Chapter : 591

A shaman. That complicated things. Goblin shamans were known for their irritating, low-level curses—spells that could cause debilitating weakness, confusion, or temporary blindness. They were glass cannons, easy to kill if you could get to them, but a significant threat if left unchecked.

"The shaman is the primary target," Lloyd decided instantly. "Iffrit, you will provide the distraction. A direct, noisy assault on the cave mouth. Draw their warriors out. Fang Fairy, you and I will take the high ground. We find the shaman and eliminate it before it can cast. Understood?"

A wave of eager, destructive joy came from Iffrit. Break them.

A cool, professional assent came from Fang Fairy. As you command, Master.

Lloyd’s lips curved into a thin, predatory smile. He felt alive. The strategic part of his brain, the part that had been slowly suffocating under the weight of the slime grind, was now fully engaged. This was a proper tactical problem. An enemy force, a fortified position, a high-value target.

This wasn't a grind. This was war. And war was something he understood very, very well.

Lloyd and Fang Fairy moved through the undergrowth with a silence that was supernatural. While Iffrit began his noisy, deliberate approach to the goblin cave, a one-demon wrecking crew crashing through the forest, they circled around, using the noise as cover. Lloyd’s own senses, passively enhanced by his bond with two Transcended spirits, were a formidable tool. He saw the world not just with his eyes, but with an intuitive understanding of energy and intent. He spotted the crude, camouflaged goblin sentries hidden in the dense foliage, their faint auras of malice like foul-smelling candles in the gloom.

He didn't need to speak. He simply projected the targets' locations to Fang Fairy. She became a ghost, a whisper of movement. A flicker of azure light, and a sentry would slump over, a tiny, smoking hole in its neck. They cleared the perimeter of three lookouts without a single alarm being raised.

They found a rocky outcrop that overlooked the entrance to the goblin cave—a wide, dark maw in the side of a moss-covered hill. Below, the scene was one of crude, chaotic industry. Goblins sharpened rusty blades on whetstones, others gnawed on questionable-looking pieces of meat, and a general air of filth and low-level menace hung over the camp.

Then, Iffrit arrived.

He didn't sneak. He burst from the tree line like a natural disaster, his flaming zanbatō held high, his magma-plate armor glowing with internal fire. His roar was a physical blow that sent the goblins scrambling in a panic.

As planned, the goblin warriors, their terror quickly turning to feral rage, swarmed out of the cave to meet the threat. They poured forth, a tide of green-skinned fury, waving their crude weapons and shrieking their war cries. Iffrit met them with glee, his greatsword scything through their ranks, sending bodies and fire flying in a beautiful, terrible arc of destruction.

The distraction was perfect.

"The shaman," Lloyd projected to Fang Fairy, his own eyes scanning the cave mouth. "Where is it?"

Fang Fairy’s golden eyes glowed with power. "Inside. Near the back. It is beginning a ritual. I feel the gathering of negative energy. A curse of enfeeblement, targeted at Iffrit."

They didn't have much time. An enfeebled Iffrit, while still a threat, would be far less effective.

"I need an opening," Lloyd thought. "A clean line of sight. I'll handle the shaman."

It was a risk. He could send Fang Fairy, the faster and more lethal of the two, but he wanted to test his own precision under pressure. His B-Rank Steel Blood was more than just chains; it was about absolute control over refined metal.

He reached into a pouch at his belt and drew out three small, perfectly smooth steel spheres, each the size of a marble. He had forged them himself back at the manufactory, a quiet experiment in ammunition.

He watched the chaotic melee below. Iffrit was a whirlwind of destruction, but the goblins were numerous, swarming him like enraged ants. Lloyd needed the shaman to show itself.

He focused his will. His Void power surged, but this time, he didn't manifest chains. He used a subtle, kinetic pulse, an invisible wave of force, and directed it at a precariously balanced rock formation just above the cave entrance.

The rocks tumbled, crashing down with a deafening roar, not on the goblins, but right in front of the cave, creating a partial blockage and a cloud of dust. The chaos forced several goblins who had been hanging back to rush out, and among them, Lloyd saw him.

