Chapter : 1799
"I built the board," Jas said. "I set the pieces. I prepared the kingdom. But I didn't have a Queen. I didn't have a Rook. I didn't have the piece that kicks down the door and breaks the enemy's nose."
"And that's ?" Lloyd asked, already knowing the answer.
"You," Jas said. "You are the Major General. The operator. The man who can rge magic and tech into sothing that makes Firefly wet their pants. I’ve been hoarding toys for you, Lloyd. Toys that I couldn't use, but you... you can make them sing."
Lloyd looked at the shattered glass on the floor. He looked at the King who was actually a legendary warlord from another star system.
"You want to marry Isabella," Lloyd said, connecting the dots. "Not for tradition."
"For control," Jas said. "If you marry her, you beco Prince Consort. You gain access to the Royal Vaults without question. You gain command of the armies by law, not just by favor. It streamlines the chain of command. And in a war against Firefly, efficiency is life."
Lloyd let out a long breath. "So, the romantic proposal... the kneeling... that was..."
"Isabella loves you," Jas shrugged. "That part is real. She’s my daughter. She has my stubbornness and her mother’s fire. But the timing? The public display? That was . I signaled her. It was a tactical play."
"You manipulated your own daughter?"
"I manipulated a piece on the board to save the world," Jas said coldly. "Don't look at like that, Lloyd. You've done worse. We are soldiers. We do what is necessary."
Lloyd couldn't argue with that. He had faked his own death. He had manipulated Rosa. He had built a life on lies.
"Okay," Lloyd said. "Okay. You're Jas Khan. I'm... well, you know who I was. We're both ghosts. So what now? We swap war stories? Drink to the good old days?"
Jas stood up. He walked to the bookshelf behind his desk. He pulled a specific book—a dusty to on agricultural history.
CLICK.
A hidden chanism engaged. The entire bookshelf swung open, revealing a dark, steel-lined elevator shaft. It wasn't dieval masonry. It was smooth, cold, industrial tal.
"Now," Jas said, a grim smile spreading across his face. "Now, I show you what I’ve been building in the basent for the last twenty years. Co on, Major General. It’s ti to gear up."
Lloyd stood up. He felt a thrill of anticipation that he hadn't felt in a long ti.
"After you, Joker," Lloyd said.
They stepped into the elevator. The doors slid shut with a pneumatic hiss that didn't belong in this century. They began to descend, going down, deep into the secrets of the King who was actually a soldier.
The elevator descended smoothly, a stark contrast to the clunky, chain-driven lifts Lloyd had built in his own manufactory. This was silent. Magnetic. It humd with a frequency that vibrated in Lloyd's fillings.
"Magnetic levitation," Lloyd noted, running a hand along the smooth tal wall. "Where did you get the power source? A Lilith Stone network?"
"Geothermal tap," King Liam—Jas—replied, staring at the floor indicator numbers counting down. "There's a magma vent three miles under the capital. I tapped into it fifteen years ago. Unlimited clean energy. The drawback is that if the containnt field fails, the entire city turns into a volcano. But hey, high risk, high reward."
"You built a geothermal plant under a dieval city," Lloyd said, shaking his head. "And nobody noticed?"
"People see what they want to see," Jas said. "They see 'Royal Hot Springs.' I see a thermal generator. It’s all about marketing."
The elevator slowed and ca to a stop. The doors slid open with a soft chi.
Lloyd stepped out and stopped dead in his tracks.
He had expected a dungeon. Maybe a secret lab. He had expected dusty crates and maybe a few prototypes.
He was not expecting this.
They were standing on a gantry overlooking a massive, cavernous hangar. The space was enormous, carved out of the bedrock and reinforced with steel plates and glowing rune-lines. The air was cool and recycled, slling of gun oil, preservative grease, and cold steel.
Rows upon rows of racks stretched out into the distance.
"Welco," Jas said, spreading his arms wide, "to the Toy Box."
Lloyd walked to the railing, his eyes wide.
It wasn't swords. It wasn't spears. It wasn't wands.
It was guns.
Thousands of them.
