Chapter : 1791
"I have to," Lloyd said. "This do is a temporary solution to a permanent problem. If I don't stop them, they're going to turn this palace into a parking lot."
"But magic doesn't work!" Faria argued. "You said it yourself! They eat it!"
"Regular magic doesn't work," Lloyd corrected. "But I have sothing else. Sothing they haven't seen before."
If they’re going to bring weapons from my old world, I’ll just have to remind them why I was the one who survived it.
He looked at his hands. He could feel the Void energy humming in his veins. It was different from mana. It was colder. Sharper.
The drones outside paused to reload. The silence was sudden and shocking.
"Reloading cycle," Lloyd noted. "Two seconds. Maybe three."
It was a small window. A tiny crack in the door. But for a man like Lloyd, it was a highway.
He dissolved a section of the chain wall, creating a small exit.
"Lloyd!" Faria scread.
He looked back at her and winked. "Don't worry. I'm just going to file a noise complaint."
He stepped out of the do.
The ballroom was a wreck. Tables were overturned. The floor was covered in brass casings. The air slled of gunpowder and ozone.
The five drones stood there, their red eyes glowing in the dust. They looked like monsters from a nightmare, sleek and deadly.
When they saw Lloyd erge, they all turned to face him. Their servos whined as they adjusted their aim.
"Target re-acquired," the lead drone announced. "Shield dropped. Resuming purge."
Lloyd stood alone in the center of the room. He wasn't wearing armor. He wasn't holding a sword. He was wearing a tuxedo that cost more than a farm, and he looked bored.
"You know," Lloyd said, his voice echoing in the sudden quiet. "You guys are really bad at parties. You didn't even try the shrimp."
The drones didn't laugh. They just spun up their guns again.
Lloyd’s eyes glowed with a cold, predatory light. He analyzed their fire rate. He analyzed their shield frequency. He analyzed the structural integrity of their armor.
"Magic doesn't work," Lloyd whispered to himself. "Okay. Fine. If you want to play by the rules of physics, let's play."
He didn't need to cast a fireball. He didn't need to summon a lightning storm. He needed sothing that hit harder than magic. Sothing that hit with the weight of a collapsing star.
He needed a variable they couldn't quantify.
"System," Lloyd said calmly. "Open the Shopping Tree. Category: Heavy Ordnance. Sub-category: Spirits that don't play nice."
A holographic nu appeared in his mind. He scrolled past the swords. He scrolled past the potions. He stopped at a section that was grayed out for most users. A section labeled: [Experintal / High-Yield / Void-Compatible].
He smiled. It was a terrifying smile.
"Let's see how you handle a little bit of sci-fi," Lloyd said.
The drones opened fire.
Lloyd didn't move. He didn't dodge. He just raised his right hand and snapped his fingers.
The steel do was already groaning under the relentless kinetic bombardnt, the tal glowing a dull, angry red from the friction of a thousand impacts. Lloyd didn't need to hear his wives’ shouts to know he was out of ti; the sll of ozone and the heat radiating from the chains told him the barrier was seconds from failure. He tuned out the deafening clangor of the bullets and dove headfirst into the System interface, his ntal fingers flying through the Shopping Tree at a speed that made his brain feel like it was catching fire.
He was ntally scrolling through the System interface so fast his brain felt like it was going to catch fire. He needed a solution, and he needed it five minutes ago.
The problem was simple: Magic was useless. The Firefly drones had those blue shields. Anti-Magic Lattices. They worked by disrupting the frequency of mana. Any spell—fire, ice, lightning—was just structured mana. When it hit the shield, the lattice vibrated and shattered the structure, turning the spell back into harmless raw energy. It was brilliant engineering. Lloyd hated it.
"Okay," Lloyd muttered to himself. "If I can't use magic, and I can't get close enough to punch them without turning into Swiss cheese, I need a ranged weapon. But not a magic one. I need... a gun. A really, really big gun."
Chapter : 1792
He looked at the Shopping Tree. He had a lot of System Coins saved up. He had been hoarding them like a dragon with a 401k plan. He had been saving for the Aegis suit upgrades, or maybe a nice vacation ho in a dinsion that didn't have demons.
