Chapter : 1789

  The guests, who were currently busy screaming and diving under tables, stopped for a split second to watch. It was impressive. It was terrifying. It was the kind of magic that usually ended battles before they even started. The fire engulfed the drones, swallowing them in an inferno of red and orange destruction.

  "Ha!" Faria shouted, dusting off her hands. "Problem solved. Now, someone sweep up the ash."

  But the ash didn't come.

  The fire raged for a moment, and then, something strange happened. The flames didn't touch the metal. Instead, a shimmering, translucent blue grid appeared around the drones. It looked like a honeycomb made of light. The fire hit the grid and just... vanished.

  It didn't deflect. It didn't bounce off. It was absorbed. The blue light pulsed, getting brighter for a second as it ate the magic, and then the fire was gone. Just like that. The drones stood there, completely unharmed. Their metal plating wasn't even warm. They looked shiny, new, and extremely unimpressed.

  Faria stared at them, her mouth open. "What? That’s impossible. That fire burns hotter than a volcano’s armpit! Why aren't they melting?"

  Lloyd, who was standing a few feet away, felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach. He knew exactly why they weren't melting. He had seen that blue light before, a lifetime ago.

  "Anti-magic fields," Lloyd muttered to himself, his eyes narrowing. "Of course. Firefly wouldn't invade a magic world without bringing an umbrella."

  The lead drone, the one that had spoken earlier, turned its red optical sensors toward Faria.

  "Magic signature detected," the drone’s synthetic voice boomed. "Threat level: Nuisance. Initiating counter-measures."

  The panels on the sides of the drones slid open with a sharp clack-clack sound. Barrels extended. These weren't wands. They weren't staffs. They were rotary machine guns, the kind that could spit out enough lead to turn a solid brick wall into a cloud of dust in three seconds.

  "Oh, that’s not good," Lloyd said.

  The barrels began to spin. Whirrrrrrrr.

  The sound was high-pitched, like a dentist’s drill from hell. Faria stood there, frozen. She had never seen a gun before. To her, it just looked like a weird metal tube. She didn't understand the concept of ballistics. She didn't understand that she was standing in front of a firing squad that didn't know the meaning of mercy.

  Princess Amina, standing next to Faria, summoned a wall of sand, but her face was pale. She sensed it too. The magic in the room felt heavy, sluggish. The drones were emitting a dampening field.

  "Move!" Lloyd shouted, but his voice was lost in the mechanical scream of the spinning barrels.

  The drones ignored Lloyd’s evasive flicker. Their logic circuits identified a more efficient way to neutralize the target: the high-value biological assets standing behind him. The barrels shifted away from Lloyd and locked onto the Council of Queens. At Faria, who had attacked them. At Amina, who was standing next to her. And at Mina, who was near the exit with the baby.

  Lloyd’s brain went into overdrive. He calculated the distance. Fifty feet. He calculated the spin-up time of the guns. Zero point five seconds. He calculated the running speed of a human. Too slow.

  He couldn't run. He couldn't shout. He had to be there. Right now.

  The world seemed to slow down. He could see the first muzzle flash beginning to ignite in the barrel of the lead drone. He could see the confusion on Faria’s face. He could see the fear in Mina’s eyes across the room.

  "Not today," Lloyd hissed.

  He didn't take a step. He didn't run. He reached into his core, bypassing the magic that the drones were dampening, and grabbed onto something else. Something older. Something that didn't care about anti-magic fields because it wasn't magic. It was physics. It was space.

  He activated [Void Steps].

  The air around him fractured. It didn't glow or sparkle. It just broke, like a mirror being smashed by a hammer. For a microsecond, Lloyd didn't exist in the physical space of the ballroom. He was everywhere and nowhere. He was a glitch in the server of reality.

  ZAP.

  There was a sound like a thunderclap inside a vacuum. One moment, Lloyd was by the pillar. The next moment, he was standing directly in front of Faria and Amina, his back to them, facing the wall of machines.

  He had closed the distance in literally zero time. His coat tails were still settling from the sudden displacement of air.

  "Lloyd?" Faria gasped, stumbling back. "How did you—"

  Chapter : 1790

  "Get down," Lloyd said. His voice wasn't loud, but it was absolute. It was the voice of a man who was done playing games.

