Chapter : 543
From the heart of this roaring, crimson vortex, a presence began to erge. A presence so imnse, so ancient, so utterly, terrifyingly, powerful that it dwarfed anything he had ever felt before. The contained, controlled power of his father, the sharp, deadly grace of Ken Park, the beautiful, stormy might of Fang Fairy—they were all flickering candle flas in the face of this raging, stellar inferno. The spiritual pressure was a physical, crushing weight, a hundred tis more potent than Rosa’s had ever been, forcing the very air from his lungs, making his bones creak, threatening to crush him into a thin, carbonized paste on the glowing stone floor.
He could feel the new spirit, Iffrit, being born, being forged in this crucible of fire and shadow. He could feel its imnse, chaotic, and utterly untad, power, a power that was still raw, still unconnected to his will, a wild, newborn god of destruction taking its first, angry breath.
And he realized, with a jolt of ice-cold, dawning terror, that he had made a catastrophic miscalculation. He had designed a vessel of imnse power, yes. He had infused it with the fire of a sun. But he, the creator, the master, was just a nineteen-year-old boy in a world of flesh and blood. And the sheer, overwhelming backlash from the birth of such a being, the raw, untad energy of its manifestation, was too much for his physical form to bear.
He felt his consciousness begin to fray, the edges of his vision greying out, the roaring in his soul overwhelming his thoughts. The heat was unbearable. The pressure, absolute. He was being unmade by his own creation.
Master! Fang Fairy’s voice was a desperate, silver-and-azure lifeline in the roaring crimson inferno of his mind. She was fighting, trying to shield him, her own Transcended power a small, brave island against the apocalyptic tide of Iffrit’s birth. But it wasn't enough. The fire was too great, the pressure too imnse.
He was losing. He was dying. Again. In his own private, supposedly safe, dinsion. Crushed by the very power he had so arrogantly sought to command.
And then, from the depths of his being, from the core of his soul that was not Ferrum, not Austin, not even KM Evan, but sothing older, sothing deeper, sothing… else… a new power stirred.
The dream. The vision. The silent, chaotic void of blue and red. And the crimson shadow. The man made of pure, silent rage, desperately, silently, trying to reach him.
And for the first ti, in this mont of absolute, terminal crisis, a single, clear, and un-mistakable word broke through the static.
Mine.
A wave of pure, absolute, and impossibly ancient, authority erupted from the very center of Lloyd’s being. It was not his own will. It was not the power of his bloodlines. It was sothing else. A presence, a soul, a ghost that had been slumbering within him, awakened now by the catastrophic, existential threat.
The crimson man from his dreams stepped forth, not as a silent silhouette, but as a roaring, possessive, and unbelievably powerful, force of will. And it looked at the raging, chaotic power of the newborn Iffrit, the fire of a god he himself had designed.
And it said, with a voice that was not a sound, but a command that rewrote the very laws of reality:
Yield.
The raging, crimson inferno that was Iffrit’s birth, the untad power that had been about to consu Lloyd completely, suddenly… faltered. It hesitated. It seed to… recognize… this new, ancient, and utterly, comprehensively, dominant authority. The chaotic, destructive fire was instantly, almost respectfully, tad. The overwhelming spiritual pressure receded, pulling back, condensing, solidifying.
The roaring vortex collapsed in on itself, the light and heat drawn inwards, forged into the final, solid form of the being it was creating. The cataclysm was over.
And in the center of the now-silent, scorched, and ash-covered study, he stood.
Iffrit.
He was exactly as Lloyd had designed him. A towering, nine-foot-tall demon of solidified fla and cooled magma, his jagged, crimson-veined armor a masterpiece of brutal, intimidating beauty. His horned, faceless helt was a void of darkness, from which two points of pure, white-hot fire burned, not with chaos, but with a new, quiet, and deeply, profoundly, unsettling, stillness.
And in his gauntleted hands, he held the colossal, twelve-foot-long zanbatō, its massive blade no longer wreathed in a roaring, chaotic inferno, but now sheathed in a silent, almost gentle, licking of crimson and orange flas.
