Chapter : 1373

  Suddenly, the door swung open. A tiny, withered old man stood there. He was barely five feet tall, with a beard that dragged on the floor and eyes that looked like polished obsidian. He was holding a broom like a spear.

  "No!" the old man shouted. "I don't want any! Go away!"

  "We aren't selling anything," Lloyd said, putting on his best 'trustworthy doctor' smile. "We are seekers of knowledge."

  "Seekers of nonsense!" the old man spat. "Last week it was a man selling magic beans. The week before that, a woman selling insurance for dragon attacks. I have no gold! I have no beans! I have a broom!"

  "We don't want gold," Mina stepped forward. She bowed respectfully. "Elder Corin. We have come to ask about Anubis. And the Golem Heart."

  The old man froze. The hand holding the broom trembled. The irritation in his eyes vanished, replaced by a deep, ancient fear. He looked at Mina, then at Lloyd. He sniffed the air, as if smelling their intentions.

  "Anubis," he whispered. The name sounded like a curse on his lips. "Why do you speak that name? It is a dead name. A buried name."

  "Because someone dug it up," Lloyd said grimly. "And they are trying to wake up the dead."

  The old man stared at Lloyd for a long, uncomfortable minute. Then, he sighed. It was a sound like wind blowing through dry leaves. He stepped back and lowered the broom.

  "Come in," he croaked. "But touch nothing. If you break my teacup, I will curse your cows."

  "I don't own any cows," Lloyd said, stepping inside. "But I will be careful."

  The inside of the hut was a chaotic museum of scrolls, gears, and dried plants. It looked like the workshop of a genius who had given up on organizing fifty years ago. Elder Corin shuffled to a small stove and poured three cups of tea.

  "You saw it," Corin said. He didn't ask. He stated it. "You saw the purple light in the sky."

  "We did," Lloyd confirmed. "Lord Wilfred. He found the blueprints. He stole the Heart. He's building a god."

  Corin let out a harsh, barking laugh. "A god? No. He is building a tomb. A walking tomb."

  The old man sat down on a rickety stool. He looked at the steam rising from his tea. "You think you know the story. The legend. Anubis the great inventor. The man who wanted to protect the world."

  "That's what the history books say," Mina said.

  "History books are written by liars and idiots," Corin snapped. "Anubis was not trying to protect the world. He was trying to save one person. His daughter."

  Lloyd sat up straighter. "His daughter?"

  "She was dying," Corin said, his voice drifting back into the past. "A sickness of the blood. No magic could cure her. No medicine could save her. Anubis... he went mad with grief. He refused to let her go. He believed that if the body was weak, he simply needed to build a better one. A perfect, immortal vessel."

  Lloyd looked at Mina. This was not a military project. It was a tragedy.

  "The Golem Heart," Corin continued, "was not a weapon processor. It was a soul anchor. He wanted to transfer her consciousness into the stone. He wanted to give her a body of diamond and steel so she would never feel pain again."

  "Did it work?" Mina asked softly.

  "He never got the chance to finish," Corin said. "The government found out. The pre-Bethelham warlords. They didn't see a father trying to save a child. They saw a giant, indestructible soldier. They saw a weapon that didn't need to eat or sleep. They raided his lab. They stole his research. They killed him."

  Lloyd felt a cold knot in his stomach. "And then?"

  "And then," Corin whispered, "they built the Five."

  The hut seemed to grow colder as Elder Corin spoke. The fire in the hearth crackled, casting long, dancing shadows that looked like mechanical monsters on the walls.

  "The Five," Lloyd repeated. "Five golems?"

  "Five apocalypses," Corin corrected. "The warlords... they were arrogant. They thought they understood Anubis's design. They built five colossal bodies. Mountains of iron and rune-carved stone. They installed the Hearts. But they had a problem. The Hearts needed a power source. A massive amount of energy to animate that much dead weight."

  "Aethel-Quartz," Lloyd said. "The Whispering Crystal."

  Corin nodded slowly. "Yes. But quartz is just a rock. It amplifies. It does not generate. You need an input. You need fuel."

