Episode-1053
Chapter : 2105
His vision went white. He couldn't see the HUD. He couldn't see the controls. All he could see was static and pain. It was a "Neural Liquefaction" attack. The enemy was trying to boil his brain inside his skull by vibrating his own synapses.
The Aegis mech stumbled. The massive machine fell to one knee, crashing into the rocks. The Golem Heart in the chest sputtered, the connection between pilot and machine destabilizing.
"Lloyd!" Liam’s voice came over the radio, but it sounded distorted and far away.
The Psychic-Screamer walked closer. He was confident. He knew that big, heavy armor couldn't stop a thought.
"You are weak," the soldier’s voice echoed inside Lloyd’s mind. "Your metal shell protects your body, but your mind is soft. I will melt you from the inside out. I will turn your memories into soup."
The pain was blinding. Lloyd felt blood trickling from his nose. His hands were shaking so bad he couldn't grip the control sticks. He tried to think, to plan, but every thought was shattered by the screaming noise.
He was going to die. He was going to die right here, killed by a headache.
"No," Lloyd gasped.
He needed to disconnect. He needed to stop feeling the pain. But if he disconnected from the neural link, the suit would shut down, and the soldier would just walk up and shoot him.
He needed a pilot who didn't feel pain.
Lloyd gritted his teeth. He focused on the one tool he had that wasn't human.
"Echo!" Lloyd shouted in his mind. "Take the wheel!"
The [Echo of Will] was an algorithm Lloyd had developed for farming. It was a digital copy of his own mind, a ghost in the machine. It didn't have nerves. It didn't have pain receptors. It was pure code.
Lloyd slammed his hand onto the manual override switch.
"Neural Hand-Off: Engaged."
Instantly, the connection to his own nervous system was cut. The pain didn't stop—his head was still throbbing—but he was no longer driving the car. He was just a passenger.
The Echo took control.
The Aegis mech stopped shaking. Its movements became mechanical, precise, and instant. The red eyes of the suit flared bright.
The Psychic-Screamer paused. He felt the mind he was attacking suddenly vanish. It was like trying to strangle a ghost.
"What?" the soldier asked. "Where did his mind go?"
The Aegis mech stood up. It moved faster than Lloyd could have moved it manually. The Echo didn't hesitate. It didn't worry about safety.
The suit lunged forward.
The Psychic-Screamer panicked. He ramped up his attack, screaming a wave of psychic death at the machine.
But a machine doesn't care about psychic attacks. You can't give a computer a headache.
The Aegis mech charged through the invisible waves of mental energy. It closed the distance in two massive strides.
Lloyd, watching from the passenger seat of his own mind, saw the enemy right in front of him. He knew he had to finish this now.
"Void Wood," Lloyd commanded the system.
The left arm of the Aegis mech split open. But instead of a gun or a sword, something organic shot out.
Thick, grey roots erupted from the metal wrist. These were the roots of the Life-Eater, the power Lloyd had stolen from the Devil Beelzebub. They were hungry. They were seeking energy.
The Psychic-Screamer tried to run, but he was too close.
The grey roots lashed out like snakes. They didn't hit his armor; they aimed for the glowing nodes on his suit. They aimed for the connectors at the base of his neck—the neural-link cables that connected the soldier's brain to his amplifier.
CRUNCH.
The roots slammed into the soldier. They wrapped around his neck and his spine.
"Found you," the Echo seemed to say.
The roots tightened. They dug into the connection ports.
The soldier screamed, a real sound this time. "Get off! Get it off!"
Lloyd, watching through the sensors, gave the final order.
"Pull."
The Aegis mech jerked its arm back with the force of a hydraulic press.
RIP.
There was a sickening sound of tearing metal and wet snapping. The Void Wood roots didn't just break the suit; they ripped the neural-link cables directly out of the soldier's spine.
The purple light on the soldier's suit died instantly. The psychic scream cut off mid-note.
The soldier collapsed. He fell to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. He wasn't dead, but he was done. His connection to his power, and likely his ability to walk, was gone forever.
The battlefield went quiet again. The headache in Lloyd’s skull began to fade to a dull throb.
"Control returned to user," the computer announced.
Lloyd slumped back in his seat, breathing hard. He wiped the blood from his nose. "Thanks, Echo. Good job."
He looked out the viewport. The ridge was a mess of pink flower petals and broken bodies. The Demolitionist was down. The Psychic was down. The rest were dust.
