Chapter : 1113
He opened his eyes, the grin on his face now one of absolute certainty. He looked at his three spirits, who had been watching his silent meditation with varying degrees of impatience.
"I have the solution," he announced. "We have our mountain-breaker."
He then looked directly at the fourth, often-overlooked member of his team. Doppelganger, his silent doppelganger of light and shadow, hovered at the edge of the room, a living question mark awaiting a purpose.
"And you," Lloyd said to the spectral mimic, "have the most important job of all."
The war council reconvened. This time, Lloyd was not a passive observer but an active participant in the strategy session. He stood before his spirits, a commander briefing his elite operatives for a high-risk mission.
"Bingyu, your assessment was correct," he began, his voice crisp and authoritative. "We need a decisive, overwhelming final blow. I have acquired the means to deliver it." He paused, letting the statement hang in the air. "It is a technique that multiplies my physical power exponentially over time. However, it requires a ten-minute charging period, during which I, or a proxy, will be completely immobile and vulnerable. The new plan will be built around protecting that charging process."
He turned to Doppelganger. "You will be my proxy. You will take my form, find a secure position at the edge of the battlefield, and initiate the [Lazy Sage] protocol. Your only function will be to remain absolutely still and accumulate power. Do you understand?"
The doppelganger gave a silent, fluid nod, its form momentarily shimmering into a perfect, spectral replica of Lloyd before resolving back into its amorphous state. Its loyalty was absolute, its purpose singular.
Next, he addressed the re-summoned Abyss. The water shark spirit, still feeling the psychic phantom of its recent dissipation, hovered nervously. "Abyss, your role is ground control. You will not engage the trees directly. Your essence is too vulnerable to their aura for a direct confrontation. Instead, you will saturate the earth around them, turning the entire clearing into a grasping, chaotic quagmire. Your objective is to immobilize their roots and slow their advance. You are not the weapon this time. You are the cage."
Abyss gave a low, gurgling affirmation, a wave of determined energy flowing through their bond. A second chance to contribute, a role that played to its strengths while minimizing its weaknesses. Lloyd could feel its resolve solidify.
He then faced his two original powerhouses. "Iffrit. Fang Fairy. You two are the guardians." He met Iffrit’s fiery gaze. "I know a defensive role is not your preference, but this is the linchpin of the entire plan. Your mission is to form a defensive perimeter around Doppelganger. You will intercept and destroy any and all threats that approach the charging zone. I don't care how much energy it costs. Nothing gets through." He then looked at Fang Fairy. "Your speed is our rapid response. Anything that gets past Iffrit's wall, you neutralize it before it can reach Doppelganger. For ten minutes, you are an unbreakable shield of fire and lightning."
Iffrit slammed the butt of his flaming zanbatō onto the stone floor, a gesture of silent, fiery assent. Through the bond, Lloyd felt the demon’s grudging respect for the audacity of the plan. It was insane, which appealed to Iffrit's nature. Fang Fairy's eyes glowed with a new intensity, a predator accepting the simple, brutal clarity of a hunt.
Finally, he looked to his new queen. "Bingyu. You are the conductor of this orchestra. Your blizzard will be our primary weapon of suppression. You will control the tempo of the entire battle. Your objective is to freeze the trees' branches, slow their reaction time, and force them to expend energy fighting the cold. Harry them, distract them, and keep their attention focused on the center of the clearing, away from Doppelganger's position. You are the art of this war."
Bingyu inclined her head, her sapphire eyes holding a flicker of what might have been impressed respect. "A logical and efficient allocation of assets. The risk is concentrated on the charging proxy, but the defensive layering is sound. The protocol is acceptable."
The plan was a masterpiece of synergy. A multi-layered, synchronized operation where every spirit had a critical, non-overlapping role. It was a complex, beautiful, and terrifyingly fragile house of cards. If any one part failed—if Abyss couldn't hold the ground, if Iffrit and Fang Fairy's wall broke, if Bingyu couldn't maintain the blizzard—the entire strategy would collapse, and the vulnerable, power-charging Doppelganger would be annihilated, taking the hope of victory with it.
