Chapter : 1853

  With a final, wet snap, the last of the grey roots withdrew into his skin, leaving no mark behind. Left in the palm of his black armored glove was a single object.

  It was a fruit.

  It was roughly the size of a large apple, but that was where the resemblance ended. The skin of the fruit was a deep, vibrant crimson, so dark it almost looked black in the dim light of the Underworld. Veins of glowing red light pulsed beneath the skin, beating in time with Lloyd’s own heart. The fruit was heavy—far heavier than any piece of food should be. It felt dense, like holding a solid ball of lead wrapped in velvet.

  Lloyd stood up slowly. His servos whined in protest, the joints stiff from the intense pressure of the battle. He held the fruit up to the bruised purple sky, inspecting it with his [All-Seeing Eye].

  Streams of blue data scrolled across his internal visor, analyzing the object in his hand with cold, mathematical precision.

  [Item Analysis Complete]

  [Name: Fruit of Attrition (Grade A)]

  [Origin: Void Wood Conversion Protocol]

  [Composition: 95% Concentrated Gluttony Mana, 5% Void Residue]

  [Effect: Instantly restores 100% of Mana and Stamina. Permanently increases mana density by 2%.]

  [Warning: Highly addictive flavor profile. Do not consume if core is unstable.]

  "Well," Lloyd muttered, his sarcasm returning as the adrenaline faded. "That is certainly convenient. Although, knowing this place, it probably tastes like despair."

  He lowered his hand and looked over at Ben.

  The Ironwood Sovereign was not slumped in defeat. He was leaning against a broken stone pillar twenty feet away, but he was upright, his posture rigid and defiant. His heavy armor, usually polished and imposing, was scorched black and dented in multiple places from the crushing pressure of the vines. His prosthetic limbs were silent and still; the magical batteries that powered them had been completely drained by the fight. Without power, his limbs were just dead weight, anchors of solid steel dragging him down.

  Ben was breathing in shallow, controlled gasps, his face pale and covered in a mixture of grime and sweat. The trap had nearly killed him, draining his Steel Blood mana to the absolute limit. He looked like a tank that had run out of fuel, but his single eye burned with a furious, analytical light. He wasn't waiting for rescue; he was running diagnostics on his own failure.

  "Ben," Lloyd called out, his voice amplified by his helmet speakers. "Status report."

  Ben spat a mouthful of red dust onto the ground. He didn't look at Lloyd; he glared at his own frozen metal hand. "Critical system failure," Ben rasped, his voice dripping with frustration. "My core is empty. The Stasis Field I used to survive the crush... it took everything. I'm operating on fumes, Lloyd. My limbs are locked. I am essentially a statue."

  "Hold on," Lloyd said, walking over. The debris crunched under his heavy boots. "I found a resource."

  Lloyd looked at the crimson fruit in his hand again. His engineer’s brain told him this was perfectly safe. The Void Wood had acted as a biological filter. It had stripped away all the malice, the corruption, and the madness from the demonic mana, leaving only raw, purified fuel. It was essentially a high-capacity battery in organic form.

  But his human brain hesitated for a split second. Eating something created from a death trap felt wrong. It felt like eating a bullet that had been fired at him.

  However, the tactical necessity was overwhelming. His body was screaming for energy. The Void Wood technique had a high calorie cost, and he was running on fumes. His stomach growled loud enough for the suit's internal microphone to pick it up.

  "Here goes nothing," Lloyd muttered.

  He took a bite.

  Crunch.

  The skin of the fruit snapped with a crisp, satisfying sound. Instantly, an explosion of flavor flooded his mouth. Lloyd’s eyes widened behind his visor. He expected it to taste like iron, or ash, or perhaps like rot.

  It didn't. It tasted like electricity mixed with sugar. It tasted like strawberries that had been soaked in lightning. It was the taste of waking up after a perfect ten-hour sleep, fully rested. It was the taste of raw power.

