Chapter : 1873

  The "Rust Blood" curse, which had been systematically oxidizing the iron in his blood and shutting down his organs, suddenly found itself facing a tsunami of raw, purified power. The Abyssal mana from the fruit acted like a universal solvent for the corruption. It didn't just heal the damaged cells; it halted the entropy.

  The dark, creeping veins of rust on Ben’s neck halted, then receded as his own mana density spiked. The oxidation in his blood was reversed in a fraction of a second. His heart, which had been fluttering with the weak, irregular rhythm of a dying bird, stopped for a terrifying microsecond—and then restarted.

  Thump-THUMP.

  The beat was heavy, slow, and powerful. It echoed against the inside of his breastplate like a sledgehammer hitting an anvil.

  But the physical healing was only the side effect. The true transformation was happening to his spirit.

  Ben’s "Sloth" spirit had always been a conceptual tool—a way to freeze time or increase weight. It was a spirit of stillness. Now, however, that spirit was being force-fed the distilled essence of a Ferrum Sovereign and the raw, chaotic power of a Gluttony Prince.

  The grey void in the center of Ben’s soul turned white. Then, under the crushing pressure of the extra mana, it collapsed into a dense, blinding gold.

  "Arghhhhh!" Ben roared, the sound vibrating with a new, metallic timbre.

  He scrambled to his knees, his movements jerky and filled with manic energy. He looked down at his hands—his prosthetic, dead hands.

  The "dead" metal was vibrating.

  The rust that covered his mechanical limbs didn't flake off; it changed. The alchemy of the fruit was rewriting the atomic structure of the steel. The dull, pitted grey of the rusted iron began to shimmer. A golden sheen spread across the surface, moving like liquid mercury, consuming the decay and replacing it with divine alloy.

  Lloyd watched with his [All-Seeing Eye], his internal sensors recording data that defied standard magical theory.

  "Fascinating," Lloyd whispered, his voice barely audible over the roaring energy. "He isn't just repairing the steel. He is increasing its molecular density. He is using the Steel Blood art instinctively to fuse the prosthetic limbs with the Sovereign mana."

  The gears inside Ben’s elbows and knees, which had been fused shut by the rust, were forced open by the sheer hydraulic pressure of his new mana. They spun wildly, shedding sparks and smoke, grinding against each other until the heat reshaped them into smoother, more efficient forms.

  Whirrrr-CLICK. Hiss...

  Steam erupted from the joints as the "Ironwood Awakening" reached its critical mass. Ben’s armor, the battered plate he had worn since the start of the war, began to glow. The dents popped out with loud clangs. The metal seemed to soften, flowing over his shoulders and chest like living skin before hardening again into a sleeker, more aggressive shape.

  Ben stood up.

  He didn't struggle. He didn't stumble. He rose with the smooth, terrifying grace of a hydraulic press extending to its full height.

  The transformation was complete. The man who stood before Lloyd was no longer the crippled knight who fought with scrap metal. He was something new. Something evolved.

  He stood nearly seven feet tall in his reformed armor. His prosthetic limbs were fused seamlessly with his flesh, glowing with a constant, low-level golden fire that pulsed in time with his heartbeat. His single eye burned with a fierce, lion-like intensity, leaving a trail of golden light in the air whenever he turned his head.

  The aura radiating from him was heavy. It felt like standing next to a black hole. The air around him shimmered and distorted, bending under the immense gravitational field he was generating.

  Lloyd checked his suit’s sensors. The local gravity around Ben had increased by 1.5 Gs.

  "Well," Lloyd said, a satisfied smirk hidden behind his visor. "That worked better than expected. I was 60% sure you might implode. How do you feel, Rook?"

  Ben looked at his hands. He flexed his new, golden fingers. He clenched his fist, and the air inside his palm cracked with a sonic boom, displacing the dust around him. He took a deep breath, and his chest expanded without pain, the air rushing into lungs that felt strong enough to inhale a storm.

  "I feel..." Ben’s voice was different. It was deeper, resonant, vibrating with the hum of a high-voltage transformer. It sounded like a lion roaring inside a steel drum. "I feel heavy. I feel... absolute."

