Episode-1025
Chapter : 2049
A sudden rush of air filled the vacuum where the cube had been. A small puff of ash blew away in the swamp breeze, scattering into the water.
The swamp was quiet. The oppressive, heavy feeling of the "hunger" was gone. The air felt lighter, cleaner. The yellow water seemed less vibrant, just dirty mud again.
Lloyd stood alone in the silence. He retracted the Nova armor, his arm returning to normal. He adjusted his gloves.
He had done it. He had killed a Prince, harvested his power, and cleaned up the mess without alerting the sky.
He patted the pouch on his belt where the Fruit of Gluttony sat. It was a heavy, warm weight against his hip. This was the currency he needed. This was the ticket to the next level.
"One down," Lloyd whispered to the empty trees.
He turned and began to walk away, his boots sucking in the mud. He didn't look back at the pile of ash. He had an appointment at the core of the world, and he didn't want to be late. The Great King Satan was waiting, and Lloyd had a trade to make.
Date: Year 2513, Month of Sun, Day 17
Time: 08:00 AM
Location: The Abyssal Gate (Beneath Aethelgard)
The swamp was behind him, and the ash of Beelzebub was already scattering into the wind, but Lloyd Ferrum didn't feel like celebrating. He felt lighter, yes, but also strangely exposed.
He stood on the rocky shore of Aethelgard, looking out over the grey ocean, running a mental diagnostic on his own body. He was physically intact. His mana reserves were full, topped off by the energy he had siphoned from the Gluttony Prince. But there was a glaring hole in his inventory.
The Aegis Mark III was gone.
The suit that had allowed him to fight gods, the black armor that had become his second skin, was now a pile of corroded, half-dissolved scrap metal sinking into the mud of the Southern Wetlands. He had abandoned it to defeat Beelzebub, and while the victory was worth the cost, the loss stung. A soldier without his armor always feels a phantom chill, no matter how tough his skin is.
Lloyd closed his eyes and peered into the infinite white void of his [Spatial Inventory]. Floating there, in the absolute stillness of his pocket dimension, was a new shape. It was bulky, covered in unfinished plating and exposed wiring.
The Aegis Mark IV. The "God-Killer" prototype.
It was a beast of a machine, designed to be even stronger and faster than the Mark III. It incorporated the data he had gathered from fighting Lucifer and the raw power theories he had developed with his alchemy team. But it wasn't ready. The neural link was untested. The power distribution system was unstable. If he tried to pilot it now, there was a fifty-fifty chance it would either kill the enemy or explode, taking Lloyd with it.
"Not yet," Lloyd whispered to himself, mentally closing the door on the inventory. "I’ll save you for a rainy day. Today, I have to walk on my own two feet."
He turned away from the ocean. Waiting for him near the entrance to a cave system were two figures.
One was Leviathan—Song Eun-ha, his wife from a past life and the Queen of Envy. She looked as regal as ever, though her eyes held a flicker of worry as she scanned Lloyd for injuries. Beside her stood an old man in simple robes, sitting calmly on a rock. This was the Avatar of the Great King Satan, the human-sized puppet used by the ruler of the Abyss to interact with the surface world.
"You look terrible," Eun-ha said as Lloyd approached. Her voice was cool, but Lloyd knew her well enough to hear the relief underneath.
"You should see the other guy," Lloyd replied in his usual monotone. "Oh wait, you can't. He's dust."
The old man chuckled. It was a dry sound, like dead leaves scraping together. "You killed a Prince, human. And you harvested him. That is... efficient. Brutal, but efficient."
"I don't like waste," Lloyd said. He patted the pouch at his belt where the Fruit of Gluttony and the charred remains of Beelzebub’s head were stored. "Now, let’s get this over with. You promised me a meeting with the real you. I have the payment."
Chapter : 2050
The Avatar nodded slowly. He stood up, leaning on a wooden staff. "The real me is a long way down, Lloyd Ferrum. The pressure where I live would crush a normal man into a diamond. Are you sure your body can take it?"
Lloyd flexed his hands. He activated his [Steel Blood] internally. He didn't manifest chains or armor on the outside; instead, he reinforced his bones, his muscles, and his internal organs with a mesh of mana-hardened iron. He made himself dense. He made himself heavy.
"Lead the way," Lloyd said. "I can handle a little pressure."
The old man tapped his staff on the ground. The cave mouth behind them didn't just open; it seemed to unhinge like a giant jaw. A rush of stale, hot air blew out from the darkness. It smelled of sulfur, old stone, and something ancient that had been sleeping for a very long time.
"Then follow," the Avatar said. "We go to the root of the world."
They entered the cave. It wasn't a natural tunnel. The walls were smooth, fused by immense heat, spiraling down into the earth at a steep angle. There were no stairs, just a smooth ramp that went down, down, and down.
As they descended, the light from the surface faded, replaced by the soft, blue glow of moss clinging to the ceiling. Then, even the moss disappeared, and the only light came from Eun-ha’s aura and the Avatar’s staff.
Minutes turned into hours. They were moving fast, faster than a walk, aided by gravity and magic, but the depth was staggering. They passed through the layer of soil, through the layer of limestone, and deep into the bedrock of the planet.
The air grew hotter. It became thick and hard to breathe. Lloyd had to actively filter the air using his Void power, separating the oxygen from the toxic gases that were starting to seep through the cracks in the walls.
"We are passing the crust," Eun-ha said quietly. She didn't seem bothered by the heat; she was a creature of the Abyss, after all. "We are entering the mantle zone. The temperature outside these walls is hot enough to melt lead."
"Why did he bury himself this deep?" Lloyd asked, wiping sweat from his forehead. "If he's the King, shouldn't he be in a castle?"
"He is the castle," the Avatar replied from the front. "The Gate to the Abyss isn't a door you can just lock with a key. It is a wound in the planet. It is constantly trying to tear open. It requires weight to hold it shut. Massive, tectonic weight."
Lloyd thought about that. He thought about the map he had seen with his [All-Seeing Eye] back on the island—the image of the titan curled up in the lava. Satan wasn't ruling from a throne; he was holding the world together with his own back.
The tunnel leveled out. They stepped out onto a ledge that overlooked a vast, empty space.
Lloyd stopped. He had seen big things before. He had seen the giants in the Soul Farm. He had seen the Fire Fly dropships. But this was different.
They were standing in a bubble inside the earth. The cavern was so huge that Lloyd couldn't see the ceiling or the far walls. It was like standing inside a hollowed-out moon.
Far below them, a sea of magma churned. It wasn't the bright, splashing lava of a volcano. It was dark red, heavy, and slow, moving like thick syrup. The heat radiating from it was a physical blow, a wall of thermal energy that tried to push them back.
"This is the Antechamber," Eun-ha said. "We are almost there."
Lloyd looked at his skin. It was red, flushed with blood as his body tried to cool itself. He pushed more mana into his [Steel Blood], hardening his skin to resist the thermal radiation.
"It feels heavy here," Lloyd noted. "The gravity... it's stronger."
"We are closer to the core," the Avatar explained. "But it is also my presence. My true body has... mass. A lot of mass."
They walked along a narrow bridge of obsidian rock that spanned the magma ocean. The bridge had no railings. One slip meant falling into liquid rock. Lloyd walked steadily, his balance perfect, his mind focused.