Chapter : 1913

  From the side of the room, a lazy, amused voice floated through the air.

  "Oh, look at him," Monalisa purred.

  The Prince of Sloth was floating on a cushion of shadow near the dark pool. She rolled over, resting her chin on her hand, watching them with half-closed eyes. She looked like a cat watching a mouse she planned to play with later. She was pale, her arm still grey and heavy from the petrification curse, but she didn't seem to care.

  "So dramatic," Monalisa teased. "Honor. Pride. Freedom. It’s all very tiring, isn't it? Just wear the necklace, sister. Who cares who holds the leash as long as the food is good? Lucifer seems happy enough."

  She floated closer to Lloyd. She reached out and poked his armored shoulder with a long fingernail. Scratch.

  "Little Lion," she said, smiling. "You realize that without that little box, my dear sister is stuck here? Forever? She can't leave. She is a prisoner in her own pretty castle. Is your pride worth that much? Personally, I would wear a collar if it meant I could go take a nap on a warm beach somewhere. Being a Sovereign is exhausting."

  Ben shifted his weight. His metal legs clanked loudly on the stone floor. He turned his head slowly to look at Monalisa. He looked at her like she was a bug he couldn't be bothered to squash.

  "That is because you have no standards," Ben said arrogantly. "You are happy to be a pet. A Sovereign does not negotiate their existence. That is the difference between a King and an animal."

  Monalisa’s eyes flashed with dangerous green fire. For a second, the air in the room got heavy and hard to breathe. The playful cat was gone, replaced by a Devil Prince who could rot flesh with a look.

  "Careful, Tin Man," she hissed. "I saved you from Beelzebub. I might decide to melt you down for scrap if you keep talking."

  "You could try," Ben replied. He didn't look worried at all. He just looked bored.

  "Enough," Lloyd said, stepping between them. He pushed Monalisa’s hand away from his armor. "We aren't fighting each other. And Ben is right. We aren't accepting the collar."

  Monalisa pouted and floated back to her cushion. "Fine. Be boring. But don't blame me when you're stuck here for another century. I'm just saying, freedom is overrated."

  Lloyd turned his back on the hologram. The "Major General" part of his brain was taking over. He stopped thinking about feelings and started thinking about engineering.

  He started pacing around the table, his hands moving like he was building something invisible in the air.

  "Okay," Lloyd said, talking fast. "So the Firefly tech is a trap. We can't use their hardware. It’s compromised. But the physics... the physics work. The idea of creating a small atmosphere around the body is solid. The problem isn't the engine; it’s the lock."

  He stopped and looked at Ben.

  "Ben, you were Firefly Black Ops. You know how they code. Is the Kill Switch hardware or software?"

  Ben walked over to the table. He shoved Monalisa’s floating cushion out of his way without even looking at her. She hissed at him, but Ben ignored her. He leaned over the hologram, his red mechanical eyes whirring as they zoomed in on the drawing.

  "It is integrated," Ben stated. His voice was bored but knowledgeable. "It is both. The signal receiver is a physical part, but the kill command is buried deep in the software. If you try to cut the red wire, the system notices and explodes. It is a fail-deadly design. Firefly does not trust its assets."

  Ben stood up straight and looked at Lloyd.

  "You cannot modify this device, Lord Lloyd. It is a closed system. If you try to hack it, you will trigger the bomb and kill the user. Firefly does not leave backdoors open for amateurs."

  "I’m not an amateur," Lloyd snapped. "And I’m not going to hack it."

  He raised his hand and swiped through the air. The hologram of the Firefly device shattered into a million pixels of light and vanished.

  "We aren't going to fix their trash," Lloyd said, a cold grin spreading across his face. "We are going to build our own."

  ________________________________________

  Eun-ha looked at Lloyd, surprised. She knew her husband was smart, but this was a crazy idea.

  Chapter : 1914

  "Build our own?" she asked. "Evan, you know the complexity. It took Firefly decades to miniaturize the field generator. You want to build one from scratch? Here? With what tools?"

