Chapter : 1577

  "It made them hateful," Lloyd corrected. "It created a vendetta. The Seventh Circle isn't just attacking us because we are humans. They are attacking us because House Ferrum committed crimes against their kind that they have never forgotten. To them, we aren't just enemies. We are war criminals. We are the jailers who dared to bind the darkness."

  Lloyd finally opened the grey book. The pages were filled with diagrams of intricate, cruel devices—clamps, siphons, and runic cages designed to hold non-human forms.

  "Look at this," Lloyd pointed to a drawing of a sword with a screaming face embossed on the hilt. "The 'Screaming Blade.' Legend says it could cut through any armor. Do you know why it screamed? Because there was a soul trapped inside it. A Devil's soul. Forged into the metal, conscious, and in eternal pain."

  He closed the book quickly, as if the evil might leak out.

  "That is why the Seventh Circle targets us," Lloyd said. "That is why Beelzebub came to Ashworth personally. That is why they send Black Spirits specifically to hunt Ferrums. It's not just strategic. It's vengeance. They want to destroy the House that dared to make them into tools."

  Lloyd leaned against the dusty shelves. "This is the secret history of our 'honor,' Jasmin. We call ourselves the Lions of the North. We talk about duty and protection. But our foundation is built on bones. Human bones from Tiamat. And demonic bones from the Abyss. We built our castle on a graveyard, and now the ghosts are knocking on the door."

  He looked at his hands again. "My father knows this. That's why he fights so hard. He knows we are paying for the sins of the past. He knows that if the Devils win, they won't just kill us. They will do to us what we did to them. They will cage us. They will torture us. It will be an eternity of retribution."

  "So we can never make peace with them either," Jasmin said, realizing the hopelessness of it.

  "You can't make peace with a Devil," Lloyd said. "Especially not one you've tortured. The bridge was burned centuries ago. The only option left is to win. To be stronger. To be the monster that eats the other monsters."

  He looked at Jasmin, his expression softening slightly. "I'm sorry, Jasmin. I know you wanted a reason that made sense. You wanted to hear that it was a misunderstanding. But it's not. It's a blood feud. It's a debt. And we are the ones who have to pay it."

  He gestured to the archives around them. "This is why I study. This is why I build. Because the old ways—the hunting, the torture, the oppression—they created this mess. If we use the old ways to fight it, we just dig the hole deeper. I have to find a new way. A way to win that doesn't involve creating more ghosts."

  "The Aegis," Jasmin realized. "The technology. The logic."

  "Exactly," Lloyd said. "Science doesn't have a soul to torture. A machine doesn't create a blood feud. If I can build a power that doesn't rely on blood or spirits... maybe, just maybe, we can break the cycle. We can win the war without becoming the villains again."

  He pushed off the shelf. "But until then... we are the bad guys, Jasmin. To the world south of the river, and to the world under the earth, House Ferrum is the villain of the story. And our job... our only job... is to survive long enough to rewrite the ending."

  ________________________________________

  Lloyd closed the final book, the thud of the cover echoing like a final judgment in the silent archive. The dust motes settled. The story was told. He looked at Jasmin. She sat in her chair, looking small and overwhelmed, her worldview fractured by the weight of a century of atrocities. She looked at him differently now. The hero worship was still there, but it was complicated by horror and pity.

  "We are not the heroes of this story, Jasmin," Lloyd said, his voice quiet but firm. "I need you to understand that. In the fairy tales, the knight in shining armor kills the dragon because the dragon is evil. In our story... the knight poked the dragon, stole its eggs, and burned its nest first. And now the dragon is back, and it's angry."

  He walked around the table and stood next to her.

  Chapter : 1578

  "We are the descendants of villains," Lloyd continued. "My great-grandfather was a tyrant. My grandfather was a traitor and a butcher, even if he did it for a good cause. My father is a warlord who has spent his life killing. And me? I am a man who lies, cheats, and builds weapons of mass destruction."

  Jasmin looked up at him. "But you save people. You saved Risa. You saved Oakhaven. You saved the Qadir boy."

  "I did," Lloyd acknowledged. "But I also killed the men in the warehouse. I tortured Jager. I manipulated Sumaiya. I am not a saint, Jasmin. I am a Ferrum. I do what is necessary. And right now, what is necessary is paying a debt we can never afford."

  He looked at the map on the wall one last time.

  "The war with Altamira. The war with the Devils. It's not a misunderstanding. It's a reckoning. The bill has come due. They want their pound of flesh. They want their justice. And by their logic... they are right. If I were an Altamiran, I would hate me too. If I were a Devil, I would want to burn this house down."

  Lloyd’s face hardened. The cynicism of the veteran soldier, the KM Evan from Earth, blended with the determination of the young Lord.

  "But here is the thing, Jasmin. Understanding them doesn't mean I will let them win. I accept the history. I accept the guilt. But I will not let my family be slaughtered for the sins of the dead. I will not let them kill my mother. I will not let them kill my sister. I will not let them kill you."