  He turned his gaze slowly toward Rubel.

  Chapter : 1874

  The traitor was still hanging in the grey vines, but he was no longer struggling. Rubel was staring at Ben with wide, terrified eyes. He had watched the entire transformation from his cage. He had seen the dying cripple eat his stolen power and turn into a monster.

  "Impossible," Rubel breathed, his voice trembling so hard his teeth chattered. "That power... it was mine. Beelzebub gave it to me! It is Abyssal divinity! How can a human hold it? You should have been crushed!"

  Ben took a step forward.

  CRUNCH.

  The stone floor beneath his boot pulverized into fine powder, unable to withstand his density.

  "It was never yours, Uncle," Ben said.

  He began to walk toward the cage. His movements were slow, inevitable, and terrifying. He moved like a landslide in slow motion.

  "You stole it," Ben continued, his voice echoing off the walls. "You borrowed it from a demon because you were too weak to forge your own. You thought power was something you could put on like a coat. But power isn't a gift, Rubel. Power is weight. And you were never strong enough to carry it."

  Ben stopped right in front of the hanging traitor. The gravitational pressure radiating from Ben was so intense that Rubel’s pale skin began to pull tight against his bones. The traitor shrank back against the vines, trying to put distance between himself and the living singularity.

  "Stay back!" Rubel shrieked, his composure shattering completely. "I am a Ferrum! I am your blood! You cannot kill family!"

  "No," Ben said. The single word carried the weight of a judge’s gavel. "You are just slag. Impurities in the metal. And slag gets removed from the forge."

  Ben raised his right hand. The golden metal of his arm hummed, the mana concentrating in his fist. He didn't summon a weapon. He didn't need a lance or a sword anymore. He was the weapon. The air around his knuckles warped, forming a swirling vortex of distorted light.

  "Lloyd," Ben said, his eyes never leaving Rubel’s terrified face. "Nice assist. But stay out of the splash zone. I'm about to make a mess."

  "Noted," Lloyd replied, stepping back to the edge of the room to give his friend space. He crossed his arms, watching the finale with the pride of a rival who knew exactly what was coming. "Just make sure you clean your plate, Ben. We have company coming soon, and I don't want any leftovers."

  Ben nodded. He pulled his fist back. The sound of his spirit charging up was deafening, a high-pitched whine of infinite potential energy waiting to be released.

  "It’s time to end this, Rubel," Ben declared, the golden light of his fist illuminating every corner of the dark sanctum. "No more tricks. No more shadows. No more hiding behind demons."

  Rubel opened his mouth to beg, to scream, to offer a deal, but the look in Ben’s eye stopped him. There was no mercy there. There was only the cold, hard certainty of iron.

  The Golden Demon of Steel prepared to strike.

  The air inside the Inner Sanctum was no longer cold and damp. It had become a gravity well, heavy and suffocating, distorted by the golden aura radiating from a single man.

  Ben, the Ironwood Knight, stood in the center of the room. He did not look like the battered, exhausted soldier who had dragged himself into the dungeon only an hour ago. He didn't even look like a human anymore. The "Gold-and-Black Spirit Fruit"—a concentrated battery of stolen Sovereign power—had rewritten his biology. His prosthetic limbs, once made of cold steel, were now fused seamlessly with his flesh. They glowed with a blinding, molten light, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. He was a living engine of war, and his engine was revving high.

  Opposite him, Viscount Rubel scrambled backward. The traitor’s back hit the cold stone wall, but there was nowhere left to run. Rubel looked at his nephew with eyes wide with primal terror. He had seen power before. He had bargained with devils and seen the might of the Abyss. But this was different. This was personal. This was the terrifying competence of a Ferrum warrior who had stopped holding back.

  Rubel tried to summon his magic. He raised a trembling, clawed hand, attempting to call upon the "Rust Blood" art that had nearly killed Ben earlier.

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  "Rot!" Rubel screamed, his voice cracking. "Turn to dust! Why won't you rust?!"