  "With these," Lloyd said.

  He held up his right hand. The skin turned dark, changing instantly into the hard, unbreakable metal of his [Steel Blood]. It wasn't just metal; it was a living material that obeyed his thoughts. Then, his eyes flashed. The whites of his eyes turned pitch black, and a glowing blue ring appeared in the center—the [Blue Ring Eyes] of the Austin bloodline.

  "Firefly relies on circuits, silicon, and batteries," Lloyd said, his voice vibrating with power. "They rely on factories. They are limited by what they can solder and weld. They are limited by normal physics."

  He clenched his fist, and the steel rippled like water.

  "But my power... my Void Power... it lets me mix creation with substance. I don't need to solder wires. I can forge the idea of the device directly into the metal. I can skip the factory entirely."

  Ben looked at Lloyd’s hand. For the first time, the arrogant look on his face cracked a little. He looked genuinely interested. He leaned in, his mechanical eyes analyzing the energy coming off Lloyd’s skin.

  "Open source," Ben muttered. "You want to build an open-source Reality Anchor. Using magical metal instead of microchips."

  "Exactly," Lloyd said. "A 'Clean' Reality Anchor. No remote control. No kill switch. No corporate logo. Just pure function."

  He turned to Eun-ha.

  "I need the specs," Lloyd demanded, all business now. "I need the math. I need the exact pressure differential numbers you calculated. But we aren't going to use their casing design."

  Eun-ha stared at him. She saw the man she had fallen in love with back on Earth. The man who didn't care if a problem was "impossible." He only cared if he had enough coffee and a screwdriver.

  "You really think you can out-engineer an interstellar corporation?" Eun-ha asked, a smile touching her lips.

  "I think they are lazy," Lloyd said dismissively. "They mass-produce things. They cut corners to save money. I’m building a custom job. One of a kind."

  He looked at the empty space above the table where the hologram used to be.

  "They want to put a collar on you," Lloyd said, his voice dropping to a low growl. "I’m going to build you a suit of armor."

  Monalisa sighed loudly, rolling her eyes. She flopped back onto her shadow cushion, looking incredibly bored. She floated upside down, her long hair dangling toward the floor.

  "Oh, Darling," she groaned. "You are so aggressive when you talk about machines. It’s delicious, really. But do you have any idea how boring this is going to be? Math? Diagrams? Can’t we just go kill someone? It’s much faster."

  She reached out and tugged on Lloyd’s cape.

  "You promised to fix me, Little Lion," she whined. "My arm is turning to stone. It hurts. Why are you talking about boxes?"

  Ben turned his head slowly to look at her. "Violence without a plan is just noise," he stated coldly. "Lord Lloyd is proposing a tactical shift. If we can get the Professor to the surface, our advantage increases by 400%. Try to keep up."

  "Don't lecture me, Tin Man," Monalisa snapped, her eyes narrowing. "I saved your master from Beelzebub. If I hadn't stepped in, you would be fly food right now. You should be worshipping me."

  "You intervened because you didn't want your toy broken," Ben countered. "It was possessiveness, not kindness. Do not confuse me with someone who cares about your feelings."

  Lloyd ignored them both. He was already drawing new designs in his head.

  "The alloy is the key," Lloyd said to Eun-ha, pacing again. "We know Star-Frost Ore blocks mana leakage. But raw ore is brittle. If I build a casing out of it, and you get hit in a fight, it cracks. If it cracks, you explode."

  "We discussed this," Eun-ha said. "That is why Firefly uses Null-Steel. It is flexible."

  "I don't have Null-Steel," Lloyd said. "But I have something better."

  He looked at his own hand again. The Steel Blood.

  "My blood," Lloyd said. The idea hit him like a lightning bolt. "If I mix my Steel Blood with the Star-Frost Ore... I can make a living metal. It would respond to your mana. It would expand and contract like skin. It wouldn't be a box; it would be a graft."

