Chapter : 1837

  He waited for her answer, watching the data stream. He watched her heart rate spike. He watched the hope flare up in her chest, fighting against the sludge.

  "Well?" Ben asked loudly, checking his lance. "Are we fixing the engine or scrapping the car? Make up your mind, lady. I have a traitor to kill."

  Lloyd knew that for the first time in centuries, the Prince of Sloth was wide awake. And she was looking at him not just with desire, but with necessity.

  Part 1

  The silence in the Palace of Stillness was usually heavy and threatening, a crushing weight that forced lesser beings to their knees in acts of desperate submission. But right now, the silence was different. It was the quiet of a war room where a tactical briefing was taking place, interrupted only by the scratch of charcoal.

  Lloyd Ferrum stood in the center of the vast, shadowy throne room. He was not holding a weapon. Instead, he held a piece of rough parchment and a stick of charcoal he had pulled from his inventory. He was drawing with rapid, precise strokes.

  Ben Ferrum, the Ironwood Sovereign, did not stand behind Lloyd like a bodyguard. He leaned against a nearby obsidian pillar with his arms crossed, radiating an aura of supreme boredom and irritation. His heavy, jagged armor—forged by his own will through the raw, brute-force application of Steel Blood—creaked ominously as he shifted his weight. He wasn't watching the guards with fear; he was dissecting them with a predator's gaze, calculating exactly how much mass he would need to manifest to crush their skulls.

  "Are you done sketching, General?" Ben drawled, his voice dripping with impatience. "If I wanted to watch an art class, I would have stayed in the capital. We are currently standing in a hostile kill-box, and you are doodling. If you don't hurry up, I'm going to start dismantling the architecture just to hear something break."

  "Done," Lloyd said, ignoring the jab. His voice was flat and calm, breaking the tension.

  He turned the parchment around and held it up for the Demon Prince to see. To the uninitiated, the drawing looked like a mess of squiggly lines, circles, and arrows. But Ben, possessing the memories of a Major General from Earth, recognized it instantly. It wasn't a spell; it was a fluid dynamics schematic.

  Monalisa watched him through half-lidded eyes, a sultry smile playing on her lips. She didn't look at the paper; she looked at his hands. "A drawing? For me?" she purred, her voice low and intimate, recalling their dance at the wedding. "You spoil me, little lion. Is this a love letter? Or perhaps a map to your bedroom?"

  "It is a plumbing schematic," Lloyd replied, immune to the charm. "Specifically, it is a design for a 'Spiritual Dialysis Machine.' It is a conceptual device."

  He pointed to a large circle in the middle of the drawing. "This represents your Mana Core—your heart. Right now, it is a pump that is trying to push mud through a straw. That is why you are in pain. That is why you are turning to stone. The 'Abyssal Sediment' has blocked the exit pipes."

  Lloyd moved his finger to a series of loops he had drawn on the side. "This is the bypass. I cannot fix the engine while it is running inside you. So, I am going to build a temporary detour. I will use my 'Blood Steel' to create hollow tubes. I will insert them into your mana veins here, and here."

  He tapped two spots on his own arm to demonstrate.

  "I will pull the dirty mana out of your body," Lloyd continued, speaking as if he were a mechanic explaining a car repair to a customer. "It will flow through these tubes into a filter that I will create using Void energy. The filter will catch the heavy, black sediment. Then, the clean mana will flow back into your body through a second tube."

  Monalisa stared at the drawing, her amusement shifting into genuine fascination. For centuries, mages had told her that her condition was a curse. They said it was the price of her power. Now, this human—this man who had fascinated her enough to make her leave her throne once before—was telling her it was just a clog.

  Chapter : 1838

  "You speak of my soul as if it were a machine," Monalisa said, shifting her hips on the cushions, a deliberate movement that drew attention to the curve of her waist. "Do you treat all your women this way, Lloyd? Disassembling them to see how they tick? It is... strangely exciting."

  "Complexity is just a lot of simple things stacked on top of each other," Lloyd said with a shrug. "Your body is a container for energy. Energy needs to move. If it stops, it stagnates. You are the Prince of Sloth. Your nature is stillness. But your biology still needs flow. That is the conflict. Your power is fighting your life."

  He lowered the paper and looked her directly in the eyes. "I can clean the pipes, Monalisa. I can flush the system. It won't be pleasant, and it won't be permanent. But for a few days, you won't feel like you are carrying a mountain on your chest."

  Monalisa shifted again. The movement was small, but Lloyd saw the wince of pain that accompanied it. The sediment in her veins was grinding against her insides like broken glass. She was tired of the pain. She was tired of the sleep that wasn't really sleep, but a coma to escape the agony.

  "A few days..." she whispered. The concept sounded like a dream. "To move without pain? To dance again without feeling like stone?"

  "Maybe a week if you take it easy," Lloyd added. "But don't get too excited. As I said, this is a patch, not a cure. As long as you are the Prince of Sloth, your body will keep producing this sludge. I can clean the garage, but if you keep parking a muddy car in it, it’s going to get dirty again."

