Chapter : 1381

"Hey!" Lloyd shouted, waving a hand. "Down here! You forgot to lock the back door!"

Wilfred looked down. His eyes widened in genuine shock. He hadn't expected Lloyd to return so soon, and certainly not by appearing out of thin air in the middle of his stronghold. The shock quickly replaced by a twisted, maniacal grin.

"You," Wilfred’s voice was amplified by magic, booming across the courtyard. "The thief. The liar. You came back to die?"

"I came back to file a noise complaint," Lloyd yelled back. "Your giant laser is very loud. It’s disturbing the neighbors. Also, you stole a rock that belongs in a museum. That’s just rude."

The soldiers in the courtyard finally noticed Lloyd. A circle of spears and swords formed around him, but no one attacked yet. They were waiting for orders, and honestly, they were a bit terrified of a man who appeared from nowhere and started heckling their lord.

Wilfred laughed. It was a wet, unpleasant sound. "You are a fool. You think you can stop progress? You think you can stop the future? I have unlocked the secrets of the ancients! I have become a god!"

"You're not a god," Lloyd corrected him. "You're a guy with a very expensive hobby and a bad haircut. Now, hand over the Heart and turn off the machine, and maybe I won't dismantle your castle brick by brick."

"Dismantle?" Wilfred sneered. "You are an ant threatening a mountain. I was going to hunt you down, but since you delivered yourself to me, I will grant you the honor of being the first test subject."

Wilfred raised his hands to the sky. The ground beneath the fortress began to rumble. It wasn't a subtle vibration; it was a deep, tectonic groaning that shook the teeth in Lloyd's skull. The soldiers scrambled back, looking terrified. Even they didn't know what was coming.

"Awaken!" Wilfred screamed. "Awaken, King of the Earth! Sovereign of the Stone! Rise and cleanse the world!"

The central keep of the fortress didn't just open; it exploded outward. massive chunks of masonry, size of carriages, were tossed into the air like pebbles. Dust billowed out in a choking cloud. Through the dust, two burning lights appeared. They were eyes. Eyes the size of shields, glowing with a hateful, purple light fueled by Aethel-Quartz.

A hand, made of black iron and ancient stone, smashed through the wall. It was massive. A single finger was larger than Lloyd. The creature pulled itself up from the depths of the earth, rising higher and higher until it blocked out the sun.

It was a Golem. But it wasn't like the clumsy clay constructs Lloyd had seen in books. This was a masterpiece of ancient engineering. It stood two hundred feet tall. Its body was a complex lattice of moving gears, shifting stone plates, and pulsing veins of quartz. It didn't look like a statue; it looked like a mechanical god.

"Behold!" Wilfred cried out in ecstasy. "The Sovereign! The God-King!"

Lloyd craned his neck back, looking up... and up... and up. "Okay," he muttered. "That is significantly bigger than I expected. I might need a bigger sword."

The Golem let out a sound that wasn't a roar, but the grinding screech of metal on stone, amplified a thousand times. It was a sound that made your bones ache. The sheer pressure radiating from it was suffocating. This wasn't just a big rock; it was a Sovereign-Level entity. In terms of raw power, it rivaled the strongest spirits Lloyd had ever seen.

"Kill him," Wilfred commanded, pointing a shaking finger at Lloyd. "Crush the insect."

The Golem looked down. Its purple eyes locked onto Lloyd. It raised a fist the size of a house.

Lloyd didn't move. He didn't run. He closed his eyes for a split second, centering himself. He reached deep into his core, finding the reservoirs of power he had unlocked the night before.

"Alright, big guy," Lloyd whispered, his eyes snapping open. "Let's see if you can hit a ghost."

The massive stone fist descended. It didn't just fall; it crashed down with the speed of a falling meteor. The air pressure alone was enough to flatten a normal man.

Lloyd activated [Void Steps].

Flash.

He vanished in a blur of azure light just as the fist slammed into the courtyard.

BOOM.

The impact was cataclysmic. The stone floor shattered, sending a shockwave of dust and debris rippling outward. Soldiers were knocked off their feet. The fortress walls groaned. Where Lloyd had been standing a microsecond ago, there was now a crater deep enough to bury a house.

