Chapter : 1877

  "Rubel was a marked asset!" Lloyd realized, his voice tight with urgency. "He wasn't just working for Beelzebub; he was an investment. When we killed him, we triggered a failsafe. We just rang the dinner bell!"

  Before they could move toward the exit, the atmosphere in the room changed violently.

  The temperature, which had been cooling down, suddenly spiked again. But this wasn't the clean, heavy gravity of Ben’s power. It was a wet, suffocating heat mixed with the clink of infinite coins. It felt like stepping into the mouth of a giant beast that was also a bank vault. The air became thick and humid, smelling of rotting meat, old sugar, and sulfur.

  Drip. Drip.

  Lloyd looked up. The stone ceiling of the Inner Sanctum was reacting to the pressure. The solid rock wasn't cracking; it was melting. The grey stone turned a sickly red color and began to drip down like hot wax.

  "The reality of the room is destabilizing," Lloyd said, stepping back as a glob of molten stone splashed where he had been standing. "Ben, get up! We need to move!"

  But it was too late.

  The ceiling above the center of the room tore open. It didn't break; it ripped like wet paper. A jagged wound of pure, swirling darkness appeared in the air.

  Through the tear, something massive descended.

  It landed with a wet, heavy thud that shook the entire city. The floor of the sanctum cracked and bowed under the weight.

  Beelzebub, the Prince of Gluttony, had arrived.

  He was a monstrosity. He stood over fifteen feet tall, a bloated mountain of pale, scarred muscle and fat. He wore only a ragged loincloth made of dark leather. His stomach was a gaping maw, stitched shut with crude iron staples. His face was hidden behind a veil of buzzing flies, but his eyes... his eyes were yellow, vertical slits that burned with an endless, bottomless hunger.

  Beelzebub straightened up, his head brushing the melting ceiling. He sniffed the air, a sound like a vacuum cleaner.

  "I smell... mana," Beelzebub rumbled. His voice was deep and wet, vibrating in Lloyd’s chest. "I smell my investment. And I smell... thieves."

  But he wasn't alone.

  From the shadows behind Beelzebub, a second figure emerged. This one didn't land with a thud. He floated down, silent and eerie.

  He was thinner, draped in elegant robes made of black silk embroidered with gold thread. Chains of pure gold hung from his wrists and neck, rattling softly as he moved. His face was covered by a mask of polished gold, molded into a permanent, mocking smile.

  Mammon, the Prince of Greed.

  "Oh, look," Mammon whispered. His voice was soft, sounding like coins sliding over velvet. It was terrifyingly pleasant. "The little thieves broke the toy. Rubel is broken. What a waste. I spent so much time grooming him."

  Mammon floated closer, his golden mask reflecting Lloyd’s armored figure. "And they are still here. How bold. Or perhaps... how stupid?"

  Lloyd and Ben stood frozen. The pressure in the room was crushing. It was a physical weight. It felt as if gravity had increased ten times over. Ben’s armor groaned under the strain. Lloyd’s Aegis suit was screaming warnings, its power levels dropping just by being in the presence of two Demon Kings.

  "Two of them?" Ben whispered, his voice trembling but his grip on his lance tightening. He forced himself to stand, his prosthetic legs whining. "Lloyd, the odds just dropped to zero. We barely survived Rubel. We can't fight two Princes."

  "The math is terrible," Lloyd agreed, forcing himself to stand tall despite his knees wanting to buckle. "We are looking at a catastrophic failure probability. But look on the bright side."

  "There's a bright side?" Ben asked, looking at the drooling maw of Beelzebub with disgust.

  "At least we got the VIP treatment," Lloyd deadpanned. "Most people die to a grunt. We got the CEOs to come down personally to fire us."

  Beelzebub took a step forward. The stone floor turned to sludge under his foot.

  "I am hungry," the Gluttony Prince groaned. "I haven't eaten a Sovereign in... minutes. That one..." He pointed a thick, pale finger at Ben. "He tastes like heavy metal. He tastes like my stolen power. I want him. I want to crack him open and eat the soft parts."