  The drones’ guns were fully spun up. The muzzle flashes were bright, blinding white stars. The bullets were coming. Thousands of them. A wall of metal moving faster than sound.

  Lloyd didn't flinch. He didn't try to dodge. He slammed his hands together, interlacing his fingers.

  "If you want a fight," Lloyd growled, "I'll give you a war."

  He didn't summon a spirit. Spirits were made of mana, and mana was useless right now. He needed something solid. Something real. Something that could stop a high-velocity projectile through sheer density and stubbornness.

  He tapped into his bloodline. The Ferrum legacy. [Steel Blood].

  "Manifest," Lloyd commanded.

  The air around him turned black. It wasn't shadow. It was metal.

  From the empty air, steel erupted.

  It didn't grow like a plant or flow like water. It snapped into existence with the violence of a car crash. Thousands of heavy, midnight-black chains burst from the void around Lloyd. They were thick, heavy, and cold, smelling of oil and iron.

  "Weave!" Lloyd shouted, his mind acting as the loom.

  The chains moved with a life of their own. They swirled around him, moving faster than the eye could track. They lashed together, interlocking, braiding over and over again. Within a fraction of a second, they formed a dense, rotating barrier.

  It wasn't just a wall. It was a dome. A perfect, hemispherical bunker made of woven steel chains, completely encasing Lloyd and his wives.

  CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

  The sound was deafening. It was like being inside a bell that was being hit by a freight train. The bullets slammed into the steel dome with terrifying force. Sparks flew everywhere, creating a shower of golden light that illuminated the terrified faces of the guests.

  The sheer kinetic energy of the impact was staggering. The floor beneath Lloyd’s feet cracked, spiderwebs of fractures spreading out into the marble. He gritted his teeth, feeling the vibrations travel up his arms and into his bones. It felt like holding back a landslide with his bare hands.

  "What is this?" Amina shouted over the noise, covering her ears. "What are those things?"

  "They're rude houseguests," Lloyd yelled back, his voice strained. "Very loud, very persistent, and they didn't bring a gift."

  The dome held. The [Steel Blood] chains were reinforced by Lloyd’s Void energy, making them harder than normal steel. But they weren't invincible. Lloyd could see dents forming on the outside. He could see chips of metal flying off as the relentless stream of bullets chewed away at his defense.

  "Lloyd!" Faria cried out, clutching his arm. "My fire didn't work! Why didn't it work?"

  "Because they're cheating," Lloyd said through gritted teeth. "They have shields that eat magic."

  He looked around the inside of his steel cage. It was dark, lit only by the sparks flying from the outside. He needed to think. He needed a plan.

  The drones were firing standard ballistic rounds. That was good. It meant they were conserving their energy weapons. But it also meant they had plenty of ammo. If they kept this up, they would eventually chew through the chains. Or worse, the sheer impact would turn the dome into a heated oven.

  "Status report," Lloyd muttered.

  He activated his [All-Seeing Eye]. His vision shifted. The steel chains became transparent wireframes. He looked through them, staring at the drones outside.

  He saw the blue shimmering fields around them. Anti-Magic Lattices. They were generating a frequency that disrupted the formation of mana. That’s why Faria’s fire had fizzled out. Any spell cast at them would be destabilized before it could do any damage.

  "Clever little tin cans," Lloyd thought. "You brought the perfect counter to a fantasy world."

  But Lloyd wasn't from a fantasy world. Not originally.

  He watched the drones. They were firing in a coordinated pattern. Two were suppressing him, while the other three were flanking, moving to get a better angle. They were learning. Adapting.

  "They're not just shooting," Lloyd realized. "They're analyzing. They're testing the density of the metal. They're looking for a weak point."

  He had to act. He couldn't just sit here and be a turtle. Turtles ended up as soup.

  "Listen to me," Lloyd said, turning to his wives. "Stay here. Do not leave this dome. Do not try to cast spells. Do not try to negotiate. Just sit tight and look pretty."

  "And where are you going?" Amina demanded, her eyes flashing. "You're not going out there!"

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Chapter : 1791

  "I have to," Lloyd said. "This dome is a temporary solution to a permanent problem. If I don't stop them, they're going to turn this palace into a parking lot."