  Chapter : 1854

  A warm rush spread from his stomach to his chest, then out to his limbs. The fatigue that had been weighing down his bones vanished in a heartbeat. His vision, which had been slightly blurry at the edges, sharpened to crystal clarity. The ache in his muscles disappeared. He could feel his mana reserves, which had been critically low, shooting back up—50%, 80%, 100%.

  And it didn't stop there. The energy continued to climb, overflowing his capacity, causing his skin to buzz with static electricity.

  "Oh," Lloyd said, swallowing the bite. "That is... very effective. High octane."

  He took another bite, then another, devouring the fruit in seconds. He felt energized, powerful, and ready to fight an entire army. The heavy weight of the Abyss seemed to lift off his shoulders.

  He wiped the red juice from his chin and looked at what was left in his hand.

  There was a single seed.

  It was small, black, and hard as a diamond. It pulsed with a faint, grey light—the signature of the Void Wood.

  As Lloyd looked at the seed, the world around him seemed to freeze. A sudden, brilliant connection clicked in his mind. The gears of his intellect began to spin, connecting dots that he hadn't realized were related.

  He thought back to Monalisa Belphagor, the Prince of Sloth.

  He remembered the diagnosis he had given her only hours ago in the Palace of Stillness. Her body was failing because her mana had stagnated and turned into "Abyssal Sediment"—a thick, sludge-like waste that clogged her veins and turned her to stone. He had performed a temporary fix using steel tubes and filters, but he knew it was just a patch. The sludge would return because her own body produced it. She was a machine destined to clog itself.

  But this fruit...

  "This fruit was made by sucking out energy," Lloyd realized, speaking his thoughts aloud to the empty square. "The Void Wood latched onto the city’s battery, sucked out the raw power, filtered it, and condensed the waste and energy into this fruit."

  He turned the black seed over in his metal fingers.

  "If I use the Void Wood on Monalisa... I don't need to build a machine. I don't need pumps. The Void Wood is a natural filter. I can plant the roots in her mana veins, suck out the 'Abyssal Sediment,' and the tree will automatically filter the bad energy."

  His eyes began to glow with excitement.

  "The tree will turn her sickness into a fruit," Lloyd whispered. "I can cure a Prince of Hell, and in the process, I get a high-grade mana battery to eat. It’s a perfect recycling loop. It is the ultimate efficiency."

  This changed everything.

  Before, he only had a tentative alliance with Monalisa based on a temporary medical treatment. She tolerated him because he was useful. But if he could offer a permanent cure—and a simple, painless one at that—he wouldn't just be a useful human. He would be her savior.

  A Prince of Hell would owe him a life debt. And in the dangerous game of politics he was playing, having the Prince of Sloth in his debt was a card that could win the whole game.

  "Ben!" Lloyd shouted, his voice echoing in the quiet square. "I figured it out! I figured out how to fix the lazy queen! It's a bio-filtration loop!"

  Ben looked up, his expression one of immense irritation. He scoffed, the sound harsh and metallic. "You're solving medical puzzles while we're standing in a kill-zone? Focus, Lloyd. I don't care about the Queen's health plan. I care about the fact that my legs are currently paperweights."

  Lloyd chuckled. He carefully wrapped the black seed in a piece of clean cloth from his pocket and placed it deep inside his Spatial Inventory. This seed was now one of the most valuable items in his possession. It was a bargaining chip worth more than gold.

  "Right," Lloyd said, shaking off his epiphany. "Priorities."

  He walked over to Ben, his heavy boots crunching on the debris. He stopped in front of his cousin, looking down at the immense, powerless armor. "You drained yourself completely using Sloth to freeze the vines, didn't you? Stasis consumes mana exponentially against active threats."

  "It kept me alive," Ben retorted, his pride bristling. "I didn't ask for a critique on my resource management. Just give me a jump start so I can get back to killing."

  "I can do better than a jump start," Lloyd said.

  Chapter : 1855

  The fruit Lloyd had eaten was potent. It was overflowing with energy. Lloyd placed his hand on Ben’s shoulder plate.