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Chapter : 1915

  Eun-ha’s eyes widened. "Biological metal. That... that might actually work. It would bypass the need for mechanical seals. It would be a seamless shell."

  "But there is a catch," Lloyd said, looking at her seriously. "If I use my blood as the base, the device will be linked to me. It will need my mana to maintain its structure. You won't be a slave to Firefly... but you will be tethered to me. If I die, the armor fails. If I run out of mana, the suit weakens."

  Eun-ha smiled. It was a soft, genuine smile that made her look less like a demon queen and more like his wife.

  "I am already tethered to you, Evan," she whispered. "That is a price I am happy to pay. I trust you with my life."

  Ben scoffed again, though it lacked his usual bite. "Sentimental nonsense. But efficient. A biometric lock is harder to hack. It removes external variables."

  "It’s settled then," Lloyd said. He felt a rush of adrenaline. This was it. This was the mission. He wasn't just fighting to survive anymore. He was fighting to create.

  He looked around the room. He had the resources. He had the team.

  The conversation about building a new body for Eun-ha had died down, leaving a strange, vibrating silence in the vast crystal hall. The immediate crisis of the Firefly Corporation and the looming war with the Lucifer Faction felt heavy in the air, like the pressure before a thunderstorm.

  Lloyd Ferrum stood near the obsidian map table, his hand resting on the cool, dark stone. He had a plan for the war. He had a plan for his wife. But there was one more thing—one heavy, jagged stone in his heart that he hadn't put down yet.

  He looked at Eun-ha. She was currently adjusting the magical flow of a nearby crystal pillar, her movements efficient and precise. She looked every bit the Sovereign of Efficiency, the CEO of Hell.

  "Eun-ha," Lloyd said. His voice was quiet, stripped of the sarcastic edge he usually wore like armor. "There is one more thing. It’s personal."

  Ben Ironwood, leaning against a pillar with his massive metal arms crossed, let out a sharp, dismissive breath.

  "Emotions," Ben grumbled, his voice deep and dripping with arrogance. "We have a war to plan, Lord Lloyd. We have a galactic corporation trying to turn this planet into a battery. Do we really have time for your sentimental side projects?"

  Ben’s red mechanical eyes whirred as he scanned the room, looking for threats, or perhaps just looking for something more interesting than feelings.

  "This isn't sentiment, Ben," Lloyd shot back, his eyes narrowing. "This is a debt."

  Lloyd turned back to Eun-ha. "You've organized the Abyss. You've cataloged everything. You treat this place like a giant warehouse."

  "It is a warehouse, Evan," Eun-ha replied, turning to face him. Her violet eyes were calm. "It stores mana. It stores potential. It stores power."

  "Does it store people?" Lloyd asked. The question hung in the air, heavy and sharp.

  Eun-ha paused. She tilted her head, her black horns catching the dim light. "You are asking about souls."

  "I am asking about Jasmin," Lloyd said. The name tasted like iron in his mouth. "My handmaiden. The Diamond Queen. She died protecting my father. She died protecting my house."

  He clenched his fist, remembering the sight of her shattered diamond body in the courtyard.

  "I tried to bring her back," Lloyd continued, his voice tight. "I used the System. I spent a fortune to reconstruct her spirit. But what I got back... it wasn't her. It was a doll. It was a robot with her face. The System told me her soul was gone. Deleted."

  From her floating cushion of shadow, Monalisa Belphagor let out a low, sultry laugh. The Prince of Sloth rolled onto her stomach, kicking her legs in the air like a bored teenager.

  "Oh, Little Lion," she purred, looking at Lloyd with hungry, possessive eyes. "You broke your toy, and now you want to glue it back together? That is so adorable. Humans are so attached to their little friends."

  She floated closer, her grey, petrifying arm dangling limp at her side.

  "Souls are tasty, you know," she teased, licking her lips. "Beelzebub likes them crunchy. Mammon likes them desperate. But me? I think they are too much work to chew. I prefer to just... absorb."