  Chapter : 1374

  He looked at Lloyd with eyes that had seen too much horror. "Do you know why Anubis chose Aethel-Quartz? Because it resonates with the frequency of the soul. It is psycho-reactive. It bridges the gap between matter and spirit."

  "So," Lloyd reasoned, "to power the golems, they needed... mana?"

  "No," Corin said. His voice dropped to a whisper. "Life force. Pure, raw life force."

  Mina gasped. She covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh gods."

  "The warlords figured it out," Corin said grimly. "They realized the golems wouldn't move with simple magic stones. They were too hungry. So, they used the quartz as a siphon. A vacuum."

  He gestured with his gnarled hands. "When they activated the Five, the quartz didn't just hum. It screamed. It pulled. It drained the life from everything around it. The grass died. The trees withered. And the people..."

  Lloyd felt a chill run down his spine. It wasn't just a laser. It was a life-eater.

  "The people who operated the golems died first," Corin said. "Turned into husks in seconds. But the machines... they woke up. They didn't have the consciousness of Anubis's daughter. They were empty. They were hungry. And they were programmed for war."

  "What happened?" Lloyd asked, though he dreaded the answer.

  "They marched," Corin said. "They marched across the plains. And everywhere they went, the quartz sucked the life out of the land to keep the engines running. They were self-sustaining storms of death. They didn't just step on you. They drank you."

  "Half a million," Corin whispered. "That is the number. Half a million people died before the energy overload caused the cores to crack. The golems consumed so much life they burned themselves out. They collapsed. The warlords were executed. The technology was banned. Buried. Erased."

  Lloyd sat back, his mind reeling. Wilfred wasn't building a tank. He was building a vampire. A mechanical vampire the size of a skyscraper.

  "Wilfred doesn't know," Lloyd said. "Or maybe he does. He's hoarding the quartz. He thinks it's just fuel. He doesn't realize the fuel is... us."

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "He is a fool," Corin spat. "A greedy, arrogant fool playing with the fire of the gods. If he activates that machine fully, if he installs the Heart and feeds it enough quartz... he won't control it. It will eat him. And then it will eat Ramos. And then it will keep eating until there is nothing left but dust."

  "The beam we saw," Mina said, her voice trembling. "The purple light. Was that...?"

  "Concentrated entropy," Corin said. "It was projecting the draining field. Vaporizing matter by extracting the binding energy of existence. It is an abomination."

  Lloyd stood up. He couldn't sit anymore. The scale of the threat had just multiplied by a thousand.

  "We have to stop him," Lloyd said. "We can't just sabotage it. We have to obliterate it. We have to make sure not a single piece of that quartz is left."

  "You cannot fight it," Corin said, shaking his head. "The Golem is immune to magic. It eats magic. It is immune to physical damage. It heals by draining the earth. You are one man. You are an ant fighting a volcano."

  "I am a very stubborn ant," Lloyd said. "And I have a sledgehammer."

  He looked at the old sage. "Thank you, Elder. You have given us the truth. Now we know what we are fighting."

  Corin looked at him with pity. "You are walking into a grave, boy. Anubis died of a broken heart. You will die of a stopped one."

  "Maybe," Lloyd said. He adjusted his scarf. "But I have a really good health plan."

  He turned to Mina. "We're leaving. We have a lot of planning to do. And I need to figure out how to kill a vampire robot."

  Mina stood up, bowing deeply to the sage. "Thank you, Elder. We will do our best to ensure the tragedy is not repeated."

  "Go," Corin waved his hand. "Go before I change my mind and hit you with the broom. Young people. Always wanting to save the world. They never ask if the world wants to be saved."

  Lloyd and Mina left the hut. The walk down the mountain was silent. The wind howled around them, but Lloyd didn't feel the cold. He only felt the weight of the truth.

  Half a million dead. That was the legacy of the Golem Heart. And Wilfred, in his arrogance, was about to open the door to the slaughterhouse again.

  "Lloyd," Mina said softly as they reached the bottom. "Can we stop it? Really?"