  He clenched his fist, the knuckles turning white.

  "They want a reckoning? Fine. I will give them one. But it won't be the one they expect. I won't apologize. I won't kneel. I won't offer my head in a basket to make them feel better. I will finish this war. Not with a treaty. Not with a truce. But with absolute victory."

  "I will build a power so great that their hatred won't matter," Lloyd declared, his voice rising with a cold passion. "I will make House Ferrum so strong, so advanced, so untouchable that they will have no choice but to stop. I will force a peace. Not by asking for it, but by making the alternative impossible."

  He looked at Jasmin, his eyes burning with the fire of the Engineer and the General.

  "That is my burden, Jasmin. I have to be the monster that ends the age of monsters. I have to be the villain who saves the world. It's not fair. It's not pretty. And it's definitely not going to be easy. But it's the only way."

  He reached out and gently took the book from her hands, placing it back on the stack.

  "You asked why it's personal," Lloyd said softly. "It's personal because it's a family feud on a global scale. It's personal because ghosts don't forgive. But we aren't ghosts, Jasmin. We are the living. And the living have a duty to survive."

  He offered her a hand to help her up.

  "Come on. The sun will be up soon. We have a lot of work to do. We have a salt empire to run. We have a battle suit to build. And we have a lot of enemies to disappoint."

  Jasmin took his hand. She stood up, her legs a little shaky but her grip firm. She looked at him—really looked at him. She saw the lord, yes. But she also saw the man beneath the title. A man carrying the weight of a hundred years of hatred on his shoulders, refusing to buckle.

  "I'm with you, Master Lloyd," she said, her voice steady. "Villain or hero. I'm with you."

  Lloyd smiled, a genuine, tired smile that reached his eyes.

  "Thank you, Jasmin. That... that helps more than you know."

  He turned and walked towards the heavy oak doors of the archive. He paused for a moment, looking back at the rows of silent books, the recorded history of blood and steel. He didn't bow. He didn't flinch. He just nodded, acknowledging the past, before turning his back on it and walking out into the uncertain light of the future.

  The door clicked shut, leaving the ghosts alone in the dark.

  Chapter : 1579

  The morning sun beat down on the private training grounds of the Ferrum Estate, baking the stone tiles until they radiated heat like a flat iron skillet. It was the kind of day where normal people sought shade, drank lemonade, and complained about the humidity. Lloyd Ferrum, however, was not a normal person. He was a man who believed that sweating was just the body's way of crying about hard work, and he was currently making sure his handmaiden did a lot of crying.

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  "Again," Lloyd barked, crossing his arms. He was wearing his usual black training gear, which absorbed the sun and made him look like a very intense shadow. "And this time, try not to sparkle so much. You're a warrior, Jasmin, not a chandelier."

  Jasmin, standing ten feet away, wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. Her usual maid uniform had been replaced by practical leather training armor, though she still wore the white apron because old habits died hard. She took a deep breath, centered herself, and activated her spirit.

  In an instant, her skin transformed. It shifted from soft flesh to a translucent, multifaceted crystalline substance. She was the Diamond Queen. The sunlight hit her arm and scattered into a thousand tiny rainbows, blinding anyone foolish enough to look directly at her.

  "I can't help the sparkle, Master Lloyd," Jasmin said, her voice sounding strange and resonant through her diamond throat. "It's... physics. Light hits a prism, it refracts. You taught me that."

  "I taught you to use physics, not be a victim of it," Lloyd retorted, walking around her in a circle, inspecting her form like a mechanic inspecting a car engine. "Being hard is good. Diamond is the hardest substance known to man. That's great. It means you don't break when a goblin hits you with a club. But if you just stand there being a shiny rock, you're not a fighter. You're just expensive landscaping."

  He stopped in front of her and tapped her diamond shoulder with his knuckle. It made a sharp clink sound.

  "Defense is passive," Lloyd lectured, falling into his professor mode. "You are treating your power like a shield. 'Oh no, something is coming, better turn into a rock.' That's fine for surviving, but it doesn't win fights. You need to think of your hardness as a weapon. Kinetic energy, Jasmin. If a rock falls on your foot, it hurts because the rock is hard, yes, but mostly because the rock is moving. Be the moving rock."

  Jasmin frowned, or at least, the diamond facets of her face shifted in a way that suggested a frown. "So... I should run into things?"

  "Ideally, yes," Lloyd said. "But with technique. Dispel the arm."

  Jasmin concentrated, and the diamond receded, leaving her normal, human arm. She shook it out, grimacing slightly. The transformation always left her feeling a bit stiff, like she had slept in a crate.

  "Rest for a minute," Lloyd said, handing her a canteen of water. "You're doing better. A month ago, you couldn't hold the transformation for more than thirty seconds without getting a headache. Now you can hold it for five minutes. That's a six hundred percent increase in efficiency. Not bad."