  Chapter : 1878

  Mammon drifted to the side, circling them like a shark. "No, brother. You always think with your stomach. Look at the other one." Mammon pointed at Lloyd. "The one in the black shell. His soul is... shiny. It has strange data. It has secrets from another world. That has value. I want to put him in a jar and study him."

  Lloyd’s mind raced. He ran a thousand scenarios in a second. Could they run? No, the exits were melted. Could they fight? They were out of ammo, out of mana, and exhausted. Could they negotiate? You don't negotiate with hunger or greed.

  "Ben," Lloyd said quietly, not taking his eyes off the monsters. "Defensive formation. Pattern Delta."

  Ben blinked, recognizing the code. Pattern Delta was the code for a fighting retreat—a scorched earth withdrawal. "Delta? You want to blow the site? We're still inside it!"

  "Exactly," Lloyd said. "If we're going down, we take the ceiling with us. Be ready to move on my signal."

  "There is nowhere to run," Beelzebub laughed. It was a horrible sound, like rocks tumbling down a hill. "The walls are mine. The floor is mine. You are in my belly already."

  Beelzebub opened his mouth. A buzzing sound began to fill the room. It started low, like a hive of bees, but quickly grew until it sounded like a chainsaw cutting through bone. Thousands of tiny black flies began to crawl out of his throat, gathering in a swarm around his head.

  "They are going to attack," Lloyd realized. The fear was there, cold and sharp in his gut, but he pushed it down. He was an engineer. He solved problems. And even if the problem was a god, he would try to solve it until the very last second.

  He looked at his Nova Cannon. It was recharging, but the bar was barely at 10%. It wasn't enough for a shot. It was barely enough for a flashbulb.

  "Well," Lloyd thought, tightening his grip on the weapon. "This was a good run. I killed a traitor. I ate a magic fruit. I fixed a Queen. Not a bad Tuesday, all things considered."

  But he refused to die on his knees.

  He activated his [All-Seeing Eye], pushing it to the maximum output. His blue eyes glowed fiercely behind his visor. He scanned the room, looking for a structural weakness, a mana vent, anything he could exploit.

  "End of the line, little meat," Beelzebub roared, raising his hand to unleash the swarm.

  Lloyd braced himself. Ben ignited the last spark of gold in his fists, his stance shifting to one of desperate defiance. They stood shoulder to shoulder, two mortal men facing the endless dark of the Abyss, ready to make the devil choke on his meal.

  The atmosphere inside the ruined Inner Sanctum had shifted from a battlefield to an execution chamber. The air was no longer just hot; it was heavy with a terrifying, crushing pressure that made it difficult to draw a breath. The stone ceiling, which had already begun to melt from the sheer presence of the Demon Princes, dripped glowing red sludge onto the floor like wax from a dying candle.

  Lloyd Ferrum stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Ben, the Golden Demon of Steel. They were two mortal men standing before entities that were older than some civilizations. But neither man cowered. They had both died before; death was not a stranger, just an inconvenience.

  On one side stood Beelzebub, the Prince of Gluttony. He was a mountain of pale, scarred flesh that reached the ceiling. His stomach was a gaping maw stitched shut with rusted iron, and his face was hidden behind a veil of buzzing flies. On the other side floated Mammon, the Prince of Greed, draped in black silk and golden chains, his face hidden behind a mask of polished gold that wore an eternal, mocking smile.

  Beelzebub took a step forward. The ground beneath his massive foot turned to liquid mud.

  "I am tired of waiting," the Gluttony Prince rumbled. His voice was deep and wet, vibrating inside Lloyd’s ribcage. "The appetizer was disappointing. Rubel was flavorless. But you... you smell like a main course."

  Beelzebub opened his massive arms. His tattered leather cloak spread wide, blotting out the green torchlight of the sanctum.

  "Rotting Fly Swarm," Beelzebub whispered.

  It didn't begin with an attack. It began with a sound.

  Bzzzzzzzzzt.