  Ben pushed himself off the pillar, his prosthetic metal foot cracking the stone tile beneath him. He didn't lower his voice. "She understands the concept of an oil change, Lloyd. She's ancient, not stupid. The real question is whether the hardware can handle the stress."

  Ben looked at Monalisa, his single eye narrowing critically. "He's going to pressurize your system. If your core is too brittle, you're going to pop like a cheap gasket. Are you durable enough for this, or are we wasting our time?"

  "Ben," Lloyd warned, though his tone was mild.

  "What?" Ben challenged, spreading his heavy, jagged steel hands. "It's a valid safety concern. I don't want to be in the blast radius if Her Highness detonates."

  Monalisa looked at Ben. Instead of being offended, a small, tired amusement touched her lips. "Your companion has... a sharp tongue. Just like my brother Beelzebub, though significantly less fat. But he is right. The risk is mine."

  "If you can do this," Monalisa said, her voice gaining a tiny bit of strength, focusing back on Lloyd with a hungry intensity. "If you can give me even one hour of relief... I will give you what you want. And perhaps... a little more."

  Lloyd nodded. "The deal is simple. I fix the pipes; you give me the traitor. I need to know where Rubel is, and I need a way to get to him without fighting every guard in the Abyss."

  Monalisa let out a small, dry laugh. It sounded like dry leaves rustling together. "You want to find the little rat? That is easy. He is a nuisance. If you fix me, I will not only tell you where he is, I will open the back door for you."

  "Then we have a deal," Lloyd said.

  He folded the parchment and put it away. He rolled up the sleeves of his black coat, revealing the Aegis armor beneath. He didn't look like a warrior preparing for battle. He looked like a surgeon scrubbing in for an operation.

  Lloyd turned to Ben. He didn't issue an order; he knew better than to command the Lord of Ironwood. He simply stated the tactical reality.

  "I need the room locked down," Lloyd said. "If I get bumped while I am connected to her core, the feedback loop will kill us all. I can't watch my back while I'm doing microsurgery."

  Ben scoffed, hefting his massive lance onto his shoulder. "So, I'm on perimeter control? Fine. I suppose I can lower myself to keep the riff-raff out while you play doctor with the Queen."

  Chapter : 1839

  Ben walked to the massive doors of the throne room. He didn't stand at attention like a guard. He stood in the center of the archway, his back to the room, facing the hallway where the elite demon guards were gathering nervously.

  "Hey! Ugly!" Ben shouted at the demons, his voice booming. "This room is closed for maintenance. Anyone who tries to cross this threshold gets erased from the timeline."

  Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

  Ben didn't just pose. He flared his Spirit: Sloth. A grey, heavy aura of Absolute Stasis erupted from him. This wasn't fire; it was weight. The air around the doorway grew thick and viscous. Dust motes froze in mid-air. The very concept of movement within ten feet of Ben ground to a halt.

  "Try me," Ben challenged the demons, a cruel grin on his face. "I'm bored, and I'd love an excuse to freeze someone in a time-loop for a few centuries."

  Satisfied that the "doorman" was more dangerous than an entire army, Lloyd turned back to the platform.

  He walked up the steps until he was standing right next to the massive bed of cushions. Up close, Monalisa looked even more like a statue. Her skin was so pale it was almost translucent, and he could see the dark, spider-web patterns of the sediment under the surface.

  "Lie still," Lloyd said. "This is going to feel... intrusive."

  Monalisa closed her eyes, a faint blush touching her pale cheeks. "I am counting on it, Doctor. Do not be gentle."

  Part 2

  The atmosphere in the throne room shifted. It was no longer a place of courtly politics; it was an operating theater. Lloyd focused his mind. He pushed away the distractions—the guards, the danger, the fact that he was in Hell. He entered the "Zone," that special mental space where only the problem and the solution existed.

  He activated his [Blue Ring Eyes].

  Instantly, the world around him lost its color and texture. Everything turned into a grid of blue lines and data. He looked down at Monalisa. He didn't see a woman anymore. He saw a complex network of flowing energy. He saw the bright blue river of her mana, and he saw the black, tar-like blockages that were choking it.

  "Okay," Lloyd whispered to himself. "Let's start the bypass."

  He raised both hands. "Blood Steel: Conduits."

  From the tips of his fingers, thin, silver wires began to emerge. They didn't shoot out like weapons. They grew slowly, extending inch by inch. They were not solid steel. Lloyd was using his Void Power to hollow them out, turning them into microscopic pipes. They were flexible, moving like snakes in the air.

  He guided the wires toward Monalisa’s arms.

  "I am going to insert the intake valve now," Lloyd warned.

  The silver wires touched the skin of her left wrist. They didn't cut her; they phased through the outer layer of her skin, seeking the mana vein underneath.

  Monalisa gasped, her back arching off the cushions. Her body went rigid. It wasn't exactly pain, but it was a sensation she had never felt before. It felt cold. It felt like ice water was being injected directly into her soul. She could feel the metal sliding up her arm, moving against the flow of her energy.