Chapter : 1800
There were racks of assault rifles that looked like modified M4s, but sleek, black, and etched with glowing blue runes along the barrels. There were crates of heavy machine guns. There were anti-tank rocket launchers leaned against the wall like brooms. There were pallets of grenades—fragntation, flash-bang, incendiary.
"My god," Lloyd whispered. "It's beautiful."
"It's necessary," Jas corrected, walking beside him. "When I first arrived here, I tried to learn magic. I really did. But let’s be honest, Lloyd. Casting a fireball takes, what? Three seconds? Four seconds for a big one? In a modern firefight, three seconds is an eternity. Three seconds is death."
"So you built this," Lloyd said.
"I recreated it," Jas said. "My System... it’s called the [Architect]. It allows to blueprint and fabricate anything I understand the engineering of. The problem is materials. Earth steel is garbage compared to what we have here. So I improvised."
They walked down the stairs to the main floor. Lloyd approached a rack of rifles. He picked one up. It was heavy, solid. The balance was perfect. It felt like an extension of his arm.
"Composite stock," Lloyd muttered, examining it. "Mithril alloy receiver. And the barrel... is that Star-Frost Ore?"
"Good eye," Jas nodded. "Star-Frost keeps the barrel cool during rapid fire. And it doesn't warp when you channel mana through it."
"Mana?" Lloyd asked, looking at the magazine. He ejected it. It wasn't filled with brass cartridges. It was filled with glowing blue crystals, shaped like bullets.
"Mag-Tech," Jas explained. "That was the hardest part. Gunpowder is unstable here. The atmospheric mana density makes chemical explosives unpredictable. Sotis they fizzle, sotis they blow your hand off. So, I ditched gunpowder."
Jas took the rifle from Lloyd and slapped the magazine back in. He racked the slide.
CLACK-CHUCK.
The sound was pure nostalgia.
"These are railguns, essentially," Jas said. "Miniaturized. The trigger activates a rune array in the chamber. It dumps a kinetic pulse into the crystal bullet. The bullet accelerates to Mach 3 before it leaves the barrel. No explosion. No recoil. Just pure, armor-piercing velocity."
"And the bullets?" Lloyd asked. "Are they just crystal?"
"Core of depleted Adamantine," Jas grinned. "Wrapped in a mana-conductive shell. Upon impact, the shell shatters, releasing a localized disruption field. It’s designed specifically to punch through Firefly’s shields."
Lloyd looked at the rows of weapons. There were enough here to arm a division.
"You've been busy," Lloyd said.
"I knew they were coming," Jas said, his face darkening. "Firefly. The Corporation. They are locusts, Lloyd. They strip-mine worlds. They enslave populations. And Riverio... this planet is special. The mana density here is off the charts. To them, this isn't a kingdom. It’s a battery. A Mana Farm."
"They want to harvest the planet," Lloyd said.
"They want to hook it up to their grid and suck it dry until it’s a dead rock," Jas said. "I saw them do it to the Proxima system. I wasn't going to let them do it here. Not to my daughter. Not to my people."
Lloyd walked past the rifles to the heavy weapons section. He saw a massive, shoulder-mounted cannon that looked like it could take out a tank.
"But you didn't use them," Lloyd said. "Why? You could have conquered the continent in a week with this gear."
"And then what?" Jas asked. "I conquer the world, and I'm just another tyrant. And when Firefly arrives, I have an army of peasants holding rifles they don't understand, led by a King who can't be everywhere at once. No. I needed the world to get strong on its own. I needed the magic users to reach their peak. I needed the sword masters to be legends."
Jas stopped in front of a glass case. Inside was a sniper rifle. It was a monster of a gun, matte black, with a scope that looked like a telescope.
"I needed a General," Jas said softly. "I'm the Joker, Lloyd. I'm the guy who sets the trap. I'm the guy who rigs the deck. But I'm not the guy who leads the charge. I'm not the guy who inspires n to run into a at grinder. That's you. KM Evan. The Hero of the Mars Front."
Lloyd looked at the sniper rifle. He felt a pull towards it. It wasn't magic. It was muscle mory. It was the ghost of who he used to be.
"You want to take command," Lloyd said.
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