  Jasmin took the water gratefully. "Thank you, Master. But... I still feel like I'm just copying what you tell me. I don't have the instinct for it. Ken moves like water. You move like... well, like a scary calculator. I just feel like a clumsy statue."

  Lloyd sat down on a stone bench and gestured for her to sit beside him. "Instinct is just muscle memory doing the thinking for you. You haven't been a warrior for twenty years, Jasmin. You've been a maid. Your instinct is to clean up messes, not make them. We are rewriting your software. It takes time."

  He looked at her, his expression softening from the harsh drill sergeant to something more thoughtful. Over the last few months, their dynamic had shifted. She wasn't just the girl who brought him tea anymore. She was his student. His project. And in many ways, his only real friend in a house full of political landmines and terrifyingly powerful relatives.

  "Listen," Lloyd said, picking up a pebble. "Do you remember when we faced the Croft brothers? When you had to help me with the fake Sunstone plans?"

  Jasmin nodded. "I was terrified."

  Chapter : 1580

  "You were," Lloyd agreed. "But you did it. You walked into a den of wolves and you played your part perfectly. You have a core of steel, Jasmin. Or, I guess, diamond. You just need to stop thinking of yourself as 'Little Jasmin the Maid' and start thinking of yourself as 'Jasmin the Tank.' When you turn into diamond, nothing in this world can hurt you. Not a sword, not a spell, not a verbal insult from Princess Isabella. You are invulnerable. Act like it."

  Jasmin looked at her hands. She summoned a small patch of diamond on her fingertip, watching it glint in the sun. "Invulnerable," she whispered. "It's a strange word. I've spent my whole life feeling vulnerable. Afraid of losing my job, afraid of my mother getting sick, afraid of... everything."

  "Fear is useful," Lloyd said. "Fear keeps you alive. But panic gets you killed. Your power gives you the luxury of not panicking. If a monster swings an axe at you, you don't have to dodge. You can just catch it. Do you know how terrifying that is for the enemy? To swing with all their might and have their weapon stop dead against your hand? It breaks their brain. It's psychological warfare."

  He stood up and dusted off his pants. "Break time is over. We're going to try the refraction technique again. And this time, try to aim the light at my eyes before I try to hit you, not after. Blinding me after I've already punched you is just petty revenge."

  Jasmin giggled, setting the canteen down. "Yes, Master Lloyd."

  "And stop calling me Master when we're training," Lloyd grumbled, walking back to the center of the ring. "It makes me feel like an old kung-fu wizard. Just call me 'Coach' or 'Boss' or 'Oh Great and Powerful One.' I'm flexible."

  "Ready, Boss," Jasmin said, her voice firmer this time.

  She took her stance. She didn't look like a fragile maid anymore. She looked like a fighter in training. Lloyd grinned. This was the part of his life he actually enjoyed. No politics, no marriage contracts, no ancient conspiracies. just simple, honest improvement.

  "Alright," Lloyd said, raising his hand. "Come at me. And don't worry about hurting me. I'm very durable."

  Jasmin took a breath, and her skin hardened into brilliant, unbreakable diamond. She didn't hesitate this time. She charged.

  The training session ended as the sun began to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of bruised purple and orange. The heat of the day had broken, replaced by a cool breeze that rustled the leaves of the ancient trees surrounding the Ferrum estate. Lloyd and Jasmin walked slowly through the garden, the silence between them comfortable and easy.

  They were both exhausted. Lloyd was mentally drained from trying to calculate angles of refraction and impact velocity for a diamond-based lifeform, and Jasmin was physically spent from turning her body into a mineral repeatedly. They found a quiet bench near a pond filled with koi fish that were probably older than both of them combined.

  "You did good today," Lloyd said, leaning back and closing his eyes. "That last block? The one where you angled your forearm to deflect my chain instead of just tanking it? That was smart. That was tactical."

  Jasmin smiled, a tired but proud expression. "I just thought... if I let it hit me flat, it pushes me back. But if I angle it, it slides off."

  "Physics," Lloyd murmured, keeping his eyes closed. "Vector deflection. See? You're learning. Soon you'll be calculating trajectories in your sleep and dreaming about momentum."

  "I hope not," Jasmin laughed softly. "I prefer dreaming about cake."

  They sat in silence for a while, listening to the water trickle into the pond. It was a rare moment of peace in Lloyd's life. Usually, his brain was running at a thousand miles an hour, planning contingencies for contingencies, worrying about the Devils, the Altamirans, or his three very complicated romantic entanglements. But here, with Jasmin, he didn't have to be the genius strategist or the cold lord. He could just be Lloyd.

  "Master Lloyd?" Jasmin asked quietly.

  "Yeah?"

  "Can I ask you something? Something personal?"

  Lloyd opened one eye. "Did I forget to pay you this week? Because I'm pretty sure Günther handles that now."