Chapter : 1833

  To a normal mage, Monalisa would look like a blinding sun of dark energy. Her power was so immense that it would burn the eyes of anyone trying to sense it directly. But Lloyd’s eye was different. It broke that blinding light down into manageable streams of numbers and colors. He peeled back the layers of her existence one by one.

  First, he looked past her physical form. He ignored the pale skin and the black hair. He looked at the muscle and bone beneath. Then, he went deeper. He looked at the Mana Circulatory System.

  Every living creature in this world, whether human or demon, had a system of "veins" that carried magic through their body, just like blood vessels carried blood. For a being as powerful as a Prince of Hell, this system should have been magnificent. It should have been a roaring river of power, flowing fast and bright, illuminating her core like a nuclear reactor. It should have been smooth, efficient, and perfect.

  But that is not what Lloyd saw.

  What he saw made his engineer’s heart skip a beat. It wasn't awe he felt; it was the specific kind of frustration a mechanic feels when they open the hood of a very expensive car and realize the owner has never changed the oil.

  Monalisa’s mana system was a disaster.

  The flow of energy inside her was sluggish. It moved like cold molasses. But the speed wasn't the main problem. The problem was the pollution.

  Lloyd zoomed in on the image in his mind. Inside her spiritual veins, there was a buildup of a thick, dark substance. In his mind, Lloyd immediately categorized it. It looked exactly like the carbon buildup inside an old combustion engine, or the calcium scale inside a neglected water pipe. It was jagged, sharp, and ugly.

  "Abyssal Sediment," Lloyd thought, giving the substance a name.

  He analyzed the composition of the sediment. It was a byproduct of her own power. Monalisa was the Prince of Sloth. Her power was based on stillness, on stopping things, on slowing down reality. But biology—even demonic biology—required movement. Life required flow.

  Because she spent centuries doing nothing, channeling the power of absolute stillness, her own mana had started to stagnate. When water sits still for too long, it becomes murky and grows algae. When mana sits still for too long inside a body, it separates. The pure energy evaporates, but the heavy, gritty impurities are left behind.

  This "grit" was settling in her arteries. It was coating the walls of her spirit core. It was dark, jagged, and heavy.

  Lloyd watched the data stream with fascination and horror. He could see that the sediment was not just sitting there; it was hardening. It was undergoing a process of calcification. The "Abyssal Sediment" was slowly turning into "Abyssal Stone."

  She wasn't just being lazy. She wasn't lying on those cushions because she enjoyed the comfort. She was lying there because her internal machinery was seizing up.

  Lloyd looked at her Mana Core, the heart of her soul. It should have been a spinning vortex. Instead, it was grinding. He could almost hear the phantom sound of metal screeching against metal. The sludge was so thick around her core that every beat of her heart required a massive amount of effort.

  She was petrifying from the inside out.

  The realization hit Lloyd with the clarity of a mathematical equation. This was a biological paradox. The stronger she became as the Prince of Sloth, the more "stillness" she generated. The more stillness she generated, the more sediment formed in her blood. The more sediment formed, the harder it was for her to move.

  Her power was literally choking her to death.

  It was a slow, agonizing suicide. Every day she existed, she became a little more like a statue and a little less like a living being. The "sultry boredom" on her face wasn't just a personality quirk or a seduction tactic. It was a symptom of chronic, debilitating fatigue. She was exhausted because her body was fighting a losing war against its own fuel source.

  Lloyd’s mind, trained in the rigors of Earth’s technology, immediately started drawing comparisons. He remembered working on high-end hydraulic systems in his previous life. If the hydraulic fluid wasn't cycled regularly, it would turn into a thick gel. Eventually, that gel would block the valves. When the valves blocked, the machine would stop moving. It didn't matter how powerful the motor was; if the fluid couldn't move, the machine was a brick.

  Monalisa was a Ferrari with an engine full of tar.

