Episode-1027
Chapter : 2053
Lloyd stepped closer to the edge of the platform, standing right in front of the massive hand.
"Name the price," Lloyd said.
The Titan stared at him. The silence stretched out, filled with the hum of the gate and the beating of Lloyd’s own heart.
"We shall see," Satan said. "Come closer. I am interested in your harvest, give me that."
The obsidian hand of the Great King Satan hovered in the air, a platform of stone the size of a city block, waiting for Lloyd to make his move. The air in this deep, subterranean void was thin and cold, vibrating with the immense power of the entity fused into the gate.
Lloyd didn't waste time with speeches or bows. He knew exactly where he stood. He was an ant trading with an elephant, but he was an ant holding something the elephant wanted.
He reached into the pouch on his belt. His movements were steady, practiced, and calm. Inside his mind, the Major General was running a constant check on his vitals, keeping his heart rate slow and his hands steady. He couldn't afford to show fear. In a negotiation like this, a single tremble could cost him everything.
First, Lloyd pulled out the remains of Beelzebub.
It wasn't much. Just a charred, skeletal skull, blackened by the intense heat of the Magma-Laser Lloyd had used to finish him. The bone was brittle, looking like something that had been sitting in a desert for a thousand years rather than the remains of a being who had been alive just hours ago. It was light, almost weightless, stripped of all its glory and hunger.
Lloyd walked forward, his boots clicking softly on the polished black glass of the floor. He stepped onto the massive, open palm of the Titan. He placed the skull down gently on the rocky skin of the giant’s hand.
"The head of the Prince of Gluttony," Lloyd said. His voice was flat, echoing slightly in the vast darkness. "Proof of termination."
Then, he reached into his pouch again. This time, he pulled out the prize.
The Fruit of Gluttony.
It was heavy, dense, and warm to the touch. It glowed with a deep, sickly purple light that seemed to pulse like a slow heartbeat. This wasn't just a magical item; it was the distilled essence of a fundamental law of the Abyss. It was the concept of "Hunger" that Lloyd had ripped out of Beelzebub’s chest using his Void Wood ability.
As soon as the fruit appeared, the atmosphere in the cavern changed. The air grew heavier. The shadows seemed to lean in, hungry for a taste of the power radiating from the small object.
Lloyd placed the fruit next to the skull. The contrast was stark—the dead, dry bone next to the pulsing, vibrant fruit. The container and the contents, separated at last.
Lloyd stepped back, off the hand and onto the main platform. He looked up at the massive, three-faced head of the Titan.
"This is the harvest," Lloyd stated. "Beelzebub was a parasite. He was drilling into your back, stealing your mana, and weakening the seal of the gate. I removed him. I processed him. I am returning his power to the source."
The massive, burning sun-eyes of the Titan shifted. They focused on the small objects in his hand.
"Beelzebub," the Titan’s voice rumbled. It wasn't spoken with a mouth; it resonated through the bedrock of the planet. "He was always loud. Even as a child, he screamed for more. He ate silence and left only noise."
The Titan’s fingers slowly curled inward, closing over the skull and the fruit.
"You have silenced the noise," Satan continued. "You have cleaned my house, human. That is... rare. Most humans come here to steal. You come to return."
A low hum filled the air as the Titan absorbed the offering. The purple light of the fruit flared brightly between the giant stone fingers for a second, then vanished. The energy was reabsorbed into the massive body of the King, flowing back into the foundation of the world.
Lloyd felt the ground tremble slightly. It wasn't an earthquake; it was a sigh of relief. The Titan seemed to settle, the constant irritation of the parasite finally gone.
"The trade is accepted," Satan said. The sheer volume of his voice shook dust from the ceiling miles above. "The balance is restored. The Gluttony is no longer a rogue wave; it is back in the ocean."
Chapter : 2054
Lloyd crossed his arms. He didn't relax. The easy part was over. Giving a gift was simple; getting payment was the hard part.
"I kept my end of the bargain," Lloyd said, looking directly into the burning eyes. "Now, I want to buy something."
Eun-ha, standing a few steps behind Lloyd, tensed up. She knew what Lloyd was about to ask. She knew how dangerous it was to make demands of the Great King. But she stayed silent, trusting her husband’s strategy.
"You want the Anubis Protocol," Satan said. It wasn't a question. "You want to know how a thief stole a soul from my kingdom and walked away."
"I don't want to steal," Lloyd corrected him. "I want to retrieve. There is a difference."
"Is there?" The Titan’s face didn't move, but the tone of the voice shifted. It became amused, in a dark, terrifying way. "To the dead, there is no difference between a rescue and a robbery. They are gone, Lloyd Ferrum. They have crossed the river."
"Not her," Lloyd said firmly. "Jasmin isn't gone. I know it."
He took a step forward, his defiance radiating off him like heat.
"I built a shell for her," Lloyd explained, his voice gaining a hard edge. "I used the System to reconstruct her body. I used her DNA, her data, her image. But it's empty. It’s a doll. I need the pilot. I need the soul to put back inside."
Satan looked down at the small human. "You built a cage, and now you want the bird."
"I want my friend," Lloyd said.
"Friend," Satan mused. The word echoed around them. "A small word for such a big risk. You stand in the mantle of the planet, breathing air that would kill a normal man, trading the power of a Prince... all for a servant?"
"She isn't a servant," Lloyd said. "She is the Shield of my House. And she died doing my job."
Lloyd’s mind flashed back to the moment in the courtyard. The Spear of Nihil coming down. The diamond shattering. The silence that followed. He pushed the pain down, using it as fuel.
"I have the currency," Lloyd said, pointing to the closed hand of the Titan. "I paid you a Prince. That has to be worth one human soul. That is the Law of Equivalent Exchange. You know it. You live by it."
The Titan was silent for a long moment. The magma far below churned. The violet runes on the massive gate pulsed slowly.
"You are a student of the laws," Satan admitted. "That is good. The Fire Fly Corporation... they do not care for laws. They think they can take without giving. They think physics is the only rule. But here, in the deep, there are older rules."
The massive obsidian head lowered slightly, bringing the burning eyes closer to Lloyd. The heat was intense, drying out Lloyd’s eyes, but he refused to blink.
"You are right," Satan said. "Normally, the Spear of Nihil is absolute. It is a weapon of the Void. It does not kill; it erases. It deletes the file of the soul from the universe. If Lucifer had hit your father, Roy Ferrum would have ceased to exist in any form. There would be no ghost. No afterlife. Just zero."
Lloyd felt a cold chill. He knew this. It was why he was so desperate.
"But," Satan rumbled, "your handmaiden... she was an anomaly."
Lloyd’s heart skipped a beat. "Anomaly?"
"The Spear of Nihil works on the concept of 'Meaninglessness,'" Satan explained. "It attacks the connection a soul has to the world. It tells the universe that this life does not matter, and the universe agrees, and deletes it. But when that girl jumped..."
The Titan’s voice took on a tone of grudging respect.
"...she was not meaningless. She was absolute. Her loyalty to you, her desire to protect... it was so dense, so singular, that it created a hard point in reality. She became a Diamond in spirit, not just in body."
Lloyd listened, hanging on every word.
"The Spear tried to erase her," Satan said. "But it could not find a loose thread to pull. Her soul was a knot that could not be untied. So, the Abyss did not delete her."
Lloyd let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "So she's alive?"