  "But magic doesn't work!" Faria argued. "You said it yourself! They eat it!"

  "Regular magic doesn't work," Lloyd corrected. "But I have something else. Something they haven't seen before."

  If they’re going to bring weapons from my old world, I’ll just have to remind them why I was the one who survived it.

  He looked at his hands. He could feel the Void energy humming in his veins. It was different from mana. It was colder. Sharper.

  The drones outside paused to reload. The silence was sudden and shocking.

  "Reloading cycle," Lloyd noted. "Two seconds. Maybe three."

  It was a small window. A tiny crack in the door. But for a man like Lloyd, it was a highway.

  He dissolved a section of the chain wall, creating a small exit.

  "Lloyd!" Faria screamed.

  He looked back at her and winked. "Don't worry. I'm just going to file a noise complaint."

  He stepped out of the dome.

  The ballroom was a wreck. Tables were overturned. The floor was covered in brass casings. The air smelled of gunpowder and ozone.

  The five drones stood there, their red eyes glowing in the dust. They looked like monsters from a nightmare, sleek and deadly.

  When they saw Lloyd emerge, they all turned to face him. Their servos whined as they adjusted their aim.

  "Target re-acquired," the lead drone announced. "Shield dropped. Resuming purge."

  Lloyd stood alone in the center of the room. He wasn't wearing armor. He wasn't holding a sword. He was wearing a tuxedo that cost more than a farm, and he looked bored.

  "You know," Lloyd said, his voice echoing in the sudden quiet. "You guys are really bad at parties. You didn't even try the shrimp."

  The drones didn't laugh. They just spun up their guns again.

  Lloyd’s eyes glowed with a cold, predatory light. He analyzed their fire rate. He analyzed their shield frequency. He analyzed the structural integrity of their armor.

  "Magic doesn't work," Lloyd whispered to himself. "Okay. Fine. If you want to play by the rules of physics, let's play."

  He didn't need to cast a fireball. He didn't need to summon a lightning storm. He needed something that hit harder than magic. Something that hit with the weight of a collapsing star.

  He needed a variable they couldn't quantify.

  "System," Lloyd said calmly. "Open the Shopping Tree. Category: Heavy Ordnance. Sub-category: Spirits that don't play nice."

  A holographic menu appeared in his mind. He scrolled past the swords. He scrolled past the potions. He stopped at a section that was grayed out for most users. A section labeled: [Experimental / High-Yield / Void-Compatible].

  He smiled. It was a terrifying smile.

  "Let's see how you handle a little bit of sci-fi," Lloyd said.

  The drones opened fire.

  Lloyd didn't move. He didn't dodge. He just raised his right hand and snapped his fingers.

  The steel dome was already groaning under the relentless kinetic bombardment, the metal glowing a dull, angry red from the friction of a thousand impacts. Lloyd didn't need to hear his wives’ shouts to know he was out of time; the smell of ozone and the heat radiating from the chains told him the barrier was seconds from failure. He tuned out the deafening clangor of the bullets and dove headfirst into the System interface, his mental fingers flying through the Shopping Tree at a speed that made his brain feel like it was catching fire.

  He was mentally scrolling through the System interface so fast his brain felt like it was going to catch fire. He needed a solution, and he needed it five minutes ago.

  The problem was simple: Magic was useless. The Firefly drones had those blue shields. Anti-Magic Lattices. They worked by disrupting the frequency of mana. Any spell—fire, ice, lightning—was just structured mana. When it hit the shield, the lattice vibrated and shattered the structure, turning the spell back into harmless raw energy. It was brilliant engineering. Lloyd hated it.

  "Okay," Lloyd muttered to himself. "If I can't use magic, and I can't get close enough to punch them without turning into Swiss cheese, I need a ranged weapon. But not a magic one. I need... a gun. A really, really big gun."

  Chapter : 1792

  He looked at the Shopping Tree. He had a lot of System Coins saved up. He had been hoarding them like a dragon with a 401k plan. He had been saving for the Aegis suit upgrades, or maybe a nice vacation home in a dimension that didn't have demons.

  But saving money was for people who weren't currently being shot at by spider-robots.

