalisa a warning look, but she nodded.
"There is a hierarchy here, Evan. You know the Seven Princes. You know the factions. But above us... or rather, below us, in the deepest pit... there is the Origin."
She took a deep breath.
"You want to retrieve a soul that has crossed the line? You can't just steal it. You have to ask permission. You have to submit a request to the admin."
"Who is the admin?" Lloyd asked.
"The Great King Satan," Eun-ha whispered.
Ben scoffed loudly. "Satan? You already told us about him. The Prince of Wrath. The lazy guy sleeping on a bone chair. You said he was a figurehead."
"That is the Avatar of Satan," Eun-ha corrected sharply. "That is the physical form he wears to interact with the political layer. That is the tired old warrior who just wants to sleep."
She looked at Ben, her eyes flashing with a terrifying power.
"But the Great King... the entity that actually is the Abyss... that is different. That is the consciousness of this entire dimension. It isn't a person you can fight, Ben. It is a force of nature. It is the operating system."
Lloyd felt a cold sweat on his palms. He had planned to fight armies. He had planned to fight corporations. He hadn't planned to fight a sentient dimension.