Chapter : 1869

  It wasn't an explosion of fire or rock. It was an eruption of something grey and ancient. Thick, gnarled roots burst from the solid stone floor. They shot upward with violence, moving faster than the eye could follow. They twisted and wove together, interlocking instantly to form a massive, solid wall of timber.

  The orange wave of "Rust Blood" slammed into the grey wall.

  HISS-CRACK!

  The rust tried to eat the wood. It clawed at the bark, turning the outer layer of the roots into orange sludge. But the wall held.

  Behind the wall, Ben looked up. He wasn't dead. He wasn't rotting. He was sitting in the shadow of a grey forest that had appeared out of nowhere.

  Standing in the center of the room, atop the wall of wood, was Lloyd Ferrum.

  Lloyd looked calm, his black coat whipping around his legs from the force of the magical wind. His hands were buried deep into the cracks of the stone floor, glowing with a pulsing grey light.

  "About time, General," Ben croaked, his voice full of prideful irritation. "I was starting to think you got lost in the hallway."

  "I was busy deconstructing the spatial anchor," Lloyd replied, his voice amplified by his helmet. He didn't look back at Ben. "You really need to study your chemistry tables, Ben. You’re fighting entropy with mass. It’s an inefficient trade."

  Ben scowled, wiping blood from his lip. "I know what oxidation is, Lloyd. I just happen to be fresh out of lumber."

  "Excuses," Lloyd retorted, gritting his teeth as he pushed more mana into the roots. "Rust is a chemical reaction that targets metals. Electron transfer. But this?"

  Lloyd nodded at the massive grey wall.

  "This is Void Wood. Organic carbon and cellulose, reinforced by the concept of hunger. Rust can't eat wood, Ben. It’s the wrong chemical reaction. It’s like trying to drown a fish."

  On the other side of the wall, the rust cloud was raging. It swirled and churned, furious that it was being blocked. It ate away inches of the wood, turning it to dust, but for every inch that rotted, Lloyd grew two more inches to replace it. The Void Wood was not just a shield; it was a sponge. The "Life-Eater" protocol began to activate. The grey timber didn't just block the attack; it began to drink the kinetic energy of the rust. The orange glow of Rubel’s spell started to dim.

  Lloyd pulled his hands from the ground and stood up. He dusted off his palms.

  "The reaction is neutralizing," Lloyd stated. "The rust is running out of fuel. It’s over."

  Ben slumped against the wall, his metal heart beating wildly. He looked at Lloyd, annoyance warring with relief. "Took you long enough. I had him on the ropes."

  "You were on the floor," Lloyd corrected dryly. "Are you alive?"

  "I’m functional," Ben snapped, looking at his locked limbs. "But my mana is gone. Sloth is dormant. I'm a paperweight for the next ten minutes."

  "Sit tight," Lloyd ordered, his blue eyes shifting toward the wall. "I have a pest to catch."

  The cloud of orange rust finally dissipated, leaving behind a thick layer of brown dust that covered the entire Sanctum. Rubel stood on the other side, panting heavily. He peered through the settling dust, a twisted smile on his face.

  "They must be dead," Rubel wheezed. "Nothing survives that. Even the air was rotting. They are dust now."

  He took a stumbling step forward. "I win. The Ferrum line is mine. Beelzebub will reward—"

  "You're looking in the wrong direction, Uncle," a cold voice said from the dust.

  Rubel froze. Before he could react, the floor beneath him exploded.

  SNAP.

  Dozens of grey vines erupted from the stone. They coiled like pythons, wrapping around Rubel’s ankles, knees, and waist.

  "What?!" Rubel screamed, trying to ignite his black fire.

  Nothing happened. The grey wood wasn't just holding him; it was dampening him. It was sucking the heat out of his body before he could turn it into magic.

  Lloyd hopped down from the wall. He walked slowly toward the trapped traitor.

  "You are confused about the nature of power, Rubel," Lloyd said calmly. "You think power is about being loud. But real power? Real power is efficiency."

  Lloyd stopped a few feet away. The grey vines pulsed with a dull light. "I can't let you keep that stolen mana, Uncle. It’s a waste of a good resource."