  Chapter : 1879

  It started as a low hum, like a single bee trapped in a jar. But within a second, the sound multiplied a billion times over. It became a deafening roar that sounded like a chainsaw cutting through bone. From beneath Beelzebub’s cloak, a black cloud erupted.

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  These were not normal insects. They were magical constructs born from the Abyss's hunger. Each fly was the size of a thumb, with metallic mandibles designed to chew through steel, flesh, and spirit. They didn't just bite; they consumed existence. The swarm moved like a living wave of black water, swirling around Beelzebub before turning its countless eyes toward Lloyd and Ben.

  Lloyd looked at the swarm. His [All-Seeing Eye] scrolled red data across his vision so fast it was a blur.

  [Warning: Biological Threat Level: Catastrophic.]

  [Survival Probability: 0.0001%]

  [Recommended Action: None. Prayer is ineffective.]

  "Lloyd," Ben snarled, his voice vibrating with frustration rather than fear. The Ironwood Sovereign slammed his prosthetic fists together, sparking with the last dregs of his golden mana. "Don't you dare tell me the odds! I can see them! I can't hold a barrier against a million targets, but I can certainly take a few thousand with me!"

  "I see it!" Lloyd yelled back.

  Lloyd’s mind, usually a fortress of cold logic and engineering, finally hit a wall. He ran the calculations. He simulated a hundred different strategies in the span of a heartbeat. He looked for a structural weakness, a magical loophole, a bluff—anything.

  The result was always the same: Death.

  The swarm would strip the flesh from their bones in three seconds. Then, Beelzebub would eat their souls. It was a complete checkmate.

  Lloyd let out a long breath, fogging up his visor. A strange calm settled over him. It was the calm of a mechanic who realizes the engine is going to explode, and there is no way to stop it.

  "If we are going to die," Lloyd muttered, his hand gripping the barrel of his Nova Cannon, "then I am going to make sure they get awful indigestion."

  He keyed a command into his neural link that he had promised himself he would never use.

  "System. Override Safety Protocols. Disengage the Limiter on the Golem Heart."

  [Warning: Disengaging the Limiter will result in critical core meltdown. The Nova Cannon will explode. Host fatality is guaranteed. Proceed?]

  "Proceed," Lloyd said.

  The matte-black Aegis Suit began to scream. It wasn't a vocal sound; it was the high-pitched whine of machinery being pushed past its breaking point. The Golem Heart in Lloyd’s chest beat violently, pumping raw, unfiltered mana directly into the cannon on his right arm.

  The weapon began to glow. It turned from white to a blinding, unstable blue. The metal barrel hissed as it began to melt from the inside out. Lloyd wasn't charging a shot; he was turning himself into a tactical nuclear bomb.

  "Ben!" Lloyd shouted, grabbing his friend’s shoulder. "Get behind me! When I pull this trigger, use Sloth to amplify the blast radius! Don't shield yourself, shield the charge!"

  "Lloyd, are you insane?!" Ben roared, his single eye widening as he realized the plan. "You're overloading the core! You'll vaporize yourself, and I’m not letting you steal the glory of the kill!"

  "Better to burn out than fade away!" Lloyd roared, his voice cracking with the strain. "Do not argue with me, Rook! If we die, we die taking the roof down on their heads!"

  Ben hesitated for a fraction of a second, his pride warring with the tactical reality. Then, his face hardened into a mask of grim, competitive fury. He didn't cower. He stepped behind Lloyd, placing his heavy hands on Lloyd's back not for comfort, but to brace him. "Fine! But if you miss, I’m killing you myself in the afterlife!"

  The fly swarm descended. The black cloud was inches away. Lloyd could see the individual mandibles of the insects. He could smell the rot on their wings. He tightened his finger on the trigger.

  Three... Two... One...

  But the explosion never happened.

  Suddenly, the air in the room changed.

  It didn't get hotter. It didn't get colder. It got... heavy.

  It was a sensation that defied physics. It felt as though the concept of time itself had suddenly become incredibly exhausted. The atoms in the air decided they didn't want to move anymore. The gravity in the room increased tenfold, but it wasn't pushing down; it was holding everything still.