  A weak cloud of orange gas sputtered from his fingertips. It drifted toward Ben, pathetic and slow.

  Chapter : 1875

  Ben didn't dodge. He didn't raise a shield. He simply walked forward. As the orange rust cloud touched his golden armor, it didn't hiss or burn. It simply stopped. It hit the aura of Absolute Stasis surrounding Ben and froze in place, suspending the chemical reaction of oxidation before it could even begin. The rust fell to the floor as harmless orange powder.

  "Your tricks rely on chemistry, Uncle," Ben said. His voice was deep and resonant, sounding like heavy machinery vibrating underground. "You rely on time to decay things. But I control time. I control density. My steel is too dense for your rot to penetrate. It is absolute."

  Rubel scrambled to his feet, panic taking over his mind completely. He looked around the room for a weapon, a shield, anything. He grabbed a heavy iron bar that had fallen from the ceiling debris. He swung it wildly at Ben’s head.

  Clang.

  Ben caught the iron bar with one hand. He didn't even flinch. His golden fingers wrapped around the metal. With a simple squeeze, he activated his Steel Blood. He didn't melt it; he compressed it. The solid iron bar crunched like tinfoil, folding in on itself until it was a dense, heavy ball of scrap metal in Ben’s palm.

  Rubel stared at the crushed metal, his mouth open in horror.

  "You... you monster," Rubel whispered. "You mastered the Steel Blood? Without the Codex? How?"

  "I didn't need a book," Ben replied, dropping the scrap metal with a heavy thud. "I had rage. And I had a lot of broken metal to practice on. You broke me, Rubel. You rusted me. And then you gave me the fuel to rebuild. In a way, I should thank you. Without your betrayal, I would never have found this strength."

  Ben took another step. The stone floor beneath his boot pulverized, unable to support his increased mass.

  "Stay back!" Rubel shrieked. He turned and tried to run toward the side of the room, hoping to find a crack in the wall, a shadow to hide in, anything to escape the golden demon walking toward him.

  Ben didn't run. He didn't need to chase. He simply raised his right hand, palm open, fingers spread wide. The mana in the room obeyed him instantly. The metal debris scattered across the floor—the broken bars, the shattered armor of the Shadow Knights, the remnants of the throne—began to shake.

  "Ironwood Art," Ben commanded, his voice booming. "Absolute Cage."

  The metal debris flew into the air. It wasn't a chaotic storm; it was a guided missile system. Dozens of sharp, twisted metal shards flew toward Rubel. They didn't strike him; they slammed into the ground and walls around him.

  Clang-clang-clang-clang!

  In less than a second, the metal fused together. It formed a tight, intricate cage around the traitor. The bars were thick and glowing with Ben’s golden mana. There was no door. There was no gap wider than a finger. Rubel was boxed in, trapped like a rat in a trap made of his own failures.

  Rubel grabbed the bars, trying to shake them, but pulled his hands back instantly. The metal was immovably dense.

  "Let me out!" Rubel yelled, slamming his shoulder against the cage. "You can't do this! I am a Ferrum! I have rights! I am a noble of the Kingdom!"

  Ben walked up to the cage. He stopped inches from the bars. The gravitational pressure coming off him made it hard for Rubel to breathe.

  "You surrendered your rights," Ben said, his tone flat and cold. "You gave up your name when you sold Mina to the killers in the first timeline. You gave up your rank when you led the devils to our doorstep. You aren't a noble, Rubel. You aren't even a human. You are just a variable that needs to be deleted."

  Rubel fell to his knees inside the cage. Tears of fear and rage streamed down his pale face. "Please," he begged, his voice dropping to a whimper. "We are blood. You can't kill your own blood. Lloyd! Tell him! Tell him to stop! You're the sensible one!"

  Rubel looked past Ben, trying to find Lloyd Ferrum. He hoped the engineer would be more logical, more merciful.

  Lloyd was standing by the far wall, leaning against a pillar, checking the charge on his Nova Cannon. He looked up when he heard his name. His face was bored, his expression unreadable behind his visor.