  Chapter : 1834

  Suddenly, a cold, genderless voice echoed in Lloyd’s mind. It was the System Administrator, the mysterious interface that had accompanied him since his reincarnation. It confirmed his diagnosis with brutal efficiency.

  [Alert: Diagnostic complete.]

  [Target: Monalisa Belphagor (Prince of Sloth)]

  [Condition: Advanced Mana Stagnation / Systemic Petrification.]

  [Analysis: The target’s mana pathways are 85% obstructed by crystallized Abyssal waste. The core is operating at critical pressure levels.]

  [Forecast: Probability of total petrification and permanent biological shutdown within the standard year: 94.7%.]

  [Note: Current life signs are only being maintained by massive, conscious mana suppression. The target is manually forcing her heart to beat through the blockage.]

  Lloyd blinked behind his visor, the data streams fading slightly as he looked back at her physical form. The awe he had felt earlier vanished completely. He no longer saw a monster or a god. He saw a patient. He saw a broken system that was crying out for repair.

  He watched her hand twitch. She was trying to lift a finger to adjust a lock of hair that had fallen across her face, a movement designed to look alluring, but Lloyd saw the micro-tremors of effort it cost her.

  To anyone else, it looked like a graceful movement. But Ben, standing a few feet to Lloyd's left, let out a short, sharp bark of laughter. The sound was harsh, cutting through the silence like a blade. He didn't look nervous; he looked contemptuous. He leaned on his heavy lance, his posture arrogant and relaxed despite the crushing aura of the Demon Prince.

  "Look at that efficiency rating," Ben muttered, his voice dripping with the disdain of a commander reviewing a sloppy drill. "It's pathetic. If I ran my territory like this, I'd have been overthrown in a week. Her motor functions are lagging by at least three seconds. That isn't grace, Lloyd; that is systemic failure."

  Ben tapped the side of his helmet, his single eye glowing with critical analysis. "My tactical read says she's running on fumes. She isn't sleeping; she's stalled. It’s hydraulic lock. Her system is flooded with waste data."

  Lloyd glanced at his cousin. Ben wasn't cowering. The Ironwood Sovereign was analyzing the enemy with the cold precision of the Major General he used to be on Earth. He wasn't overwhelmed by the magical pressure because he had simply decided not to be part of it.

  Around Ben, the air was strange. It was still. Perfectly still. While Lloyd’s Aegis suit whirred to compensate for the pressure, Ben stood in a bubble of absolute calm. He had activated his secret Spirit: Sloth. He was freezing the causality of the air around him, negating the demon's aura by simply pausing its effect on his body. He was matching her concept with his own, proving he was not just a guest, but a peer.

  "She’s in pain," Lloyd noted, ignoring Ben's arrogance.

  "She’s inefficient," Ben countered, flexing his prosthetic hand. The heavy, jagged steel of his fingers groaned. He hadn't used a manual to build those limbs; he had forced the metal to obey him through sheer will and his Steel Blood. "If my gear ran that poorly, I’d scrap it and start over. Are we going to fix the junker, General, or should I just put it out of its misery? I bet if I hit her hard enough with a density-shift, she’d shatter like cheap glass."

  "Stand down, Rook," Lloyd said. "We need her alive."

  "For now," Ben grumbled, his single eye scanning the room for structural weak points. "But if this negotiation drags on, I’m going to start breaking furniture. I hate waiting."

  Part 2

  Lloyd stood motionless in the center of the vast throne room, the data from his scan still scrolling across his internal display. He looked at Monalisa Belphagor, the terrifying Prince of Sloth, through a lens that no one else in this world possessed.

  He saw her not as an ancient evil, but as a machine with a terminally flooded engine.

  It was a perspective that only Lloyd Ferrum could maintain. Anyone else standing in front of a Prince of Hell would be crushed by the spiritual pressure. They would be too busy trembling in fear of her magic to notice the subtle signs of her decay. But Lloyd was an engineer from Earth. He was a man who had built robots, designed weapons, and fixed things that were deemed impossible to repair.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  To him, the "Curse of the Abyss" or the "Will of the Void" were just fancy words for bad maintenance.