  The deafening buzz of the fly swarm dropped in pitch. It went from a high scream to a low, lazy drone.

  Bzzz... bzz... bz...

  Chapter : 1880

  Lloyd watched in disbelief as the flies slowed down. They didn't stop completely, but they were moving as if they were flying through thick, invisible syrup. Their wings beat in slow motion—up, down, up, down. They hung in the air, frozen inches from Lloyd’s face.

  The whine of Lloyd’s overloading cannon died down. The blue light dimmed. The chemical reaction inside the weapon slowed to a crawl. The explosion was paused.

  Even Beelzebub looked confused. The massive demon was mid-step, his foot hovering above the ground, unable to complete the motion. His jaw hung open, but no sound came out.

  A voice echoed through the silent room.

  It was a woman’s voice. It wasn't loud, commanding, or scary. It sounded bored, but laced with a sultry, dangerous possessiveness. It sounded like a lover who had just caught someone touching her property.

  "Beelzebub..." the voice purred, stretching out the vowels in a languid tease. "You are being very loud. And you are trying to break my favorite toy."

  Lloyd turned his head. It was a monumental effort. His neck muscles fought against the heavy air.

  In the center of the room, between the humans and the demons, space seemed to fold. A figure faded into existence, like a ghost materializing from fog.

  It was Monalisa Belphagor, the Prince of Sloth.

  She wasn't standing in a combat stance. She was reclining on a floating cushion made of dark shadows. She wore a simple, elegant grey gown that looked like smoke. Her long black hair spilled over the edge of the cushion. Her blue eyes were half-closed, but they were fixed on Lloyd with a hungry, predatory glimmer.

  She looked at the deadly swarm of flies with mild distaste, as if they were merely dust on a shelf.

  "Mona... lisa?" Beelzebub’s voice rumbled, but it was slow and distorted, like a record playing at half speed. "What... is... this?"

  "This is me being jealous," Monalisa sighed, a playful smile touching her lips. She lifted one finger. It was a tiny movement, yet it sent a ripple of grey energy through the room.

  "Authority of Sloth: Absolute Stagnation."

  The ripple hit the swarm. The flies stopped completely. They didn't fall to the ground; they just froze in place, trapped in a bubble of halted time.

  Monalisa floated closer to Lloyd. She reached out a hand, her cool fingers trailing ghost-like across his armored cheek, ignoring the heat of the dying cannon. She didn't look like a savior; she looked like a collector inspecting a rare acquisition.

  Lloyd saw something terrifying on her face. The grey, stony patches he had cured earlier were back. In fact, they were worse. The strain of using her Authority to freeze two Demon Kings was accelerating her condition. Grey stone was creeping up her neck, cracking her porcelain skin.

  "I bought you time, my little lion," Monalisa whispered, leaning in close until her lips brushed his ear. Her voice was weak, punctuated by a dry cough that released a puff of grey dust, but her tone was electric. "That little plumbing job you did earlier... it wasn't rated for a war against my brothers. My engine is locking up again. But I couldn't let them break you. You haven't finished servicing me yet."

  She looked at her own hand. The fingertips were turning to stone before her eyes.

  "Now, survive," she ordered, her eyes flashing with a possessive fire. "If you die here, I will never get my core cleaned properly. And I do hate finding new partners. You fit so well."

  Lloyd lowered his cannon. He realized that this wasn't a rescue mission; it was a demand for exclusivity. She was saving him because he belonged to her.

  "Understood," Lloyd said, his voice returning to its sarcastic monotone despite the fear pounding in his heart. "I hate leaving a job unfinished. Just hold them off for a minute."

  Monalisa smirked weakly, tracing the line of his jaw. "A minute? In my domain, a minute can last a century. But for them... I can only give you seconds. Don't make me wait, darling."

  The stillness in the Inner Sanctum was fragile. It was like a sheet of thin ice over a raging river. Monalisa Belphagor sat on her floating cushion, her eyes closed in deep concentration, holding the "Sloth Field" together with sheer willpower.

  Opposite her, the two Demon Princes were not idle. They were pushing back.