Chapter : 583
The nine hundred and forty-second sli popped with a wet, dissatisfying squelch.
In the silent, unchanging expanse of the Soul Farm, this was the only sound that marked the passage of anything resembling progress. Ti here was a lie, a cruel illusion created by the 6-to-1 dilation effect. Lloyd had been on the Sli Plains for what his internal clock scread were two full days, a marathon of monotonous slaughter, all for a goal that felt both infinitesimally close and agonizingly far away. In the real world, barely eight hours had passed.
He stood in a field of pristine, unnaturally green grass, surrounded by the faint, shimring residue of his dispatched foes. His face, usually a mask of calm calculation or sarcastic detachnt, was set in a grim, stony expression of pure, unadulterated boredom. This wasn't a battle. It wasn't even a hunt. It was factory work of the most soul-crushing kind.
At his side, Fang Fairy, his Transcended spirit of the storm, floated an inch off the ground, her silver-grey hair crackling with contained energy. She sighed, a sound like the lonely whistle of wind through a high mountain pass. With a flick of her elegant wrist, a volley of tiny, needle-like Lightning Darts shot forth, each one unerringly finding a wobbling, gelatinous target. Pop. Pop. Pop. The execution was flawless, efficient, and utterly devoid of passion. It was a goddess doing data entry.
On his other side, the colossal form of Iffrit, his demonic spirit of fire, was a monunt to simring impatience. His twelve-foot-long, fla-wreathed zanbatō was plunged into the earth beside him, the ground around it scorched black. His arms, forged of cooled magma veined with crimson light, were crossed over his massive chest. He hadn't moved in an hour. The sheer energy expenditure required to unleash his annihilating power on these pathetic creatures was a strategic absurdity. It was like using a tactical nuke to eliminate an ant hill. The ant hill would be gone, but so would the entire city block, and you’d be left with a colossal waste of resources. Iffrit’s silence was a judgnt, a rumbling, volcanic declaration that this entire endeavor was beneath him.
Lloyd ignored them both. Their boredom was a mirror of his own. He was the architect of this purgatory, and he was its chief prisoner.
His objective was simple and clear. His Farming Coin balance stood at a hard-won 600 FC. He had completed the goblin suppression quest and other minor tasks, but the vast majority of his wealth ca from the tedious, low-risk, low-reward business of sli-culling. A new quest had appeared in his System interface the mont he returned to the plains: [Sub-Quest: Sli Cull VIII]. The task: eliminate 1,000 slis. The reward: 100 Farming Coins.
One hundred coins. It was a pittance. But it was the pittance he needed. The first major upgrade for the Soul Farm, the one that promised to liberate him from this very monotony, cost 500 FC. He could afford it now. But the soldier in him, the Major General who had led armies and managed continent-spanning logistics, refused to operate on a zero-sum budget. Spending 500 of his 600 coins would leave him with a strategic reserve of only 100. It was an unacceptable risk. An ergency could arise, a new, unexpected threat could appear, and he would be caught without the capital to respond. No, he needed a buffer. This final, agonizing grind to earn another 100 FC would bring his total to 700. After purchasing the upgrade, he would be left with 200 FC—a small, but respectable, ergency fund.
So, the grind continued.
He had learned his lesson about the flashy, unsustainable thods. The "whirlwind of death," his spinning, electrified chain of mass destruction, was a magnificent weapon. It could clear hundreds of slis in seconds. It also drained nearly a third of his and Fang Fairy's combined energy reserves in a single use. It was a showpiece, a weapon for a real battle, not for a war of attrition against an endless tide of gelatin.
Thus, he was forced to embrace the mundane. His B-Rank Steel Blood power manifested not as a glorious vortex, but as two dozen thin, whisper-fine steel chains. They snaked out across the grass, not to crush or slice, but to herd. Like a supernatural sheepdog, he used the chains to corral a cluster of fifty or sixty slis into a tight, wobbling ball.