  Chapter : 1835

  He looked at the dark sludge clogging her core again. It was a lack of maintenance, plain and simple. It was like a cooling system in a nuclear reactor that hadn't been flushed in five hundred years. It was like a fuel filter that was completely blocked by gunk.

  He remembered a specific project from his past life on Earth. He had been working on a high-end combat exosuit for the military. The suit was a masterpiece of engineering, but it had a fatal flaw. It used a specialized hydraulic fluid that was incredibly powerful but unstable. If the fluid sat for too long without being cycled through the pumps, it would turn into a thick gel. Once it gelled, it would seize the joints of the suit.

  He remembered the pilot trapped inside that suit, unable to move, panicking as the systems failed one by one.

  Monalisa was just a much more expensive, much more magical version of that combat suit. And just like that pilot, she was trapped inside her own power.

  She was still staring at him with those half-closed, sapphire-blue eyes. She thought she was hiding her weakness perfectly. She thought the "Sultry Queen" persona was an unshakeable mask that fooled everyone. She didn't realize that the man in the black armor standing ten feet away was currently looking at her liver and deciding it looked more like a piece of granite than an organ.

  Lloyd decided to drop the pretense. There was no point in dancing around the subject. He needed to shock her system. He needed to break through the centuries of apathy she had built around herself.

  "I’m not here to fight you, Monalisa," Lloyd said.

  His voice was calm. It was amplified by the speakers in his helmet, cutting through the heavy, mana-saturated air of the hall like a laser scalpel. It wasn't a shout; it was a statement of fact.

  "I’m here because you are at the end of your rope," he continued. "You call it 'The Eternal Sleep.' Your followers worship your stillness. They think it's a sign of your divinity. But looking at you with my eyes, I don't see a curse, and I don't see a destiny."

  Lloyd paused for effect. He took a step closer, ignoring the low, menacing growls of the guards.

  "I see a catastrophic design flaw in your primary mana circulation."

  The words hung in the air, alien and jarring in this ancient fantasy setting.

  Ben, standing a few paces to the side, let out a short, sharp bark of laughter. He didn't tense up; he relaxed, resting the weight of his massive lance on his shoulder pad. He looked at the demon guards with a predator’s smirk.

  "He called you a lemon," Ben taunted, his voice dripping with arrogance. "He’s saying your warranty has expired, princess. You’re leaking oil."

  Monalisa’s lips curled into a slow, amused smile. She didn't seem offended; rather, she looked intrigued, like a cat watching a bird land just out of reach. "A lemon? Such strange words you humans use. And you, little lion..." She shifted her gaze to Lloyd, her voice dropping to a purr. "You are staring. Do you like what you see under the silk? Or are you just looking for another dance?"

  "Lloyd," Ben said, not bothering to whisper. "Why are we talking to the hardware? If she's broken, she's useless to us. Let's just raid the treasury and leave. I’m getting bored."

  "Patience, Ben," Lloyd said, keeping his eyes on Monalisa.

  The demonic guards stepped forward, their obsidian armor clanking loudly. They raised their spears, their eyes burning with loyalty and rage. How dare these humans insult their mistress? How dare they speak to the Queen of Sloth with such disrespect?

  Three of the elite guards, massive insectoid demons, chittered and lunged toward Ben, intending to spear the insolent human.

  Ben didn't even flinch. He didn't raise his shield. He simply glared at them.

  "Spirit: Sloth. Domain of Weight," Ben whispered.

  The air around Ben distorted. He didn't create chains like Lloyd; he manipulated the physics of the space around him. The gravity in a ten-foot radius around him multiplied instantly.

  CRACK.

  The sound was sickening. The guards slammed into the invisible wall of heavy gravity. Their armor buckled. Their spears shattered into splinters under their own weight. Ben’s prosthetic arm grew heavier, the molecules packing together until the limb weighed as much as a small car.

  He swung his free hand in a lazy backhand.