  Chapter : 1876

  "Don't look at me," Lloyd said, shrugging his shoulders. "I'm just the technician. I fix the pipes. He is the wrecking ball. You'll have to take it up with management."

  Rubel looked back at Ben. He saw no mercy in the knight’s single glowing eye. He only saw judgment.

  "This ends now," Ben said.

  He pulled his right fist back. The air in the room began to scream. It was the sound of air pressure dropping rapidly as Ben concentrated all his mana into a single point. His fist began to glow brighter and brighter, turning from gold to a blinding white. The stone ceiling above them began to crack from the sheer vibration of power.

  Rubel curled into a ball, covering his head with his hands. "No! No! I don't want to die!"

  "This is for my father," Ben shouted, his voice shaking the foundations of the Sanctum. "And this is for the family you sold!"

  Ben punched.

  It wasn't a fancy technique. It wasn't a magic spell. It was a brute-force physical strike backed by the weight of a Sovereign spirit.

  CRASH.

  Ben’s fist didn't just break the cage; it pulverized the bars. The metal disintegrated into golden dust. His fist continued forward, unchecked, and connected squarely with Rubel’s chest.

  There was no blood. The impact was too heavy for bleeding. The force of the punch sent a shockwave through Rubel’s body that liquefied his internal organs instantly. The traitor’s Abyssal armor shattered like glass.

  BOOM!

  A cone of golden light blasted out from Rubel’s back, punching a massive, ten-foot hole through the thick stone wall of the Inner Sanctum. The force of the blow cleared the dust from the room instantly.

  Rubel didn't scream. He didn't have time. His eyes went blank. His spirit core, the source of his stolen magic, shattered into a million pieces. His body went limp, collapsing against the back of the broken cage.

  The traitor was dead. His existence had been negated by the very bloodline he tried to destroy.

  Ben stood there for a long moment, his fist glowing. He took a deep, ragged breath. The blinding light around his body began to fade, dimming from white back to gold, and then to a dull, cooling grey. The gravity in the room normalized.

  He lowered his hand. He looked at the body of his uncle. He didn't feel happy. He didn't feel joy. He just felt heavy, as if a weight he had been carrying for years had finally been dropped.

  "It is done," Ben whispered to the silent room. "Target eliminated."

  Lloyd pushed himself off the pillar and walked over. The metal boots of his Aegis suit crunched on the debris. He stopped beside Ben and looked at the body.

  "Good work, Rook," Lloyd said quietly. He reached out and patted Ben’s armored shoulder. "That was a solid hit. You hit him so hard his ancestors probably felt it. The system is clean."

  Ben turned to look at Lloyd. He looked exhausted. The temporary boost from the fruit was fading, leaving his muscles aching and his mind drained.

  "I feel... empty," Ben admitted. "But it's a good kind of empty. Like a job finished."

  "That's called peace," Lloyd said. "Savor it. It’s rare in our line of work."

  Lloyd looked around the ruined sanctum. "We need to loot the room and get out. Rubel might have some intel on his computer, or maybe a stash of stolen items. And we need to find an exit before the structural integrity of this place fails completely."

  Ben nodded, taking a step back. "Right. Let’s go home. I need a drink. And a mechanic."

  But the universe, it seemed, had other plans.

  The moment of victory lasted exactly ten seconds.

  Just as Lloyd turned to scan the room for loot, a sound cut through the silence. It wasn't a physical alarm. It wasn't a bell or a shout. It was a spiritual scream.

  WREEEEEEEEEEEEE!

  It sounded like a high-pitched violin string being tightened until it snapped, but it echoed inside their skulls, not their ears. Lloyd grabbed his helmet, wincing as the sound drilled into his brain. Ben fell to one knee, clutching his head.

  "What is that?" Ben yelled over the psychic noise. "It feels like a drill!"

  "A signal," Lloyd shouted back, his eyes widening as he looked at his HUD. Red warning lights were flashing across his vision. [Warning: Massive Mana Spike Detected. Warning: Dimensional Breach Imminent.]