  Chapter : 1375

  Lloyd looked back at the peak of the mountain, then toward the distant city of Ramos.

  "We have to," Lloyd said. "Because if we don't, there won't be anyone left to write the history books."

  He clenched his fists. He needed power. He needed more power than he had ever had before. The Golem was a monster of legend. To kill it, he would have to become a monster himself.

  "Let's find a place to camp," Lloyd said. "I have some shopping to do."

  "Shopping?" Mina asked, confused.

  "Mental shopping," Lloyd tapped his head. "I need to buy some new tricks. The old ones aren't going to cut it."

  They walked into the woods as the sun began to set, casting long, blood-red shadows across the land. The countdown had begun. And Lloyd Ferrum was running out of time.

  Night fell over the forest like a heavy velvet blanket. It was cold, the kind of mountain chill that seeped into your bones and made you question why humans ever decided to leave caves. Lloyd and Mina had found a small clearing off the main road, sheltered by a circle of ancient pine trees. It was hidden, it was quiet, and it was miserable.

  Lloyd was currently engaged in a fierce battle with a pile of sticks.

  "Light," Lloyd commanded. He struck his flint against the steel. Sparks flew, landed on the dry leaves, and immediately died of boredom. "I said, light."

  Mina sat on a log nearby, hugging her knees. She was watching him with a look that was half-amusement, half-exhaustion. "Do you want me to use a spell? Or perhaps just ask the wood nicely?"

  "No magic," Lloyd grunted, striking the flint again. Click. Spark. Nothing. "We are in stealth mode. Magic leaves a signature. Fire leaves smoke, but at least smoke is natural. Besides, I am a man of the wilderness. I can make fire. I have watched many survival documentaries."

  "Documentaries?" Mina asked.

  "Plays," Lloyd corrected quickly. "Survival plays. Very dramatic. Lots of people eating bugs."

  Finally, a spark caught. A tiny flame licked at the dry moss. Lloyd gently blew on it, feeding it small twigs until it grew into a respectable, crackling campfire. He sat back, wiping soot from his nose.

  "I have created fire!" Lloyd announced, raising his hands to the sky. "I am the god of warmth! Worship me!"

  Mina smiled. It was a small, tired smile, but it was real. "All hail the god of warmth. Do you also have the power of dinner?"

  "I have... dried beef," Lloyd said, pulling a packet from his bag. "And hard bread. And some cheese that might be adventurous."

  "A feast fit for kings," Mina said, taking the bread.

  They ate in silence for a while. The fire crackled and popped, sending orange sparks drifting up into the darkness. The forest was full of noises—owls hooting, branches creaking—but for the first time in days, they felt relatively safe.

  Lloyd watched Mina. She was staring into the flames, her face illuminated by the warm glow. She looked younger like this, without the scholarly robes or the weight of the library. She looked like a person carrying a heavy burden.

  "The story," Mina said quietly, breaking the silence. "About the half a million people. It keeps playing in my head."

  Lloyd nodded. He poked the fire with a stick. "Yeah. It's a lot of ghosts."

  "I love history," Mina said. She wrapped her shawl tighter around her shoulders. "I always have. The present... the present is messy. It is loud. It is confusing. People lie. Politics shift. But history? History is done. It is safe. You can study it, organize it, put it on a shelf. It cannot hurt you."

  She looked up at Lloyd, her eyes shimmering. "But I was wrong. History is not safe. It is just a sleeping monster. Wilfred dug it up, and now it is going to hurt everyone."

  "That's the thing about the past," Lloyd said softly. "It never really stays dead. It just waits for someone stupid enough to disturb it."

  "I feel foolish," Mina admitted. "I spent my life reading about heroes and villains, thinking I understood the world. But out here... running through the woods, jumping off walls... I feel like a child. I am terrified, Lloyd."

  It was a rare admission. The Siddik women were raised to be iron. To admit fear was to admit weakness.

  Lloyd tossed a twig into the fire. He looked at her, dropping his sarcastic mask for a moment.