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  "Interface," Lloyd commanded.

  He channeled the excess mana from the fruit directly into Ben. It wasn't a gentle transfer; it was a high-pressure injection.

  Whirrrr-click.

  Ben’s arms hummed back to life. The lights on his elbow joints flickered from dead red to a steady yellow. The heavy weight of his armor seemed to lighten as the servos engaged.

  "What did you eat?" Ben asked, staring at Lloyd with a calculating gaze. "Your output is spiking. You're radiating enough heat to cook a steak. Where did you get that kind of density?"

  "I ate the trap," Lloyd explained with a grin hidden behind his visor. "Rubel tried to drain us, so I reversed the flow and ate his battery. It tastes like victory, Ben. And maybe a little bit like strawberries."

  "You are a scavenger," Ben said, shaking his head but testing the grip of his metal hand. "Only you would look at a death trap designed to kill us and see a buffet. It's disgusting. Effective, but disgusting."

  "Waste not, want not," Lloyd replied. He patted Ben on the shoulder, checking the structural integrity of his friend's armor. "Can you walk? My sensors say Rubel is hiding in the Inner Sanctum. He knows his trap failed. He’s going to be desperate, and desperate men make mistakes."

  Ben hefted his heavy lance. He checked the seals on his armor and flexed his mechanical fingers. He was still battered, and his spirit was low, but the restoration of his mobility brought back his arrogance. He stood up to his full height, towering over Lloyd.

  "I can walk," Ben said, his voice cold and hard. "I can fight. And I'm done playing defensive. Let’s go kick his door down."

  "Good," Lloyd said. He turned his gaze toward the dark, towering palace that loomed over the city like a tombstone. "Let’s go, Rook. The traitor is waiting, and I’m feeling energized enough to punch a hole through a mountain."

  Part 2

  They left the ruined central square and began the trek deeper into the heart of Gator City. The walk was surreal. Just ten minutes ago, the city had been a deafening riot of noise—thousands of demons chewing, fighting, screaming, and bartering for food. The very stones beneath their feet had vibrated with a hungry hum that rattled the teeth.

  Now, the city was dead silent.

  It wasn't a peaceful silence. It was the terrified silence of a jungle after a predator has roared. It was the silence of prey hiding in their burrows.

  The magical streetlamps, which usually burned with a sickly, gluttonous yellow flame, had all flickered out when Lloyd drained the grid. The only light came from the bruised purple sky overhead and the faint, cold blue glow of Lloyd’s visor. The shadows stretched long and thin across the streets, looking like skeletal fingers reaching out to grab them.

  As they walked down the main avenue, Lloyd kept his sensors active. He could feel eyes watching them from every darkened window, every crack in the walls, and every alleyway.

  The citizens of Gator City—the Gluttonyspawn—were hiding. These were creatures born of hunger, monsters that instinctively attacked anything that moved to satisfy their endless cravings. Usually, two humans walking down the street would be swarmed instantly. But they had just witnessed something impossible.

  They had seen two humans walk into the "Garden of Vines," the city's ultimate defense, and not only survive but consume it.

  To a demon of Gluttony, being eaten is the ultimate fear. Lloyd had terrified them on a primal level. He had out-eaten the city.

  Ben noticed the movement too. He saw vertical pupils widening in the cracks of shuttered windows. He heard the soft, frantic clicking of heavy bolts sliding into place behind reinforced doors. A large, four-armed demon peeked out from an alley, saw Lloyd’s black armor, and immediately scrambled backward into the darkness, whimpering like a kicked dog.

  "Look at them," Ben sneered, keeping his lance ready but lowering the tip slightly. "Cowards. They scatter like rats when the light turns on. I thought this was a city of monsters, not a nursery."

  "Fear is universal, Ben," Lloyd said, his voice echoing softly in the empty street. "Fear is just data. It’s the calculation that you are no longer the top of the food chain. Right now, they don't know what we are. To them, we are the new apex predators. We are monsters that consume energy."