Chapter : 592

The shaman was a gnarled, wizened creature, smaller than the others, hunched over a staff topped with a leering, carved skull. Its eyes glowed with a sickly green light as it chanted, its foul magic coalescing around Iffrit.

"Target acquired," Lloyd murmured.

He held up one of the steel marbles between his thumb and forefinger. He channeled the power of his Steel Blood, not to shape it, but to propel it. It was the principle he had discovered in the tournament, refined and perfected. A precise, controlled application of kinetic force.

He took aim. The distance was nearly eighty yards. A difficult shot with a bow, an impossible one with a thrown rock.

But he wasn't throwing it. He was launching it.

With a final, focused pulse of his will, he released the marble. There was no sound, no explosion, just a faint, silvery shimmer around his hand. The steel sphere vanished. It crossed the eighty yards in less than a second, a silent, invisible bullet.

The goblin shaman's head exploded in a shower of green gore and shattered bone. Its chant died in a wet gurgle, and the curse unraveling around Iffrit dissipated harmlessly.

The remaining goblins froze, their tiny minds struggling to comprehend what had just happened. Their spiritual leader was gone, killed by an unseen force.

"Now," Lloyd projected, a cold satisfaction settling in his gut.

Down below, Iffrit and Fang Fairy, freed from their assigned roles, began the cleansing. The forest echoed with the sounds of fire, lightning, and the final, fading screams of the goblin horde. The hunt was efficient, brutal, and a magnificent success.

—

The afternoon sun, a cascade of liquid gold, poured through the impossibly pristine arched windows of Rosa Siddik’s private suite. It was a chamber that felt less like a living space and more like an art installation dedicated to the concept of cold, untouchable beauty. The tapestries, woven with threads of silver and frost-blue, depicted the sweeping, glacial vistas of her northern homeland, each scene a monument to serene, unyielding ice. The furniture, hewn from a pale, almost luminous varietal of ironwood, was arranged with a precision that felt less like interior design and more like a complex geometric proof. In this room, chaos did not exist. Disorder was a foreign language.

Rosa sat enthroned in a high-backed chair, an imposing volume titled Harmonics of the Ancient Spirit Core resting open on her lap. Her gaze, the precise color of a winter sky just before a blizzard, was fixed upon the elegant, hand-scribed text. Yet, she wasn't reading. The same complex theorem on spiritual resonance had passed before her eyes five times, its meaning failing to penetrate the fortress of her thoughts. Her formidable, analytical mind was occupied with a far more immediate and infuriatingly illogical problem.

Laila, her handmaiden and confidant, stood like a statue near the door. She was a ghost in a servant’s uniform, her movements silent, her presence felt only when she wished it to be. She had just concluded her meticulous daily report, a summary of estate activities delivered with the dispassionate clarity of a military briefing.

"And that concludes the report, my lady," Laila’s voice was a respectful murmur, careful not to disturb the room’s profound stillness. "Lord Lloyd returned from the Royal Academy shortly after midday. He met briefly with the head of his commercial enterprise, Mistress Mei Jing, and then retired to his personal study. He has remained there since."

Rosa’s lips, a perfect, pale rose, barely moved. "The sealed study," she repeated, her voice a soft, crystalline echo. "This marks the sixth consecutive day he has maintained this routine."

"Yes, my lady. The seals are his own. They are… formidable. He allows no one entry, not even to deliver his meals. The trays are left outside the door and retrieved later."

A heavy, contemplative silence descended once more. Laila, a master of her craft, understood the nuances of her lady’s moods. She knew this silence was not one of peace, but of intense, churning calculation. She remained perfectly still, a silent component in the chamber’s frozen elegance.

Rosa’s mind, a place where emotions were treated as corrupt data sets to be isolated and purged, was wrestling with a system that refused to compute. The Lloyd Ferrum she had been married to was a known quantity. He was a baseline, a control group. His powers were documented, his ambition negligible, his potential capped. He was a political necessity she had analyzed, categorized, and filed away as irrelevant.

That file was now on fire.