Chapter : 1114
"We have one attempt at this," Lloyd said, his voice dropping to a deadly serious whisper. "There is no room for error. Every second counts. We hold the line for ten minutes, and I will end it. That is the mission."
He looked at each of his spirits, feeling their collective resolve, their shared purpose flowing back to him. He could feel Iffrit’s burning pride, now channeled into a protective duty; Fang Fairy’s razor-sharp focus; Abyss’s nervous determination; Doppelganger’s silent obedience; and Bingyu’s cold, analytical confidence. They were no longer just a collection of powers; they were a team. A family of gods and monsters, forged in the crucible of his will.
"Positions," he commanded.
The spirits dissolved and reformed in his mind, their power contained but ready. Lloyd took a deep, steadying breath and walked towards the shimmering, opaline portal that led back to the ninth level. The Unbeatable Orchard had beaten him three times. It had humiliated him, broken his spirits, and forced him to fundamentally re-evaluate his own power.
Now, he was returning. Not just with a new weapon, but with a new philosophy. And he was going to teach the orchard a brutal, final lesson in the art of the mountain-shattering fist. He stepped through the gate, the cold, cloying air of the dying grove washing over him like an old, unwelcome memory. This time, he wasn't here to fight. He was here to conquer.
The moment they stepped back into the orchard, the atmosphere of predatory silence descended. Lloyd didn't hesitate. He was no longer a participant in this battle; he was the conductor, and the downbeat was now.
"Execute," he commanded through his shared mental link.
The world erupted into a controlled, strategic chaos.
While his spirits exploded into action, Lloyd himself moved with a quiet, deliberate purpose that was the antithesis of the violence about to unfold. He retreated to the edge of the clearing, finding a secure position in a shallow alcove formed by the petrified, overlapping roots of a long-dead leviathan of a tree. This was his throne room and his prison for the next ten minutes. He sat, crossed his legs, and rested his hands on his knees. He took a single, deep, centering breath, and then closed his eyes.
The world of sound and fury vanished, replaced by the inner silence required by the [Lazy Sage's Secret Art]. A shimmering, almost invisible aura began to form around him, the first stirrings of the paradoxical power. He was now a statue, a battery, a point of absolute vulnerability. His life, his entire plan, rested on the absolute, unwavering loyalty of the gods and monsters he called his family. He had placed his fate completely in their hands.
On the battlefield, his proxy took his place. The Doppelganger, a shifting, amorphous being of silver light and shadow, flowed to the center of the clearing. It coalesced, shimmered, and took on a perfect, spectral replica of Lloyd’s form. It held a practice sword forged from solidified shadow, and its empty, vacant eyes surveyed the three malevolent trees with a cold, machine-like focus. This was the new commander on the field.
The rest of the symphony began. Abyss dove into the earth, turning the ground into a churning quagmire. Bingyu ascended, unleashing her tactical blizzard of Absolute Zero, coating the orchard in a glittering, energy-sapping frost. The trees, enraged, began to move, their frost-crusted branches lashing out with sluggish fury.
Their target was the source of the cold, Bingyu. But their path was blocked.
Iffrit and Fang Fairy materialized in front of Lloyd's meditating form, a living wall of fire and lightning. They were not on the offensive; their sole purpose was to form an unbreakable defensive perimeter around their vulnerable master. As the first wave of necrotic branches screamed towards them, Iffrit roared and met them head-on, his zanbatō a whirlwind of molten parries. Fang Fairy darted back and forth, disintegrating any threat that slipped through with surgical bursts of lightning.
And in the center of it all, the Doppelganger went on the attack. It moved with a fluid, ghostly grace that was a perfect mimicry of Lloyd's own combat style. It didn't possess Lloyd's raw physical power, but it had something else: access to his entire suite of Void powers.