But saving money was for people who weren't currently being shot at by spider-robots.
He navigated to the Spirit Summoning tab. Most spirits were elental. Fire, water, earth. Useless. He needed sothing else. Sothing weird.
He found it deep in the catalogue, buried under "Miscellaneous" and "Do Not Touch."
Na: Nova
Type: Spirit of the Void / Technological Construct
Class: Experintal
Description: A spirit born not from nature, but from the concept of "Overwhelming Firepower." Nova does not control elents. Nova converts raw spiritual energy into concentrated plasma.
Cost: Expensive. Very expensive. Like, "sell your kidney and your firstborn" expensive.
"Perfect," Lloyd said. "I'll take it."
He hit the [Purchase] button.
The System chid. A sound only he could hear. It sounded like a cash register opening, followed by a warning siren.
[WARNING: Summoning Spirit 'Nova'. Compatibility check... 100%. Void Affinity detected. Integrating...]
Outside the do, the drones paused. They were reloading again. It was a rhythmic cycle. Fire for ten seconds, cool down for two, reload for one. It was efficient. It was predictable.
"Stay here," Lloyd told the won. "And cover your eyes. This is going to be bright."
"Lloyd, what are you doing?" Faria asked, grabbing his sleeve. Her hand was trembling. "You can't go out there! You'll die!"
"I'm not going to die," Lloyd said, giving her a quick, confident grin. "I'm going to introduce them to my new friend."
He stepped out of the do just as the chains began to cool. The air in the ballroom was hot and slled of burnt tal. The five drones were standing there, their barrels spinning up again.
"Target re-engaged," the lead drone droned. "Resuming purge."
"Yeah, yeah, purge this," Lloyd muttered.
He raised his right arm.
"Co to ," Lloyd whispered. "Nova."
The air around his arm didn't just shimr; it distorted. It looked like heat haze on a highway. A low, thrumming sound filled the room, deeper than the drones, deeper than the music. It was the sound of a star waking up.
White light erupted from his shoulder. It wasn't soft, magical light. It was harsh, clinical, artificial light. It blinded the drones' sensors for a split second.
And then, the transformation began.
It didn't look like magic. It looked like technology.
Sleek, white plating materialized over his skin, interlocking with a series of chanical clicks. Gold circuitry etched itself into the white tal, glowing with a pulsating rhythm. His hand disappeared, consud by the machinery. His forearm expanded, shifting and folding until it was no longer an arm.
It was a cannon.
It was massive, almost too big for his body, but it felt weightless. The barrel was long and rectangular, split into two prongs that crackled with white energy. Cooling vents along the side hissed, releasing jets of steam.
It looked like sothing from a sci-fi movie that had crash-landed in a fantasy novel.
Lloyd flexed his shoulder. The cannon humd. It felt... right. It felt cold and precise. It didn't have a personality like Fang Fairy or Iffrit. It didn't have emotions. It was a tool. A weapon. And right now, that was exactly what he needed.
"System," Lloyd said. "Link targeting array to [All-Seeing Eye]."
[Link Established. HUD Active.]
A blue grid appeared in Lloyd’s vision. Numbers scrolled down the side. Distance, wind speed, shield frequency. He looked at the drones. Red boxes appeared around them.
"Target lock," Lloyd said.
The lead drone seed confused. Its sensors were trying to classify the thing on Lloyd's arm and failing.
"Unknown energy signature detected," the drone said. "Classifying as... Error. Error. Does not compute."
"It computes just fine," Lloyd said, raising the cannon. The hum grew to a whine. "It computes that you're about to have a very bad day."
He didn't yell. He didn't scream a battle cry. He just spoke a single, cold command.
"Nova. Engage."
The drones opened fire. A wall of bullets flew towards Lloyd.
Lloyd didn't move. He didn't dodge. He just planted his feet and pointed the Nova Cannon forward.
"Shield," Lloyd commanded.
A hexagonal barrier of golden light snapped into existence in front of the cannon. The bullets hit it and disintegrated. They didn't bounce; they just turned into dust. It wasn't a magic shield. It was a hard-light barrier, powered by the spirit's own internal reactor.
"My turn," Lloyd said.
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