  Lloyd’s eyes flashed with blue light. He sent a mental command to the Void Wood. Feed.

  Chapter : 1870

  The vines tightened. The thorns dug deeper. Rubel opened his mouth to scream, but the sound was cut off as the energy was ripped from his body. The grey wood began to glow, turning from dull ash to a vibrant, pulsing black. The transfer had begun.

  The traitor was no longer a threat; he was just a battery waiting to be drained. Lloyd watched the process with the detached interest of an engineer monitoring a power transfer. He ignored the traitor's muffled whimpers, his mind already focusing on the next step: distilling this stolen power into something Ben could actually use to stand back up.

  "You're a monster," Rubel whispered, trembling as his strength left him. "You're worse than the demons."

  "I am an engineer," Lloyd corrected, his voice a flat monotone. "And I hate waste."

  Rubel hung there, a helpless husk, while the Void Wood hummed with the stolen divinity of the Abyss. The harvest was in progress.

  The atmosphere inside the Inner Sanctum had shifted from a chaotic battlefield to a cold, calculated execution chamber. The dust from the collapsed ceiling still hung in the air, creating a hazy, suffocating twilight, but the noise of battle had ceased. The only sound remaining was a wet, rhythmic pulsing, like the heartbeat of a massive creature waking up from a long hibernation.

  Viscount Rubel, the traitor of the Ferrum household, hung suspended in the air. He was not flying; he was being held aloft by the grey, gnarled roots of the Void Wood. The roots were wrapped tightly around his ankles, knees, waist, and chest, digging into the chinks of his black Abyssal armor.

  Rubel struggled, but his movements were weak and uncoordinated. He realized—too late—that these roots were not merely restraining him. They were eating him.

  A sickening sensation washed over the traitor. It felt as though the floor had dropped out from under his stomach. It wasn't the pull of gravity; it was the terrifying feeling of his own essence being siphoned away. The magnificent, dark energy he had traded his soul for, the strength that made him feel like a god among men, was flowing out of his body. It traveled through his skin, into the grey wood, and down into the cold stone floor where Lloyd Ferrum stood.

  "Stop it!" Rubel shrieked. His voice, which had previously boomed with demonic resonance, was now thin and reedy. It sounded like a man drowning in freezing water. "That power... that power belongs to Beelzebub! It is divine energy! You cannot take it! It will kill you!"

  Lloyd Ferrum did not look worried. He stood at the base of the grey wall of wood, one hand resting casually on a thick root. He looked like an engineer checking the pressure gauge on a boiler, completely detached from the suffering of the man above him.

  "Possession is nine-tenths of the law, Uncle," Lloyd remarked, his voice dry and cutting through the gloom. "And right now, the law says you are bankrupt. You stole this power from the Abyss to kill your own family. Consider this a tax collection. I’m just balancing the books."

  Lloyd’s eyes glowed with the blue rings of his [All-Seeing Eye]. He watched the flow of energy with mathematical precision. The Void Wood was doing exactly what he had programmed it to do. It was acting as a high-speed biological pump.

  The grey roots began to change color. As they drank the thick, oily mana from Rubel, they turned a deep, bruising black. The wood pulsed with a dark light, contracting and expanding like muscular veins.

  On Rubel’s body, the effects were horrifyingly visible. The "Abyssal Plating"—the insect-like black armor that Beelzebub had gifted him—began to fail. The magic holding the armor together was being sucked away faster than it could regenerate. The black plates turned grey, then white, like dead ash. They cracked with loud, snapping sounds and flaked away, drifting to the floor like snow.

  "My armor!" Rubel wailed, clawing feebly at his disintegrating chest plate. He watched in horror as his bare, pale skin was exposed to the cold air. "My strength! Give it back! You are stealing my divinity!"

  "No refunds," Lloyd said simply.

  Lloyd closed his eyes and focused. The extraction was only the first step. The energy coming from Rubel was toxic. It was a mix of the stolen Ferrum bloodline power (Gold) and the corrupting madness of the Gluttony Prince (Black). If Lloyd simply absorbed it, he would go insane, just like Rubel.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  He needed to filter it.