The sheer spiritual pressure emanating from him was still imnse, a physical, palpable weight in the room. But it was no longer chaotic. It was… contained. Controlled. Waiting.
He stood there, a silent, terrifying, and utterly magnificent, statue of dormant, apocalyptic power.
Chapter : 544
Lloyd, his body trembling with the aftershocks, his mind reeling from the near-death experience and the even more shocking, internal intervention, could only stare.
He had summoned a god of fire. And he had, it seed, just discovered that he was already haunted by a ghost who could make even gods… kneel. The ga had not just changed. It had been revealed to be a ga he did not, in any way, understand. And he was, he now knew with a chilling, absolute certainty, not the only player using his body as a piece.
The silence in the scorched, ash-covered study of his Soul Farm was a profound, heavy thing. It was the silence of aftershocks, of a world that had been torn apart and then violently, unnaturally, pieced back together. Lloyd stood, his body still trembling with a phantom weakness, his mind a chaotic battlefield of warring revelations. The summoning of Iffrit had not just been a transaction; it had been a near-death experience, a catastrophic system failure that had been averted not by his own power, but by the intervention of a mysterious, ancient, and deeply possessive entity that apparently resided in his very soul.
The crimson man. Mine. The single, silent, absolute word of command still echoed in the deepest recesses of his being, a chilling reminder that he was not entirely the master of his own house. He was a vessel, a nexus, a strange, multi-layered being whose full nature was a terrifying, unfolding mystery.
But fear was a luxury. The Major General, the pragmatic soldier who had survived three lifetis of chaos, ruthlessly suppressed the existential dread. The crimson ghost was a problem for another day, a strategic variable to be analyzed when he had more data. Right now, he had a new asset. A magnificent, terrifying, and unbelievably powerful, new asset.
He looked at the being that stood silently in the center of the ruined room. Iffrit. The demon of fla. The living embodint of annihilation he himself had designed. The creature was a masterpiece of intimidating, brutalist beauty. Its nine-foot-tall fra, forged from what looked like cooled magma veined with pulsing, crimson light, radiated a dry, searing heat that made the very air around it shimr. The horned, faceless helt was a void of absolute darkness, from which two points of pure, white-hot, stellar fire burned with a steady, contained intensity. And the colossal, twelve-foot-long zanbatō, held in one massive, clawed gauntlet, its blade still sheathed in a silent, licking caress of crimson and orange fla, was not just a weapon; it was a promise of apocalyptic power.
The sheer spiritual pressure emanating from Iffrit was a physical weight, a constant, imnse presence that was a world away from the crackling, energetic hum of Fang Fairy. If Fang Fairy was a thunderstorm—fast, brilliant, and deadly—then Iffrit was a volcano. A slow, inexorable, and utterly, comprehensively, destructive force of nature.
A slow, wolfish grin spread across Lloyd’s face, chasing away the last of the fear, replaced by a surge of pure, exhilarating, and deeply, profoundly, avaricious excitent. He had nearly died giving birth to this monster. It was ti to see what his new, terrifying child could do.
“Fang Fairy,” he murmured, his voice a low, confident hum.
She materialized beside him in a silent ripple of silver-grey and azure light, her ethereal form a cool, graceful counterpoint to Iffrit’s brutal, fiery presence. She looked at the massive, armored demon, her golden eyes holding a look of quiet, analytical curiosity, a master of one elent assessing a master of another. He is… loud, Master, her thought was a dry, lodic hum in his mind. Even in his silence.
“He is our new hamr,” Lloyd replied, his grin widening. “And we have a field of nails that desperately require… flattening.”
He turned his gaze towards the shimring, translucent wall that was the gateway to his Farm. He didn't need to return to the real world and re-enter. Here, in his private domain, he was the master. He simply willed it, and the scene before him shifted, the ruined study dissolving, replaced in an instant by the vast, serene, and impossibly green expanse of the Sli Plains.
The air instantly cooled, losing its searing, volcanic heat, replaced by the pure, neutral atmosphere of the plains. The gentle, squelching gurgle of thousands upon thousands of bouncing, glistening slis filled the silence. They were back, respawned, a fresh, teeming, and entirely oblivious, new crop waiting to be harvested.
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