Chapter : 1115
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Spectral, translucent versions of Lloyd’s Steel Blood chains erupted from its palms. They were not solid steel but constructs of solidified shadow and starlight, yet they cracked through the air with the same lethal authority. The Doppelganger used them not for a direct assault, but as whips, lashing out to shatter the layers of ice Bingyu had formed on the trees, creating showers of glittering shards and forcing the trees to expend energy regenerating their frozen carapaces.
Two minutes in.
The trees adapted. One of them, its roots fighting against the grasping mud, tore a ten-ton boulder from the earth. With a heave, it launched the massive projectile in a high arc, aiming it directly at the still, meditating form of Lloyd. It had identified the true heart of the operation.
"Fang Fairy, intercept!" came Lloyd's mental command, calm and focused despite his physical paralysis.
The lightning goddess moved in a flash, a streak of pure azure energy. She met the boulder in mid-air with a full-power Thousand Chirp Strike. The shriek of a thousand birds tore through the air as the rock was vaporized into a cloud of harmless dust and pebbles, which then swirled away in Bingyu's blizzard.
Four minutes in.
The Doppelganger escalated its assault. As a tree lunged with a dozen branches at Iffrit, the spectral Lloyd's eyes glowed with a faint, bluish-white light. It had activated the Black Ring Eyes. An invisible, conceptual seal settled over the tree. It wasn’t a powerful seal, just a "Seal of Minor Disorientation." For a split second, the tree’s perfect coordination faltered. Its attack became clumsy, unfocused. It was the only opening Iffrit needed. The demon king's flaming sword swept forward in a punishing counter-attack, lopping off three of the branches in a spray of black sap and frozen splinters.
The battle became a grueling, magnificent stalemate. Bingyu controlled the weather, Abyss controlled the ground, and the Doppelganger acted as a master tactician, using its spectral chains and subtle seals to create openings and disrupt the enemy's attacks. Iffrit and Fang Fairy were the glorious, unbreakable shields, a storm of fire and lightning that held the line against an unceasing tide of death.
Seven minutes in.
But the line was beginning to bend. The constant, passive life-drain of the orchard was taking its toll. Abyss's quagmire was thinning. Iffrit's armor was now a spiderweb of black, energy-sapping cracks. Fang Fairy's movements, while still impossibly fast, lacked their initial explosive fury. They were all tiring, their spiritual reserves being bled dry by the cursed ground they fought on.
A branch, moving with a speed that seemed to defy the freezing cold, finally broke through. It shot past Iffrit's guard, a black spear aimed directly at the heart of the still, meditating Lloyd.
The Doppelganger, which had been engaged with another tree across the clearing, reacted with inhuman speed. It couldn't physically block the blow. Instead, it poured its borrowed Void power into a single, desperate defensive maneuver. A dozen spectral, heavy-duty chains erupted from the ground in front of Lloyd, forming an intersecting, lattice-like shield an instant before the branch struck.
The necrotic tip slammed into the spectral steel. The sound was a deep, groaning toll, a funeral bell for a failing defense. The chains held, but only just. They flickered violently, the point of impact glowing with a corrupt, sickly light as the branch's life-draining power warred with the phantom steel. The shield was about to break.
Nine minutes in.
The spirits were faltering. The Doppelganger was pouring all its focus into maintaining the fragile shield. The trees, sensing victory, redoubled their assault. The line was collapsing. It was a race against the clock, and they were losing.
In his meditative trance, Lloyd felt the strain on his spirits, the imminent failure of the Doppelganger's defense. He felt the cold touch of the necrotic branch, now only inches from his own chest, pressing against the failing shield. But he also felt something else. A deep, resonant, and terrifying well of power building within him. The river of the Lazy Sage's art was about to become a tsunami. The final, agonizing seconds ticked by.
Ten minutes.
The aura around Lloyd's physical body didn't just brighten; it exploded. A silent, concussive wave of pure, white-gold light washed over the battlefield. The power was ready.