Chapter : 584
Once they were contained, he would nod to Fang Fairy. She, in turn, would channel the barest minimum of her lightning into the conductive tal. Not a bolt, not a storm, just a controlled, low-amperage jolt. The effect was instantaneous. The slis would jiggle violently, their simple forms unable to handle the electrical current, and then dissolve into shimring motes of light and data.
Bind. Jolt. Pop. Repeat.
It was a perfectly efficient system of slaughter. And it was driving him insane.
His mind, a finely tuned instrunt of strategy and innovation, rebelled against the sheer, mind-numbing repetition. He found himself ntally reciting the chemical formula for saponification, then redesigning the entire plumbing system for the Bathelham Royal Palace, and then composing a scathing internal monologue about the structural inefficiencies of the duchy's southern coastal defenses. Anything to keep the gears of his brain from seizing up with rust.
"Master," Fang Fairy's voice chid in his thoughts, a cool, clear lody. "The spawn rate appears to be reaching its hourly cap. The density is decreasing."
He glanced around. She was right. The endless sea of green blobs had thinned to scattered ponds. He checked the kill counter in his mind. 981.
Nineteen more.
A flicker of genuine, unadulterated anticipation shot through him, a stark contrast to the dull ache of boredom that had been his companion for days. Nineteen more pops, and this personal hell would be over.
"Let's finish this," he projected, his thought imbued with a newfound energy. "Iffrit, your turn. Don't overdo it."
The colossal demon of fire stirred. A low rumble, like the shifting of tectonic plates, echoed in Lloyd’s mind—a wordless expression of assent and relief. Iffrit hefted his massive zanbatō. The sullen, smoldering flas wreathing the blade roared to life, casting a brilliant, dancing crimson light across the plains.
He took a single, deliberate step forward. The remaining nineteen slis, scattered across the field, froze. Their simple, primal instincts scread at them, a final, futile warning of the absolute annihilation that was approaching.
Iffrit raised his sword. It was a gesture of profound, cosmic finality.
Iffrit brought the zanbatō down not in a swing, but in a slow, deliberate, almost lazy arc. It was the gesture of a god swatting a gnat, contemptuous and absolute. The blade itself didn’t even touch the ground. The wave of pure, incandescent heat that rolled off the roaring flas was more than enough.
FWOOSH.
A tsunami of fire, a moving wall of elental annihilation, washed over the field. The nineteen remaining slis didn't pop or dissolve. They were unmade. They were erased from existence in a flash of heat and light, leaving behind only patches of scorched, glassy earth. The spectacle was magnificent, terrifying, and gloriously, wonderfully excessive. It was Iffrit’s final, punctuating statent on the entire, undignified affair.
The mont the last sli was vaporized, the System chid in Lloyd’s mind, a sound sweeter than any symphony.
[Sub-Quest Complete: Sli Cull VIII]
[Target: 1000/1000]
[Reward: 100 Farming Coins (FC) have been added to your balance.]
[Current Balance: 700 FC]
Seven hundred.
Lloyd let out a breath he didn't realize he’d been holding for the last two days. The tension flowed out of him in a single, cathartic wave, leaving him feeling hollowed out but deeply, profoundly relieved. He dismissed his spirits. Iffrit vanished in a swirl of smoke and embers, his work done. Fang Fairy gave a silent, graceful nod before dissolving into motes of silver light.
He was alone again, but the silence was different now. It was the silence of accomplishnt, not the silence of unending labor. He sank to the ground, the ache in his back and the weariness in his soul a testant to the ordeal he had just completed. The grind was over. The capital had been secured.
He sat there for a long ti, simply soaking in the quiet. He didn’t imdiately rush to the System interface. The victory was too hard-won to be spent in an instant. He needed to savor it, to let the reality of his achievent settle in. He had subjected himself to a level of profound tedium that would have broken a lesser man, not for a burst of power, but for a piece of infrastructure. It was the least glamorous path, the one paved with the most grit and the least glory. And that made the reward feel all the more substantial.
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