Chapter : 1801
"I want you to take the inventory," Jas said. "I've been hoarding these toys for hundred years, Lloyd. Waiting for soone who knows trigger discipline. Soone who knows what flanking fire is. Soone who knows that 'honor' is just a fancy word for 'standing in the open and getting shot'."
Jas unlocked the case. He took out the sniper rifle and held it out to Lloyd.
"Take it," Jas said. "It's the 'Longbow Mk. V'. Effective range: three miles. It fires a payload that can crack a Dragon's scale or a Firefly Dropship's hull. It’s yours."
Lloyd took the weapon. He settled the stock against his shoulder. He looked through the scope. The crosshairs were crisp, glowing red.
He felt a shift inside him. The exhaustion of the party, the confusion of the proposal, the weight of the politics... it all faded.
This he understood. This was simple. Point. Click. Delete.
"Okay," Lloyd said, lowering the rifle. "I'm impressed. But guns aren't enough. Firefly has orbital support. They have chs. They have those spider-drones."
"I know," Jas said. "That's why we're not done. This is just the small arms locker. The real surprise is in the sub-basent."
"Sub-basent?" Lloyd asked. "How deep does this rabbit hole go?"
"Deep enough to bury our enemies," Jas said. "Co on. I want to show you the reason I haven't slept in a decade."
They took a second elevator, descending even deeper into the earth. The air grew warr here, closer to the geothermal tap. The hum of machinery was louder, a constant thrumming vibration that felt like the heartbeat of a sleeping giant.
"You ntioned the Mana Farm," Lloyd said as they descended. "How long have they been watching us?"
"Since the Great War," Jas said. "You know the history? The fall of the Babylon Empire? The chaos?"
"I know it," Lloyd said. "My grandfather helped burn it down."
"Firefly was there," Jas revealed. "They weren't invading yet. They were scouting. They supplied the Empire with 'artifacts'. Strange weapons that didn't use mana. They were testing the locals. Testing our resistance. When the Empire fell, they pulled back. They decided the fruit wasn't ripe yet. They waited for the mana levels to rise. For the population to recover."
"And now they're back," Lloyd said. "Because we're ripe."
"Because we're unified," Jas corrected. "The alliance. The peace treaty. Stability increases mana production. War burns mana; peace cultivates it. By saving the world, Lloyd, you accidentally rang the dinner bell."
"Fantastic," Lloyd muttered. "I saved the world so aliens could eat it. Go ."
"Don't bla yourself," Jas said. "If you hadn't united the continent, we'd be picked off one by one. Now, at least, we have a fighting chance."
The elevator stopped. The doors opened.
This room was different. It wasn't an armory. It was a testing ground. It was a massive, circular arena, reinforced with blast shields and magical dampening fields. The floor was scorched and pitted.
In the center of the arena, standing motionless in a cradle of support beams and cables, was a machine.
It wasn't one of Lloyd's Aegis suits. It wasn't the clunky, industrial aesthetic he favored.
This thing was a nightmare of curves and sharp angles. It was painted a dark, glossy crimson. It stood twenty feet tall, towering over them. It had a single, glowing mono-eye in the center of its head. Its arms ended in massive, three-fingered claws, and mounted on its shoulders were pods that looked suspiciously like missile launchers.
"Is that..." Lloyd started, his voice trailing off.
"Firefly Battle ch," Jas confird. "Executioner Class. Mark IV. We managed to shoot it down five years ago. It crashed in the Great Salt Desert. The pilot didn't survive. The machine... mostly did."
"You captured a Firefly ch," Lloyd said, staring at the chanical beast. "And you fixed it?"
"I repaired it," Jas said. "I patched the armor with Adamantine. I replaced the power core with a high-output Lilith Engine. I rewired the neural interface to accept a human pilot. Well, a human with a very, very strong mind."
Jas walked over to a control console overlooking the arena. He began flipping switches. Lights flickered on around the ch. The crimson paint glead under the harsh arc-lights.
"Why are you showing this?" Lloyd asked. "You want to pilot it?"
"No," Jas said. "I have pilots. I have a squad of specialized knights training on simulators. They're good. But they lack... imagination. They try to fly it like a dragon. They try to fight with it like it’s a suit of armor."
Chapter : 1802
Jas turned to Lloyd. His expression was serious. Deadly serious.
