Episode-1041
Chapter : 2081
Lloyd was lifted into the air. He dangled there, his broken legs dragging uselessly. He stared straight into the red sensor eyes of the Exterminator. He could see the gears turning inside the chrome skull. He could smell the burnt ozone and the rotting flesh of the mask.
The grip tightened. It wasn't choking him; it was measuring him.
"Subject captured," the machine stated. "Scanning for Omega Protocol."
A laser grid scanned Lloyd’s face.
"Don't..." Lloyd gasped, clawing at the metal wrist with his one working hand. "Don't... make... me... reboot... you."
The machine didn't care about his threats. It squeezed harder. Lloyd’s vision started to go black. He couldn't breathe. His neck was about to snap.
"Data extraction initiated," the machine said. "This will be painful.".
The grip on Lloyd’s throat was absolute. It was not the grip of a man, or even a monster that breathed and bled. It was the hydraulic clamp of a machine that had been programmed to crush, and right now, its programming was running a simple execution command.
Lloyd Ferrum, the man who had lived two lives and fought wars across dimensions, dangled helplessly in the air. His broken legs dragged in the dust of his ruined home. He stared straight into the red, glowing sensor eyes of the thing that used to be Lucifer. There was no hatred in those eyes. There was no gloating. There was only the cold, unfeeling light of a computer processor calculating the most efficient way to end a life.
The machine, designated PRIDE, raised its free hand. The metal fingers shifted and transformed. Panels slid back, revealing an emitter that glowed with the heat of a small sun. The fingers extended into long, curved talons made of super-heated plasma. The air around the claw shimmered and warped from the intense temperature. It smelled of burning ozone and inevitable death.
"DATA EXTRACTION COMPLETE," the machine’s voice ground out. It sounded like metal teeth chewing on gravel. "SUBJECT HAS NO FURTHER UTILITY. INITIATING DISPOSAL."
Lloyd tried to speak, but his windpipe was compressed too tightly. He tried to summon his spirits, but he was empty. He was running on fumes, his body wrecked by the Seventh Demon Gate. He looked at the plasma claw pulling back for the killing strike. In his mind, he didn't see his life flash before his eyes. He saw numbers. He saw the distance of the claw, the speed of the swing, and the durability of his own skull. The math was simple. The math said zero.
The claw swung down.
It moved faster than sound. A blur of white-hot energy aimed directly at Lloyd’s chest.
But the blow never landed.
Just inches from Lloyd’s skin, the air suddenly turned green. It wasn't the natural green of grass or leaves. It was the neon, electric green of an old computer terminal.
A wall appeared out of nowhere. It wasn't a wall of stone or ice. It was a wall of light, comprised of millions of floating symbols—zeroes and ones, streaming downward like rain. It was a barrier made of pure logic.
CLANG-HISS.
The plasma claw slammed into the green wall. Instead of cutting through, the plasma sparked and scattered. The wall didn't break. It reacted. The symbols swirled around the point of impact, turning red and flashing the words: [ACCESS DENIED].
The machine, PRIDE, jerked back. For the first time, its movements weren't smooth. It twitched. Its sensors whirred as they tried to process what had just happened. It had hit a shield that didn't exist in its database. It was trying to cut through a firewall with a knife, and the physics didn't make sense.
"ERROR," the machine buzzed. "UNKNOWN VARIABLE DETECTED. RECALCULATING."
Before the machine could adjust, the space beside Lloyd tore open.
This wasn't the messy, violent rip of a standard teleportation spell. This was precise. It looked like someone had taken a pair of scissors and cut a perfect, vertical line in the fabric of the world. The edges of the tear glowed with that same electric green light.
A foot stepped out of the rift. It was wearing a sharp, high-heeled shoe that looked like it belonged in a corporate boardroom, not a battlefield.
Song Eun-ha stepped into the ruined courtyard.
Chapter : 2082
She didn't look like a devil in that moment. She looked like the woman Lloyd remembered from Earth. She was poised, calm, and radiated an aura of absolute control. But beneath the human appearance, the power she held was terrifying. She was Leviathan, the Sovereign of Envy, and she was done hiding in the shadows.
She looked at the machine holding her husband. Her eyes, usually dark and intelligent, were now glowing with scrolling data streams.
"You have a lot of nerve," Eun-ha said. Her voice was cool and amplified, echoing not just in the air, but in the minds of everyone present. "That is my hardware you are trying to break."
She raised her hand and snapped her fingers.
The green wall of code exploded outward. It hit the PRIDE machine with the force of a battering ram. The impact was silent, but the effect was violent. The machine lost its grip on Lloyd. It was thrown backward, its metal feet carving deep trenches into the ground as it tried to stabilize itself.
Lloyd fell. He braced himself for the hard impact, but he landed on something soft. A cushion of air, manipulated by precise telekinesis, caught him and lowered him gently to the gravel.
Eun-ha didn't stop there. She stepped fully out of the rift, and as she did, her form began to shift. The human guise melted away.
"Sovereign Protocol: Engage," she commanded.
The green light enveloped her. It expanded, growing larger and larger until it towered over the ruins of the estate. The light solidified, taking a shape that was both ancient and futuristic.
She became a dragon.
But this was not a dragon of scales and flesh. It was a construct of flowing data. Her wings were vast sheets of binary code that shimmered like auroras. Her claws were made of hard-light geometry. Her tail whipped back and forth, leaving trails of pixels in the air. Inside her chest, a core of emerald energy pulsed with the rhythm of a massive server farm.
She was the Data Dragon. A creature born from the fusion of Abyssal magic and Earth’s digital logic.
The PRIDE machine stabilized itself and looked up. Its red sensors zoomed in on the massive entity looming over it.
"THREAT LEVEL: EXTREME," the machine announced. "TARGET IDENTIFIED: LEVIATHAN. SYSTEM ADVISES RETREAT."
"Advice rejected," Eun-ha’s voice boomed from the dragon’s mouth. It sounded like a synthesizer harmonizing with a roar.
She lunged. The Data Dragon didn't breathe fire. It breathed a beam of concentrated "Delete" commands. A stream of green energy washed over the machine. The PRIDE unit raised its arms to block, deploying a Void Shield. The green breath hit the shield and began to eat away at it, deconstructing the magic holding the shield together.
Sparks flew from the machine as its systems started to overheat. It was being hacked and attacked physically at the same time.
Lloyd lay on the ground, coughing, trying to get air back into his crushed throat. He watched the massive green dragon holding back the mechanical devil. A weak, painful smile tugged at the corner of his bloody mouth.
"Took you... long enough," Lloyd wheezed.
A shadow fell over him. He looked up to see Rosa.
The Winter Queen was kneeling beside him. Her silver hair was disheveled, her face streaked with soot, but her eyes were sharp and clear. She placed her hands on his chest. A cool, soothing blue light flowed from her palms, numbing the pain of his broken ribs and cooling the fever in his blood.
"She is loud," Rosa said, glancing up at the giant digital dragon. Her voice was flat, but there was a hint of curiosity in it. "Is that her true form?"
"That's her... work mode," Lloyd rasped.
The green dragon shimmered and shrank. The massive form condensed rapidly, folding in on itself until Eun-ha stood there again in her human form. She didn't look winded. She adjusted her dress and walked over to them.
Now, they were all there.
Lloyd lay on the ground, the broken steel center of the group.
Rosa knelt on his left, her hands glowing with the ice of preservation. She was the magic of this world, the ancient power of bloodlines and elements.
Eun-ha stood on his right, her eyes scanning the environment with a digital overlay. She was the logic of Earth, the power of science and calculation.
The Triumvirate was assembled.
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