Chapter : 2106
Lloyd turned his mech around.
On the edge of the cliff, King Liam was waiting. The King looked perfectly calm, leaning against a rock as if he was waiting for a bus.
"You okay, kid?" Liam asked over the radio.
"My head feels like a drum," Lloyd groaned. "But I'm alive."
"Good," Liam said. He pointed toward the center of the ridge.
There was one person left.
Date: Year 2513, Month of Sun, Day 18 – 06:49 AM
Location: The Ridge
The dust on the ridge was finally settling, but the air felt heavier than before. King Liam stood near the edge of the cliff, looking calm and relaxed, as if he were just taking a morning break rather than fighting a war for the planet. A few hundred yards away, Lloyd Ferrum sat in the cockpit of his massive Aegis mech, the metal cooling down after the intense battle against the sniper.
They had won the skirmish. The elite Fire Fly squad was gone. The sniper, the tank, the speedster—all of them had been dismantled. Only one enemy remained: Commander Marcus.
But Liam wasn’t looking at Marcus. He was looking at a small, blinking light on his wrist-mounted computer. He frowned, tapping the screen with a greasy finger.
"Lloyd," Liam said over the radio channel. His voice was casual, but there was a sharp edge to it. "We have a problem."
Inside his mech, Lloyd straightened up. "What is it? Did I miss someone?"
"No, you cleaned house perfectly," Liam said. "The problem isn't here. It's back at your place. My sensors are picking up a massive energy spike from the estate ruins. It’s Lucifer’s cyborg."
Lloyd’s heart skipped a beat. "The PRIDE unit? I thought we broke it. It was glitching out."
"It was," Liam agreed. "But it’s rebooting. And it’s angry. The energy readings are climbing fast. It looks like it’s trying to override its own safety protocols. Rosa and Eun-ha are good, Lloyd, but they’re exhausted. If that machine goes critical, they might not be able to hold it back."
Lloyd looked toward the distant smoke rising from the Ferrum Estate. He felt a pull in his chest, the urge to be there, to protect his family. But he hesitated. He looked across the ridge at Commander Marcus, who was standing alone, surrounded by the wreckage of his team.
"I can't leave you here alone with the Commander," Lloyd said. "He’s the leader. He’s bound to have a trump card."
Liam laughed. It was a dry, confident sound. "Kid, look at me. Do I look worried? I’m the Joker. Dealing with bad bosses is my specialty."
Liam waved a hand dismissively. "Go. Your wives need you. If that cyborg explodes, there won't be an estate left to go back to. I’ll handle the corporate stooge. I’ll wrap this up in five minutes and meet you for breakfast."
Lloyd looked at Liam, then at the distant estate, and finally at Marcus. He knew Liam was right. The threat at home was immediate and personal. And he knew, perhaps better than anyone, that James Khan—King Liam—was not a man who made promises he couldn't keep.
"Alright," Lloyd said. "Don't play with your food, James."
"No promises," Liam replied.
Lloyd revved the engines of the Aegis Mark IV-Beta. The black machine turned, its heavy footsteps shaking the ground. With a roar of thrusters, Lloyd launched himself off the ridge, flying back toward the estate, leaving the King alone with the enemy.
On the far side of the ridge, Commander Marcus watched the black mech fly away. He didn't shoot. He didn't try to stop it. He just stood there, his fists clenched at his sides.
He was alone.
His elite squad, the Praetorians, were gone. They had been the best soldiers money could buy, equipped with technology that could conquer galaxies. And they had been beaten by two men. One was a native in a home-made robot, and the other was a mechanic in a jumpsuit.
It was humiliating. It was unacceptable.
Marcus looked at King Liam. The King was standing there with his hands in his pockets, looking bored. That look of boredom broke something inside Marcus. It snapped the last thread of his professional control.
"You think this is funny?" Marcus whispered. His voice was low, trembling with a cold, metallic rage. "You sent one of the strong weapons away because you think I’m not a threat? You think you can dismiss me?"
Liam looked over, raising an eyebrow. "I didn't say you weren't a threat, Marcus. I just said you were the trash. Someone has to take out the trash."
That was it. The insult hit Marcus like a physical slap. His face twisted. The veins in his neck bulged. He was a Commander of the Fire Fly Corporation. He had destroyed civilizations. He had burned worlds. He would not be treated like a nuisance.
"I am going to end you," Marcus said. "I am going to erase you from history."