  He navigated to the Spirit Summoning tab. Most spirits were elemental. Fire, water, earth. Useless. He needed something else. Something weird.

  He found it deep in the catalogue, buried under "Miscellaneous" and "Do Not Touch."

  Name: Nova

  Type: Spirit of the Void / Technological Construct

  Class: Experimental

  Description: A spirit born not from nature, but from the concept of "Overwhelming Firepower." Nova does not control elements. Nova converts raw spiritual energy into concentrated plasma.

  Cost: Expensive. Very expensive. Like, "sell your kidney and your firstborn" expensive.

  "Perfect," Lloyd said. "I'll take it."

  He hit the [Purchase] button.

  The System chimed. A sound only he could hear. It sounded like a cash register opening, followed by a warning siren.

  [WARNING: Summoning Spirit 'Nova'. Compatibility check... 100%. Void Affinity detected. Integrating...]

  Outside the dome, the drones paused. They were reloading again. It was a rhythmic cycle. Fire for ten seconds, cool down for two, reload for one. It was efficient. It was predictable.

  "Stay here," Lloyd told the women. "And cover your eyes. This is going to be bright."

  "Lloyd, what are you doing?" Faria asked, grabbing his sleeve. Her hand was trembling. "You can't go out there! You'll die!"

  "I'm not going to die," Lloyd said, giving her a quick, confident grin. "I'm going to introduce them to my new friend."

  He stepped out of the dome just as the chains began to cool. The air in the ballroom was hot and smelled of burnt metal. The five drones were standing there, their barrels spinning up again.

  "Target re-engaged," the lead drone droned. "Resuming purge."

  "Yeah, yeah, purge this," Lloyd muttered.

  He raised his right arm.

  "Come to me," Lloyd whispered. "Nova."

  The air around his arm didn't just shimmer; it distorted. It looked like heat haze on a highway. A low, thrumming sound filled the room, deeper than the drones, deeper than the music. It was the sound of a star waking up.

  White light erupted from his shoulder. It wasn't soft, magical light. It was harsh, clinical, artificial light. It blinded the drones' sensors for a split second.

  And then, the transformation began.

  It didn't look like magic. It looked like technology.

  Sleek, white plating materialized over his skin, interlocking with a series of mechanical clicks. Gold circuitry etched itself into the white metal, glowing with a pulsating rhythm. His hand disappeared, consumed by the machinery. His forearm expanded, shifting and folding until it was no longer an arm.

  It was a cannon.

  It was massive, almost too big for his body, but it felt weightless. The barrel was long and rectangular, split into two prongs that crackled with white energy. Cooling vents along the side hissed, releasing jets of steam.

  It looked like something from a sci-fi movie that had crash-landed in a fantasy novel.

  Lloyd flexed his shoulder. The cannon hummed. It felt... right. It felt cold and precise. It didn't have a personality like Fang Fairy or Iffrit. It didn't have emotions. It was a tool. A weapon. And right now, that was exactly what he needed.

  "System," Lloyd said. "Link targeting array to [All-Seeing Eye]."

  [Link Established. HUD Active.]

  A blue grid appeared in Lloyd’s vision. Numbers scrolled down the side. Distance, wind speed, shield frequency. He looked at the drones. Red boxes appeared around them.

  "Target lock," Lloyd said.

  The lead drone seemed confused. Its sensors were trying to classify the thing on Lloyd's arm and failing.

  "Unknown energy signature detected," the drone said. "Classifying as... Error. Error. Does not compute."

  "It computes just fine," Lloyd said, raising the cannon. The hum grew to a whine. "It computes that you're about to have a very bad day."

  He didn't yell. He didn't scream a battle cry. He just spoke a single, cold command.

  "Nova. Engage."

  The drones opened fire. A wall of bullets flew towards Lloyd.

  Lloyd didn't move. He didn't dodge. He just planted his feet and pointed the Nova Cannon forward.

  "Shield," Lloyd commanded.

  A hexagonal barrier of golden light snapped into existence in front of the cannon. The bullets hit it and disintegrated. They didn't bounce; they just turned into dust. It wasn't a magic shield. It was a hard-light barrier, powered by the spirit's own internal reactor.

  "My turn," Lloyd said.