  "Relax," Lloyd said, his voice steady and hypnotic. "Don't fight it. If you fight, the steel will harden. Let it flow."

  He guided the wires deeper, past her elbow, toward her shoulder. Then he did the same with her right arm. This was the output valve.

  Once the connection was secure, Lloyd closed his eyes and focused on the space between his hands. He needed a filter. He couldn't just pull the sludge out; he had to separate it from her life force. If he pulled out her life force too, he would kill her.

  He summoned his Void energy. A small, spinning sphere of grey light appeared between his palms. It hummed with a high-pitched vibration. Lloyd tuned the frequency. He was creating a "sonic cleaner" made of pure mana.

  "Connecting the circuit," Lloyd announced.

  He mentally commanded the wires in her left arm to open.

  The effect was immediate. The pressure inside Monalisa’s body found a release valve. The dark, pressurized mana surged out of her vein and into Lloyd’s silver tube.

  Lloyd watched through his All-Seeing Eye. He saw the black sludge traveling up the wire, leaving her body. It entered the grey sphere between his hands.

  Whirrrrrr.

  Chapter : 1840

  The sphere spun faster. As the sludge hit the Void energy, it was pulverized. The heavy "Abyssal Sediment" was separated from the pure mana. The sediment fell out of the bottom of the sphere as fine, black dust, piling up on the floor like soot. The clean, purified mana continued through the circuit.

  It traveled down the wire into her right arm and re-entered her body.

  Monalisa’s eyes snapped open. Her pupils dilated.

  "Oh," she breathed, the sound borderline indecent in the quiet room.

  The feeling was indescribable. For centuries, her blood had felt like wet cement. Now, suddenly, a stream of cool, clear water was rushing into her. The clean mana washed away the pain. It lubricated her joints. It fed her starving cells.

  "It is working," she whispered, her voice trembling with disbelief. "I can feel the flow. It feels... electric."

  "Keep breathing," Lloyd ordered, sweat beading on his forehead. "We are only at 10% capacity. I am going to turn up the pressure. This part might vibrate a little."

  Lloyd increased the draw. The sphere between his hands spun so fast it became a blur. The black dust started piling up faster on the floor. It was a disgusting pile of spiritual waste—the physical manifestation of her laziness and stagnation.

  Ben, still watching the door, glanced over his shoulder. He saw the black pile growing. He didn't look disgusted; he looked critical. "Carbon buildup," Ben noted aloud. "Just like an unmaintained engine block. Disgraceful maintenance schedule."

  Ben turned his attention back to the door, but his eyes narrowed. He felt a vibration in the floor—the guards outside were getting restless. He stomped his foot, sending a pulse of Steel Blood mana into the ground.

  "I said stay back!" Ben roared. He didn't use a spell. He used his raw, unrefined mastery over metal to force the iron hinges of the massive doors to fuse shut. The metal groaned and warped, locking the room down physically as well as temporally. "If you interrupt him now, I’ll freeze your timelines so hard you'll wake up yesterday!"

  "Focus, Ben!" Lloyd snapped, though he was secretly grateful for the absolute lockdown. "We are flushing the core now."

  This was the dangerous part. Lloyd pushed the wires deep into Monalisa's chest, touching the surface of her Mana Core. He used the suction to pull the hardest, most calcified chunks of sediment off the surface of her heart.

  Monalisa arched her back, a silent scream caught in her throat. It felt like someone was scrubbing her heart with a wire brush. But along with the scraping feeling came a rush of power she hadn't felt since she was a young demon.

  The grinding noise inside her soul stopped. The heavy thump-thump of her heart became a smooth, rhythmic whoosh-whoosh.

  "Clear," Lloyd said.

  He held the connection for another minute, making sure he got every last bit of loose debris. Then, slowly, carefully, he retracted the wires. The silver tubes slid out of her arms and dissolved back into the air. The grey sphere vanished.

  Lloyd took a step back and wiped the sweat from his face. "Procedure complete. The patient survives. Barely."

  The room was silent again, but the heavy, oppressive feeling was gone.

  Monalisa lay still for a moment, testing her body. Then, she did something she hadn't done in five years.

  She sat up.

  She didn't use magic to float herself. She didn't groan with effort. She just used her abdominal muscles and sat up. Then, she swung her legs over the side of the platform and stood up.

  Her bare feet touched the cold stone floor. She stood tall, her grey gown flowing around her. Her skin was glowing with a soft, healthy blue light. The grey, stony patches on her neck were gone.

  She took a deep breath, filling her lungs completely.

  "I am... light," she said. She looked at her hands, flexing her fingers. They moved instantly, without lag. "I feel as if I could fly."

  She looked at Lloyd. The boredom in her eyes was completely gone. It was replaced by a sharp, terrifying intelligence, mixed with a look of profound, sultry gratitude. A Prince of Hell who was awake and active was a dangerous thing, but right now, that danger was not directed at him.

  "You have done the impossible, Lloyd Ferrum," she said, stepping closer to him until she was invading his personal space. Her scent—jasmine and sulfur—filled his senses. "You treated a god like a broken toy, and you fixed it."