"This war isn't going to be won by machines, Lloyd. It's going to be won by the n who command them. I need to know if you're ready. Not just to shoot a gun. Not just to plan a wedding."
"Ready for what?"
"Ready to fight the future," Jas said. "You have spirits. You have Void powers. You have the System. You are a hybrid. A bridge between this world and ours. But can you handle the synergy? Can you fight physics with magic, and magic with physics, without your brain lting out of your ears?"
"I think I've proven myself," Lloyd said, bristling slightly. "I took down the drones."
"You took down scouts," Jas dismissed. "Drones are automated. They're stupid. This..." He gestured to the ch. "This is a war machine. It has a combat AI. It learns. It adapts. And right now, it’s set to 'Kill'."
Lloyd looked at the ch. It was silent. Dormant.
"You want to fight it," Lloyd realized.
"I want you to survive it," Jas said. "I want to see how you handle a threat that doesn't care about your mana levels. A threat that can calculate your trajectory faster than you can think."
Jas pressed a large, red button on the console.
KLANG.
The support clamps holding the ch released. They fell away, crashing to the floor.
The ch didn't fall. It stood there, balancing perfectly on its reverse-jointed legs.
A low, deep thrumming sound started up. The sound of a reactor coming online.
The mono-eye flashed. It cycled from black to dim red, then to a blinding, angry crimson.
"System Check," a synthetic voice bood from the ch. "Online. Weapons: Active. Target Acquisition: Scanning."
The massive head turned. The red eye swept the room. It locked onto Lloyd.
"Target Acquired," the ch said. "Designation: Hostile. Threat Level: High."
"This is crazy," Lloyd said, loosening his tie. "You're crazy. You know that, right?"
"I'm the Joker," Jas grinned. "Sanity is a liability."
The King picked up a microphone. His voice echoed through the arena speakers.
"Test Scenario Alpha," Jas announced. "Survival. No restrictions. Use your spirits. Use your Void. Use your bad jokes. Just don't die."
Lloyd sighed. He took off his tuxedo jacket and tossed it aside. He rolled up his sleeves.
"Okay," Lloyd said to the twenty-foot tall killing machine. "You want to dance? Let's dance."
He reached out with his mind. He didn't summon Nova. Nova was drained. He didn't summon Fang Fairy or Iffrit yet. He needed to gauge the threat first.
He activated his [All-Seeing Eye].
He looked at the ch. He saw the reactor core pulsing in its chest. He saw the missile pods loading. He saw the hydraulic fluid pumping through its limbs like blood.
"It's fast," Lloyd noted. "And those missiles are heat-seekers."
The ch took a step forward. The ground shook.
"Show !" Jas shouted from the control booth. "Show you can be the General! Show why I shouldn't just retire and let the aliens have the planet!"
The ch raised its arm. The rotary cannon spun up.
"Oh, shut up," Lloyd muttered.
He activated [Steel Blood]. Chains erupted from the floor, wrapping around his arms like gauntlets.
The ch fired.
The rotary cannon didn't just fire; it scread.
BRRRRRRRT.
A stream of high-velocity tracers tore through the space where Lloyd had been standing a microsecond ago. The concrete floor exploded into dust and shrapnel, chewing a jagged line of destruction across the arena.
Lloyd didn't wait to see the damage. He was already moving.
"Void Steps!" he shouted.
His body flickered, vanishing in a blur of blue distortion. He reappeared ten feet to the left, his dress shoes skidding on the smooth tal floor. A ghostly afterimage lingered for a split second before the stream of bullets shredded it.
"It's tracking my movent patterns!" Lloyd realized, diving behind a reinforced concrete pillar. "It's using predictive algorithms!"
CRACK-CRUMBLE.
The pillar disintegrated under the hail of fire. Chunks of stone flew everywhere. The sheer kinetic energy of the rounds was tearing the cover apart. Lloyd huddled behind the shrinking debris, covering his head as the deafening roar of the weapon filled the cavernous room.
Up on the observation deck, King Liam’s voice bood through the speakers, barely audible over the destruction. "Show you can fight physics with magic, Major General! In a war against Firefly, if you stand still, you die!"
The ch stopped firing its cannon. It crouched slightly, its hydraulic legs compressing.
WHOOSH-WHOOSH-WHOOSH.
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