In the still, silent center of his mind, Lloyd's eyes opened. His long, agonizing wait was over. It was time for the mountain-breaker to take the stage.
Chapter : 1116
The power didn't flow into him; it awakened from within. The ten minutes of absolute stillness had not been a process of gathering external energy, but of unlocking the floodgates of his own potential, quadrupling the very foundation of his physical being.
It felt like a star had been born in the center of his soul.
A tidal wave of pure, unadulterated physical force surged through every fiber of his being. His muscles, his bones, his very cells screamed under the strain of containing a power they were never meant to hold. He felt less like a man and more like a god, a being whose very gesture could reshape landscapes. The accumulated power of the [Lazy Sage] was not just a doubling or quadrupling of his strength; it was a fundamental redefinition of what he was. For this brief, glorious window, he was not a wielder of power. He was power.
"All units, cease engagement. Fall back," he commanded, his voice a low, resonant thing that seemed to shake the very ground.
His spirits, battered and exhausted, obeyed without question. Bingyu's blizzard ceased, the biting cold receding. The Doppelganger's spectral chains shattered, and its form dissolved back into a formless wisp of light and shadow, its purpose served. Iffrit and Fang Fairy disengaged, retreating behind him. The battlefield fell silent, the gnarled, ice-caked trees now focusing their undivided, malevolent attention on the lone figure who had risen from his meditative trance.
Lloyd took a single, slow step forward out of his alcove.
Then, he activated [Void Step].
The world didn't blur; it fractured. From the spirits' perspective, he was there one instant, and the next, he was gone, leaving only a fleeting, glitch-like afterimage of fractured blue-white light. He reappeared instantly, silently, directly in front of the first tree.
He didn't draw a sword. He didn't summon a chain. He simply drew back his right fist. The air around his knuckles compressed, shimmering with a visible distortion of pure kinetic potential.
He punched.
There was no sound of impact, no crack of frozen wood. There was only a boom. A deep, resonant, tectonic sound, as if a mountain had just shrugged its shoulders.
The first tree, a creature that had absorbed Iffrit's inferno and shrugged off Fang Fairy's lightning, did not splinter or break. It exploded. It ceased to be a tree and became a million glittering shards of frozen, necrotic wood, a cloud of debris that was blasted outward in a perfect, conical shockwave.
The other two trees, as if sensing the conceptual, absolute nature of the threat, let out a silent, psychic shriek of pure terror. Their branches, a hundred black vipers, converged on him in a desperate, final attack.
But he was already gone.
Another flicker of azure light. He was now standing before the second tree. This time, it was a simple, rising uppercut.
BOOM.
The second tree was annihilated, its trunk exploding from the base upwards, a geyser of icy splinters shooting into the twilight sky.
Before the debris from the second tree had even begun to fall, he was at the third. He didn't even use his fist. He simply drove the hardened edge of his open hand forward in a simple, brutal chop aimed at the center of its trunk.
BOOM.
The third and final tree was cleaved in two, the top half blasted into oblivion while the frozen stump shattered into a thousand pieces.
The battle was over. In the space of three heartbeats, the Unbeatable Orchard, the frustrating, impossible puzzle that had defeated his army of gods, had been systematically, contemptuously, and absolutely erased from existence.
Lloyd stood in the center of the now-empty clearing, a landscape of glittering, frozen debris. His fist was smoking slightly, not from heat, but from the sheer friction of its passage through reality. The overwhelming, world-breaking power of the Lazy Sage began to recede, flowing out of him as quickly as it had come in, leaving behind a deep, resonant ache in his bones and a profound, exhilarating sense of victory.
He had done it. He hadn't just won; he had dominated. He had found the missing piece, built the perfect engine, and delivered a blow so absolute that it had shaken the foundations of this small, artificial world.
He looked down at his hand, still tingling with the ghost of that impossible power. He had become the mountain-breaker. And he knew, with a certainty that was both thrilling and terrifying, that this was only the beginning.