  Chapter : 1376

  "You're not a child, Mina," Lloyd said. "You're the only reason we got this far. You cracked the code. You found the journal. Without you, I'd just be a guy punching a wall."

  "But I can't fight," she said. "I can't protect anyone."

  "Fighting isn't the only way to be strong," Lloyd said. "You have a different kind of strength. You look at the truth, no matter how ugly it is. Most people would have run away when they heard about the golems. You stayed."

  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "And about being scared... I'm scared too. All the time."

  Mina looked surprised. "You? The White Mask? The man who fought a fire demon?"

  "Especially me," Lloyd said. "I'm terrified. I'm terrified of failing. I'm terrified that I'm not strong enough to stop what's coming. I'm just a guy trying to build things, Mina. I want to build a world where people don't have to be scared. Where we have soap and clean water and... safety. But to build that, I have to destroy the things that threaten it."

  He looked into the fire, his expression somber. "I'm not a hero. I'm just a janitor with a sword, trying to clean up a very big mess."

  Mina watched him. She saw the weariness in his shoulders, the lines of stress around his eyes. She realized that his arrogance, his jokes, his 'Major General' persona—they were all armor. Just like her books were armor.

  "You are a good builder, Lloyd," she said softly.

  The air between them shifted. It wasn't the awkward tension of the train. It was something warmer. Something gentler. A shared understanding between two people standing on the edge of a cliff.

  Lloyd looked up and met her gaze. The firelight danced in his eyes. For a moment, the war and the golems and the wives didn't exist. There was just the fire, and the silence, and the unexpected comfort of not being alone.

  "Well," Lloyd said, clearing his throat and breaking the moment before it got too heavy. "Speaking of building. I built us a house."

  He gestured behind him.

  "A house?" Mina asked, looking into the darkness.

  "Okay, a tent," Lloyd corrected. "But it's a very nice tent. I bought it from a traveling merchant. It's supposed to be waterproof and bear-resistant. Though I think the bear part is a lie."

  He had set up a small, canvas tent near the edge of the clearing. It looked cozy. It also looked very small.

  Mina stood up and walked over to it. She peered inside. There were two sleeping rolls laid out. They were close. Very close.

  She stepped back, her face flushing slightly. "Lloyd. There is only one tent."

  "Yes," Lloyd said, still sitting by the fire. "Camping equipment is heavy. I only bought one."

  "We cannot sleep in the same tent," Mina said firmly. "It is... improper. We are..."

  "Related by marriage? Fugitives? Secret allies?" Lloyd offered.

  "It is not right," Mina insisted. She crossed her arms. "I will sleep by the fire."

  "No, you won't," Lloyd said. He stood up and stretched. "You take the tent. It's warm. It's bug-free-ish. You need sleep."

  "And you?" Mina asked. "Where will you sleep?"

  "I won't," Lloyd said. "I'll take the first watch. And the second watch. And the third watch. Someone has to make sure the bears don't eat our shoes."

  "You cannot stay awake all night," Mina argued. "You need rest too."

  "I have techniques," Lloyd lied. "I can sleep with my eyes open. It's a very advanced skill. I learned it in... monk school."

  "Monk school," Mina repeated flatly.

  "Yes. The Order of the Insomniac Monks. Very prestigious."

  He walked over to the tent entrance and held the flap open for her. "Go on, Mina. Take the tent. I'll sit right here by the entrance. Nothing gets past me. Not a squirrel, not a goblin, not a mosquito."

  Mina looked at him. She saw the determination in his eyes. He was being chivalrous. He was being protective.

  "You are stubborn," she said.

  "It's my best quality," Lloyd grinned. "Besides my hair."

  Mina hesitated for a second longer, then ducked inside the tent. It was surprisingly spacious for one person. She sat on the sleeping roll and looked back at him.

  "Goodnight, Lloyd," she said softly.

  "Goodnight, Librarian," Lloyd said. "Dream of Dewey Decimals."

  He let the flap fall closed.

  Inside the tent, Mina lay down. She pulled the blanket up to her chin. It was warm. It was safe. But she couldn't sleep.