  Chapter : 1871

  "System," Lloyd commanded internally. "Engage filtration protocol. Separate the noise from the signal. Compress the raw mana into a physical vessel."

  The grey roots carried the energy down to the floor and then up through the soles of Lloyd’s boots. It traveled through his body, not as fuel, but as raw material. Lloyd acted as the conductor. He directed the torrent of power down his right arm, forcing it into the palm of his hand.

  He activated his Void Power. A small, spinning sphere of grey gravity appeared in his palm. This was the mold.

  He poured the siphoned energy into the sphere.

  The process was violent. The air around Lloyd’s hand distorted, rippling with heat and static electricity. Sparks of gold and black lightning arced from his fingers, striking the stone floor and leaving scorched marks. The sheer density of the mana was enough to crush a normal human's hand, but Lloyd’s Aegis Suit reinforced his bones, and his will held the energy in place.

  He compressed the energy. He squeezed it down, forcing the chaotic waves of magic to stabilize. He stripped away the madness, the hunger, and the personality of Rubel, leaving only the raw, potent fuel.

  Slowly, a shape began to form in his hand.

  It started as a swirling ball of liquid light, but as the pressure increased, it solidified. The light hardened into matter. The abstract energy became a physical object.

  When Lloyd finally opened his hand, the siphoning stopped. The roots holding Rubel went dormant, leaving the traitor hanging limply in his cage, gasping for air, stripped of everything that made him dangerous.

  In the palm of Lloyd’s hand sat a fruit.

  It was roughly the size of a pomegranate, but it felt as heavy as a cannonball. The skin of the fruit was a masterpiece of accidental alchemy. It was a deep, glossy black, like polished obsidian, but beneath the dark surface, veins of brilliant, molten gold pulsed rhythmically. It looked like a golden star trapped inside a shell of darkness.

  The fruit hummed. It emitted a low, dangerous vibration that made Lloyd’s teeth ache. It was warm to the touch, radiating a heat that the sensors in his gloves registered as critical.

  Lloyd lifted the fruit to his face, inspecting it with his analytical gaze. The data stream scrolled rapidly across his internal visor.

  [Item Analysis Complete]

  [Name: Condensed Spirit Fruit (Grade: Calamity)]

  [Composition: 40% Sovereign Ferrum Essence, 60% Refined Abyssal Mana.]

  [Effect 1: Immediate restoration of all Mana and Stamina reserves.]

  [Effect 2: Forces a 'Limit Break' on the consumer’s Spirit Core. Highly volatile.]

  [Warning: Consumption by un-attuned entities may cause the subject to explode.]

  "A volatile battery for a desperate situation," Lloyd muttered to himself. "Perfect."

  He turned away from the sobbing, broken form of Rubel. The traitor was no longer his concern; Rubel was just an empty husk now. Lloyd’s attention shifted to the other side of the room, where the real cost of the battle lay.

  Ben, the Ironwood Sovereign, was on the floor.

  The scene was grim, but Ben was not weeping or begging for help. He lay curled on his side, his body wracked with tremors, but his single eye was fixed on his own ruined limbs with a look of hateful, analytical fury.

  The "Rust Blood" attack had done terrible work. Ben’s prosthetic limbs—the mechanical arms and legs he forged through his own mastery of Steel Blood—were locked solid. The magic that powered them had been eaten by the rust. The metal was pitted, dull, and immovable.

  Lloyd walked over to him, the heavy metallic boots of his Aegis suit crunching on the debris. He knelt beside his rival.

  Ben’s face was grey, coated in a layer of sweat and grime. Dark veins were spreading up his neck—the sign that the rust curse was starting to attack the iron in his own blood. His organs were shutting down. He looked like a tank that had been left to rot in the rain for a century.

  Ben sensed Lloyd’s approach and dragged his gaze upward. There was no gratitude in his expression, only a sharp, wounded pride.

  "Stop staring, General," Ben rasped, his voice a wet rattle of gravel and phlegm. "I'm running a diagnostic. The oxidation rate... it’s faster than my density shift. My Sloth spirit is stalled. I can't freeze the reaction."