  Chapter : 1856

  "I prefer being the predator," Ben stated, looking at a group of goblins scurrying away like roaches as they approached. "It simplifies the rules of engagement. Anything that runs is prey. Anything that stands is a target."

  "Enjoy it," Lloyd said. "Psychological warfare is efficient. Every demon that hides is one less demon we have to fight. It saves ammo."

  They continued forward, their boots clicking loudly on the cold cobblestones. They crossed a bridge made of bleached white bone that spanned a dry canal. The canal was usually filled with blood-red sludge, but now it was empty, cracked and dry. Lloyd’s "Life-Eater" protocol had been thorough. It had drunk the city dry.

  Ahead of them lay the Inner District.

  The architecture changed drastically here. The chaotic, messy feeding stalls and mud-brick hovels of the outer city were gone. In their place stood towering spires of polished black obsidian and red marble. The buildings twisted upward like jagged teeth, leaning over the street to create a claustrophobic tunnel.

  This was the Noble Quarter, where the high-ranking demons and Rubel’s elite guards lived.

  Lloyd slowed his pace. He reached into his pocket—or rather, his inventory—and pulled out a small canteen of water. He took a sip, looking casual, but his [All-Seeing Eye] was scanning every inch of the road ahead. The data streams were moving fast, analyzing the geometry of the buildings.

  "Ben," Lloyd said quietly, screwing the cap back onto his canteen. "Do you know why Rubel chose this city?"

  "Because he's a parasite," Ben replied instantly, scanning the rooftops for snipers. "He went where the food was. He wanted to gorge himself on power he didn't earn."

  "That's part of it," Lloyd said. "But look at the design. The outer city feeds the inner city. The noise, the eating, the energy... it all flows inward. Rubel didn't just hide here; he plugged himself into the top of the pyramid. He thinks he's safe because he's surrounded by walls and guards."

  Lloyd stopped at the edge of a large, circular plaza that marked the entrance to the Inner District. The massive iron gates were open. Beyond the gates, the hallway was dark and smooth, lined with highly polished reflective surfaces.

  "But walls work both ways," Lloyd continued. "They keep enemies out, but they also keep you in. Rubel is trapped in his own fortress. He knows his vines failed. He knows his power grid is dead. He’s sitting in that throne room right now, watching us approach, and he’s realizing that his walls have turned into a cage."

  Ben looked at the open gate. He frowned, his single eye narrowing with suspicion. "Open gates? In a siege? It insults my intelligence. It's a trap, Lloyd. Obviously."

  "It is a trap," Lloyd confirmed instantly. "My sensors are picking up a massive spatial distortion just past the threshold. The geometry inside that hallway is wrong. The lines don't meet where they should. The floor is tilted at an angle that the eye can't see."

  Ben tensed up, the grey aura of his Sloth spirit flickering around his shoulders. "Spatial magic? Like a portal?"

  "Worse," Lloyd said. "A maze. It’s a Mirror Fold. It’s designed to separate a squad. If we walk in there, the space will twist. You’ll go one way, I’ll go another. He wants to divide our strength so he can pick us off one by one. He knows he can't beat us together, so he wants to fight us alone."

  Ben frowned deeply. "So we flank? Blow a hole in the side wall?"

  Lloyd shook his head. "We can't. The distortion is anchored to the palace foundation. It covers the entire district. If I try to break it from the outside using Void energy, the feedback could collapse the entire district. We’d be burying ourselves under a mountain of obsidian."

  Lloyd stepped closer to the gate, staring into the dark, reflective corridor. He could feel the magic humming—a low, discordant note that grated on his nerves. It was a sloppy, desperate spell, but it was powerful.

  "We have to walk into it, Ben," Lloyd said calmly. "We have to let the trap trigger. Once we are inside the distortion, I can find the anchor point and shatter it. But until then... we’re going to be on our own."

  Ben looked at the dark maw of the gate. He didn't look afraid; he looked annoyed. He trusted Lloyd’s analysis, but he hated playing by the enemy's rules.