  Chapter : 1916

  "Quiet, witch," Ben snapped. He didn't even look at her. "If you interrupt again, I will test the tensile strength of your neck."

  Monalisa’s eyes flashed green. "You are very rude for a piece of scrap metal. Keep talking, Tin Man. I might decide to turn you into a paperweight."

  "Enough," Lloyd said, stepping between them. He looked at Eun-ha, ignoring the bickering monsters. "I read the journals of Anubis. The alchemist who built the Golem Heart. He wrote about a 'Soul Vault.' He wrote that the Abyss doesn't destroy souls—it captures them. He said that to get a soul back, you don't pray to the gods. You steal from Hell."

  Lloyd took a step forward, his intensity radiating off him like heat.

  "Is she here, Eun-ha? Is Jasmin in this place?"

  Eun-ha sighed. It was a long, tired sound. She walked down the steps of the dais and stopped in front of Lloyd. She looked at him with a mixture of pity and scientific detachment.

  "The concept of 'death' in the human realm is a transition," she explained, her voice taking on her old lecture-hall tone. "When a biological unit ceases function, the energy—the soul—has to go somewhere. The Law of Conservation of Energy applies even to spirits. Energy cannot be created or destroyed; it only changes form."

  She waved her hand, and the map on the table changed. It showed a swirling vortex of white lights flowing down into a dark pit.

  "The Abyss acts as a gravity well," she said. "It pulls in the loose spiritual data from the surface. When a human dies with strong regrets, or strong magic, or—in your friend's case—a connection to a powerful Void ability, they don't just dissipate. They fall down here."

  "So she is here," Lloyd said, hope flaring in his chest.

  "She is... archived," Eun-ha corrected gently. "She will be a glitch."

  "I don't care," Lloyd said stubbornly. "If the data is there, it can be recovered. I just need the right software."

  "It isn't that simple," Eun-ha said. "The Abyss is vast, Evan. There are billions of souls here, compressed into the bedrock, floating in the rivers, fueling the fires of the Seven Princes. To find one specific soul... it would take a search algorithm I don't possess."

  She looked away, toward the dark windows.

  "And even if I could find her... I don't have the authority to release her. I am a Prince, yes. But I am a Prince of the Living Demons. The souls of the dead? They belong to the Deep Dark. They belong to the layer of Hell that even I don't touch."

  "Who controls it?" Lloyd demanded. "Lucifer? Mammon?"

  "No," Eun-ha said. "They are just managers. They skim off the top. But the Vault itself... the core of the Abyss where the souls are kept... that is guarded by the Old Laws."

  Monalisa sighed again, sounding bored by all the technical talk. "You are making it sound so complicated, sister. Just tell him the truth. Tell him about the Big Guy."

  Lloyd frowned. "The Big Guy?"

  Eun-ha shot Monalisa a warning look, but she nodded.

  "There is a hierarchy here, Evan. You know the Seven Princes. You know the factions. But above us... or rather, below us, in the deepest pit... there is the Origin."

  She took a deep breath.

  "You want to retrieve a soul that has crossed the line? You can't just steal it. You have to ask permission. You have to submit a request to the admin."

  "Who is the admin?" Lloyd asked.

  "The Great King Satan," Eun-ha whispered.

  Ben scoffed loudly. "Satan? You already told us about him. The Prince of Wrath. The lazy guy sleeping on a bone chair. You said he was a figurehead."

  "That is the Avatar of Satan," Eun-ha corrected sharply. "That is the physical form he wears to interact with the political layer. That is the tired old warrior who just wants to sleep."

  She looked at Ben, her eyes flashing with a terrifying power.

  "But the Great King... the entity that actually is the Abyss... that is different. That is the consciousness of this entire dimension. It isn't a person you can fight, Ben. It is a force of nature. It is the operating system."

  Lloyd felt a cold sweat on his palms. He had planned to fight armies. He had planned to fight corporations. He hadn't planned to fight a sentient dimension.