  "Your engine is flooded, Ben," Lloyd said softly, his voice devoid of pity, speaking soldier to soldier. "Your organs are shutting down. You're dying."

  Chapter : 1872

  "I know," Ben snapped, coughing up a speck of bloody foam. "I can calculate my own mortality rate, thank you. Just... give me a hand up. If I’m going to die, I’m going to do it standing, not curled up like a rusted hinge."

  "You're not done yet, Lord Ironwood," Lloyd said, his voice firm. "We still have to walk out of here. And I am not carrying your heavy ass."

  "I don't think... I have a choice," Ben murmured, his eye flickering as his consciousness wavered. "My core is empty. I can't... I can't force the steel to move."

  "Don't you dare give me a tragic final speech," Lloyd snapped. The sarcasm was gone, replaced by the intensity of a commander refusing to lose a valuable asset. "You are the Ironwood Sovereign. You don't rust. You forge. You survived Earth. You survived the trenches. You aren't dying in a basement."

  Lloyd held up the glowing, black-and-gold fruit. The light from the object illuminated Ben’s pale, furious face.

  "Listen to me, Ben," Lloyd said. "Rubel stole the potential of our family. He stole the power that should have protected the North. I took it back. But I can't use it. My core is Void; this is Spirit. If I eat this, it will just dissolve."

  Lloyd pressed the warm fruit against Ben’s cold, rusted metal hand.

  "But you," Lloyd continued. "You possess Sloth. Your spirit controls Stasis and Density. This fruit is pure Sovereign-grade fuel. If you eat this, you won't just heal. You’ll have enough density to crush this entire mountain."

  Ben’s fingers twitched. He felt the heat radiating from the fruit. It scared him. It felt dangerous. It felt like holding a live grenade. But more than that, it felt like power.

  "It feels... volatile," Ben whispered, his analytical mind assessing the risk. "Unstable isotope."

  "It is," Lloyd agreed. "It’s the anger of a betrayed family condensed into mana. It’s a bomb, Ben. And I need you to be the casing."

  Ben looked at Lloyd. He didn't see a savior. He saw a rival offering him a weapon. Lloyd wasn't offering him magic out of charity; he was offering him a tactical solution because Lloyd needed a heavy hitter. That, Ben could respect.

  "Give it here," Ben growled, forcing his frozen fingers to close around the fruit. "If I explode, I'm taking you with me for suggesting this."

  "Deal," Lloyd said. "Eat it. Finish what your father started at the forge. Don't let a traitor like Rubel have the last word. Take his power and make it yours."

  Ben looked at the fruit. He thought about his father. He thought about the forge. He thought about the humiliation of lying on the floor while Lloyd cleaned up his mess.

  He forced his rusted metal hand to his mouth, the joints screaming in protest.

  "Trust the chef," Lloyd whispered.

  "The chef is a lunatic," Ben muttered.

  He opened his mouth and took a bite.

  The moment Ben’s teeth broke the skin of the Spirit Fruit, the reality inside the Inner Sanctum shifted violently.

  It wasn't merely a flavor that hit his tongue; it was a sensory overload that bypassed his taste buds and struck directly at his central nervous system. It tasted like raw, concentrated ozone—like licking a high-voltage cable wrapped in honey and dipped in liquid gravity. A thick, burning fluid flooded Ben’s mouth, sliding down his throat not like food, but like molten lead pouring into a mold.

  Ben’s body reacted instantly to the intrusion of such volatile power. His back arched violently off the cold stone floor, lifting his heavy, rusted armor into the air as if he were being pulled by invisible strings. His single remaining eye rolled back into his head, showing only the white, as his brain struggled to process the sudden influx of Sovereign-grade mana.

  A guttural, animalistic scream tore from his throat. It wasn't a scream of fear, but of profound, cellular reconstruction.

  BOOM.

  A shockwave of heavy, grey energy blasted outward from Ben’s core. It was a physical force, kicking up the dust on the floor in a perfect, expanding ring. Lloyd Ferrum, standing ten feet away, had to brace himself, his Aegis suit servos locking down to keep him upright against the sudden gravitational pressure.

  Inside Ben’s dying body, a microscopic war was being waged.