Episode-1033
Chapter : 2065
Ren, inside the heavy Rook suit, let out a loud gasp of air. "I can... I can breathe again!"
"Stay sharp, Rook," Lloyd ordered, though he was also taking a deep, greedy breath. "Jasmin is holding a localized barrier. It’s blocking the gravitational waves. Get your systems back online. We aren't done yet."
Jasmin stood at the front of the barrier, her feet cracking the marble floor as she anchored herself. She was acting as the shield for the entire team, her Black Diamond body vibrating as it absorbed the stress Lucifer was putting on the area. She looked back at Lloyd for a split second, her eyes full of human warmth but her face set in a warrior’s determination. She had died once to protect this family. She wasn't going to let it happen again.
Lucifer tilted his head, looking at Jasmin with mild curiosity. "A spirit reconstruction? And a high-density one at that. You really do keep the most interesting toys, Ferrum. But a shield only lasts as long as the person holding it. How long can she stand before my pride crushes her into dust?"
Lloyd didn't answer. He was busy checking his own internal energy. He was drained, bruised, and his suit was sparking. He was preparing to engage, but he knew he needed a miracle to truly hurt a Devil King in this state.
Then, the miracle happened.
It didn't start with a bang. It started with a silence so absolute it felt like everyone in the courtyard had gone deaf.
The roaring fires that were consuming the stables and the outer walls of the keep didn't just go out. They stopped. The orange and red flames, which had been dancing and flickering a second ago, suddenly froze. They turned into solid, jagged sculptures of red and orange ice. The heat that had been baking the courtyard was sucked away in a heartbeat.
The temperature didn't just drop; it plummeted. It hit absolute zero in the span of a few seconds.
Frost raced across the ground like a white carpet, covering the rubble, the bodies of the fallen demons, and the grass. The air became so cold that it became visible—a thick, white mist that swirled around everyone’s legs.
Lloyd felt a familiar chill. It was a cold he knew better than anyone. It was the cold that had defined his first few years on this planet. It was the cold of the "Ice Queen."
From the shadows of the main keep, a woman walked out.
She didn't run. She didn't rush. She walked with a slow, regal pace that commanded the very earth to stay still.
It was Rosa.
But she was transformed. The woman who had fled into the north in a state of madness was gone. In her place was a Sovereign who had fully embraced her destiny. Her hair, which had once been dark, was now a cascading river of shimmering, brilliant silver that reached down to her waist. It looked like it was made of liquid moonlight. Her eyes weren't just grey anymore; they were glowing with a fierce, blue-white light that seemed to see through everything.
As she walked, the ground beneath her feet didn't just freeze—it turned into a smooth path of flawless crystal. The air around her was so cold that the gravitons themselves seemed to be slowing down.
She stopped a few feet away from Lloyd. She didn't look at the demons. She didn't look at the fire-turned-ice. She looked only at her husband.
She didn't look at him with the anger of a wife who had been betrayed, or the sadness of a woman who had been abandoned. Those emotions were too small for who she was now. She looked at him with the cold, hard steel of a partner who had finally found her equal.
She took in his battered armor, the blood on his face, and the exhaustion in his eyes.
"You’re late," Rosa said.
Her voice wasn't a scream. It was a quiet, clear sound that traveled through the courtyard like a bell ringing in a winter night. It was the most beautiful thing Lloyd had heard since his return.
Lloyd felt the corners of his mouth twitch. The fatigue that had been weighing down his soul for the last several hours seemed to evaporate. He stood up straight, his black suit hissing as it vented steam into the freezing air.
"Traffic in Hell was terrible," Lloyd replied.
His sarcastic monotone was back. He was himself again.
Chapter : 2066
Rosa gave him a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. It was a gesture of respect. She could feel the change in him, too. He wasn't the weak boy she had married, and she wasn't the broken girl who had run away.
Standing side-by-side in the center of the frozen courtyard, the Husband of Steel and the Wife of Ice turned as one to face the King of Pride.
________________________________________
Lucifer stared at the pair. For the first time since the siege began, the bored expression on his face flickered. He looked at Rosa, his eyes narrowing as he analyzed the sheer density of the cold radiating from her.
"A Sovereign," Lucifer muttered. "The 'Winter Queen' actually came back. I thought you had crawled into a hole to die of shame, little girl."
Rosa didn't flinch. She didn't even blink. "I did die," she said calmly. "I died to the person I was. I suggest you prepare to do the same."
Lucifer let out a sharp, mocking scoff. "Arrogant. Even for a human. Do you think a little frost can stop the weight of the Abyss? Do you think because you changed your hair color, you can stand against a King?"
The Devil King’s white armor began to glow with an intense, sickly purple light. The Reality Anchor on his chest hummed, pulling more and more energy from the Fire Fly dropships hovering above.
"I am the King of Pride!" Lucifer roared, his voice finally losing its calm. "Everything in this world is beneath me! If you won't kneel, I will simply crush you into the bedrock!"
Lucifer raised both hands high above his head and then slammed them down toward the earth.
"Pride’s Dominion: Maximum Output!"
The gravity field didn't just return; it exploded.
The air itself seemed to turn into a physical weight. The ground outside of Jasmin’s barrier didn't just crack—it imploded. Huge slabs of stone were ground into dust. The trees at the edge of the courtyard were flattened as if an invisible giant had stepped on them. The pressure was so high that the oxygen in the air was being compressed, making it difficult for anyone outside the barrier to stay conscious.
The barrier Jasmin was holding began to groan. Tiny cracks appeared in the black diamond surface. Jasmin’s feet sank deeper into the marble as she fought to hold the dome together.
"Master... it's heavy," Jasmin grunted, her voice vibrating with effort.
Rosa stepped forward, passing through the edge of Jasmin's barrier. She walked out into the full force of Lucifer's attack.
Lloyd moved to stop her, but he hesitated. He could see it—the way the gravity ripples seemed to distort as they got near her.
Rosa raised her right hand. She didn't make a fist. She kept her fingers open and graceful, as if she were reaching for a falling snowflake.
"You speak of weight," Rosa said, her voice echoing with a power that made the very air tremble. "But weight requires movement. Gravity requires a path. In my presence... there is only the end of motion."
She closed her hand.
"Sovereign Authority: [Absolute Stillness]."
The world changed.
It wasn't a blast of energy or a flash of light. It was a conceptual shift.
Within a fifty-yard radius of Rosa, the very laws of physics were rewritten. The gravitons—the subatomic particles that create weight—didn't just slow down. They stopped. They were frozen in mid-air, locked in a state of perfect stasis.
The crushing pressure that had been trying to liquefy the estate simply ceased to exist.
The dust that had been flying through the air froze in place, hanging like millions of tiny brown stars. The rain of ash from the burning roof stopped falling, suspended in the sky. Even the sound of the wind was cut off.
It was a neutral zone. A pocket of reality where Lucifer's primary weapon was effectively deleted.
Lucifer stumbled. His "Singularity Driver" was still pumping out energy, but the energy wasn't going anywhere. It was hitting the boundary of Rosa’s domain and simply stopping. It was like trying to push a wall that was part of the universe itself.
"What... what did you do?" Lucifer demanded, his voice full of genuine shock.
Rosa stood tall, her silver hair glowing like a beacon in the center of the stillness. She looked at Lucifer with a gaze that was colder than any ice.
"I have removed the 'path'," Rosa explained. "Your gravity has nowhere to go. Here, in this circle, your pride has no weight."