  BOOM.

  Chapter : 1836

  Ben’s heavy metal hand connected with the lead guard’s chest plate. The kinetic force launched the demon backward across the room as if hit by a wrecking ball, crashing into a pillar and sliding down, unconscious.

  Ben didn't even look at the fallen enemy. He looked at the other two guards, his single eye narrowing.

  "Sit down," Ben commanded, his voice cold and absolute. "The adults are talking. Unless you want me to turn you into scrap metal too?"

  He tapped his chest plate, challenging them. He wasn't afraid. He was insulted that they thought they could touch him.

  Monalisa watched Ben with a flicker of genuine appreciation. "Iron and arrogance... you remind me of my brother Beelzebub, though he has less charm. But you..." She turned her gaze back to Lloyd, her eyes glinting.

  She didn't move, but the atmosphere in the room changed instantly. The temperature dropped ten degrees in a second. Frost began to form on the edges of Lloyd’s visor. The air became heavy, a physical weight that pressed down on the servos of the Aegis Suit, making them whir in protest.

  This was the Prince’s killing intent. It saturated the hall, filling every corner with a promise of death. It was her way of saying, Stop talking, or I will end you.

  Lloyd felt the pressure. It was like standing at the bottom of the ocean. His Golem Heart beat faster to compensate, pumping energy into his shields to keep the crushing weight off his body. But he didn't flinch. He didn't step back.

  Ben snorted. He flared his Spirit: Sloth fully. The crushing pressure washed over him and simply... stopped. Time around Ben slowed to a crawl, rendering the intimidating aura irrelevant. He yawned inside his helmet.

  "Is that it?" Ben asked. "I've felt scarier breezes in the shower."

  Lloyd ignored Ben’s provocation and focused on the Queen. A small, mocking smile appeared on his face, hidden safely behind his black helmet.

  "Kill me if you want," Lloyd challenged. His voice remained a steady, flat monotone. He sounded like a customer service representative discussing a warranty, not a man facing a god. "Go ahead. Crush me. Turn me into dust."

  He crossed his arms, the metal of his suit clinking softly.

  "But just remember this: the next person who walks through that door won't have a toolkit. They won't know what Abyssal Sediment is. They won't know how to filter a mana core. The next person who walks through that door will have a shovel to bury what’s left of you."

  The All-Seeing Eye had stripped away the Prince’s regal facade, and Lloyd refused to let her put it back on. He was relentless.

  "I can see the sludge, Monalisa," Lloyd said, his voice dropping lower, becoming more intimate. "It's dark. It's jagged. It scratches against the walls of your mana veins like glass shards. Every time your heart beats, it pushes that grit deeper into your core. It's grinding the gears of your soul to a halt. It hurts, doesn't it?"

  Silence descended on the room. It was absolute. Even the guards stopped breathing.

  For the first time in five hundred years, Monalisa’s expression cracked.

  The mask of bored seduction shattered. Her eyes opened fully, revealing a depth of blue that was swirling with emotions she hadn't felt in centuries. There was shock. There was a thrill. But mostly, there was a look of genuine, ancient need.

  She realized that this human wasn't guessing. He wasn't bluffing. He had looked inside her and seen the secret she had hidden from the entire world. He had diagnosed her like a broken tractor.

  She looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time since the wedding. She didn't see a toy or a dancer. She saw someone who understood the mechanics of her pain.

  "You..." Monalisa whispered. Her voice was no longer the heavy, sleepy drawl of a god. It was trembling slightly with excitement. "You can see the sediment? You lead well, little lion. But can you finish the dance?"

  "I can see it," Lloyd confirmed. "And I can remove it."

  The offer hung in the air. It was a lifeline thrown to a drowning woman.

  Lloyd remained calm, the Aegis suit whirring softly as it regulated his temperature. He knew he had won. The power dynamic in the room had shifted completely. He was no longer a guest begging for a favor. He was the only mechanic in town, and she was the owner of a broken machine that no one else could fix.