Chapter : 1382

Lloyd reappeared fifty feet in the air, standing on the Golem’s arm. He wasn't just dodging; he was attacking.

"Gate One: Open," Lloyd commanded internally.

He felt the limiter in his brain snap. His muscles surged with power.

"Gate Two: Open."

His heart hammered like a war drum. His blood burned.

"Gate Three: Open."

Power flooded his solar plexus.

"Gate Four: Open!"

His spine cracked with energy. He felt light. He felt invincible. He felt like he could punch a mountain and win.

Lloyd sprinted up the Golem's arm, moving faster than the eye could follow. He drew his sword. It wasn't a special magical blade; it was just a piece of steel. But in his hands, with the power of the Four Gates, it was a weapon of mass destruction.

"Style Change," Lloyd hissed. "[Obsolete Sword Art: Ten-Armed Asura]."

He swung his sword. But he didn't just swing it once. To the observers below, it looked like Lloyd suddenly exploded into a blur of motion. Ten phantom arms fanned out from his shoulders, each holding a spectral blade. It wasn't magic; it was speed and afterimages, a technique so fast it tricked reality.

He reached the Golem's shoulder joint. A massive gear was turning there, exposed and vulnerable.

"Break!" Lloyd roared.

He struck. Ten swords hit the same spot at the exact same millisecond. The sound was like a thunderclap.

CLANG-CRACK!

The metal plating on the Golem’s shoulder shattered. Shards of ancient iron flew like shrapnel. Lloyd carved a deep gouge into the mechanism, severing a hydraulic line that sprayed glowing purple fluid.

"Got you!" Lloyd grinned.

The Golem staggered slightly. Wilfred, watching from the tower, screamed in outrage. "It is a scratch! You cannot stop a god with a toothpick!"

As Lloyd prepared for a second strike, he watched in horror as the purple fluid stopped leaking. The quartz veins around the wound pulsed with light. The stone and metal began to flow like liquid. Within seconds, the gouge filled itself in. The metal knit back together. The armor reformed.

It healed.

"You have got to be kidding me," Lloyd said, staring at the pristine shoulder. "Self-repair? That is cheating. That is definitely cheating."

The Golem didn't pause. It swatted at its shoulder like a human swatting a mosquito. Lloyd had to Void Step away, appearing in mid-air near the chest.

"Okay," Lloyd thought, his mind racing. "It heals. It heals fast. That means I can't chip away at it. I have to destroy the core. I have to hit the Heart."

He looked at the chest. There, behind layers of translucent crystal armor, he could see the Golem Heart pulsing. It was the center of the purple web.

"Target acquired," Lloyd muttered.

He pushed his body to the limit. He dive-bombed towards the chest. He focused all the power of the Four Gates into a single point on his sword. He activated the Asura style again, focusing all ten phantom strikes into a singular, piercing drill.

"Open up!" Lloyd shouted.

He slammed into the crystal armor.

CRUNCH.

The impact sent a shockwave through his arm that nearly dislocated his shoulder. The crystal cracked. A spiderweb of fractures appeared. But it didn't shatter. It was harder than diamond.

And then, the Golem reacted. It didn't punch him. The quartz veins on its chest flared blindingly bright.

"Uh oh," Lloyd said.

A pulse of pure repulsive force erupted from the chest. It hit Lloyd like a physical wall. It blew him backward, tumbling through the air. He crashed into one of the fortress towers, smashing through the stone wall and tumbling into a dusty storage room.

He groaned, pulling himself out of the rubble. His body ached. The Four Gates were taking a toll. His muscles felt like they were tearing.

"Okay," Lloyd coughed, spitting out dust. "It heals instantly. It has force fields. And it's really, really hard. My attacks aren't doing anything. It's like trying to empty the ocean with a spoon."

He looked out the hole in the wall. The Golem was turning towards him. It opened its mouth, and a purple light began to gather in its throat. It was charging the beam. The same beam that had vaporized a mountain.

Lloyd scrambled to his feet. He realized with a cold, sinking feeling that he couldn't win this fight. Not with brute force. He was outmatched. He was fighting a mountain that could heal itself.

"I need a Plan B," Lloyd muttered, watching the purple light grow brighter. "And I need it in about three seconds."