Chapter : 1389

The climb up to Elder Corin’s hut was just as grueling the second time, but at least no one was shooting lasers at them. When they arrived, the old sage was sitting outside, smoking a pipe. He didn't look surprised to see them. He just looked tired.

"You are alive," Corin said. "That is unexpected. Usually, people who fight legends end up as stains on the ground."

"We are very stubborn," Lloyd said, placing the wrapped Heart on the table. "And we had good intel. Thanks to you."

"You stopped it?" Corin asked, eyeing the bundle.

"We put it to sleep," Mina said. "But Elder... the Golem spoke. Before it shut down. It sounded like a girl. It apologized."

Corin closed his eyes. He let out a long sigh of smoke. "So. Anubis succeeded. I always wondered."

"We need the rest of the story, Corin," Lloyd said gently. "We know about the daughter. We know about the army. But what happened to her? Why was she left in a museum?"

Corin stood up and shuffled into the hut. He went to a loose floorboard under his bed and pried it open. He pulled out a small, black book. It wasn't a scroll or a magical tome. It was a diary.

"This," Corin said, handing it to Mina, "is the final journal. The one Thoth, Anubis's student, saved from the fire. It tells the end."

Mina opened the book with trembling hands. She began to read aloud, translating the archaic script.

"Day 400. She is awake. My Elisa. She speaks. She remembers. The stone body holds her, but her soul is intact. I have cheated death. I have saved my child."

Mina flipped the pages. Her voice grew sadder.

"Day 420. The others... the warlords took my designs. They built the Five. They are abominations. Hollow shells driven by hunger. Elisa can feel them. She screams when they kill. She says she can hear the souls they eat."

"Day 450. The devastation is total. The Five have consumed the valley. Elisa... she begged me today. She grabbed my hand with her cold stone fingers and she begged me to end it. She said she does not want to be a blueprint for monsters. She said if her life means the death of thousands, she does not want it."

Mina paused, wiping a tear from her eye. Lloyd sat silently, staring at the Golem Heart on the table.

"Day 451. I did it. I destroyed the research. I sabotaged the Five. They will burn out. But I... I cannot kill her. I cannot kill my daughter a second time. I have deactivated her motor functions. I have put her to sleep. I will leave her in the casing. Maybe, in a better age, someone will find a way to give her a life that does not require death. Until then... sleep well, my angel."

Mina closed the book. The silence in the hut was heavy.

"He didn't fail," Lloyd whispered. "He succeeded too well. She was alive. She had a conscience. She chose to die—or sleep—rather than let her existence hurt others."

"And the museum?" Mina asked Corin.

"Thoth hid the Heart in the safest place he could find," Corin said. "In plain sight. He labeled it a dud. A failed experiment. He hoped that if people thought it was broken, they would stop trying to use it for war."

"It almost worked," Lloyd said bitterly. "Until Firefly showed up and gave Wilfred the instruction manual."

Lloyd looked at the Heart. It sat there, innocent and heavy. Inside that rock was a soul. A soul that had chosen sacrifice over survival.

"Love is such a sacred thing," Mina said softly. She traced the cover of the diary. "Anubis's fatherly love... it was so immense, so powerful, that he defied the laws of nature. He pulled his daughter back from the grave. He built a mountain to keep her safe."

"Yeah," Lloyd said. "He loved her enough to break the world. And she loved the world enough to break his heart."

He shook his head. "Human hearts are strange. Even when they are made of stone. She was a golem. A machine. But she thought like a human. She felt guilt. She felt sadness. She wanted to die with her heart full of empathy, rather than live as a monster."

"Maybe that is what makes us human," Mina mused. "Not the flesh. But the capacity to choose others over ourselves."

"It makes me feel... small," Lloyd admitted. "I'm building armor to save myself. She destroyed herself to save everyone else."

Chapter : 1390

"You saved everyone too, Lloyd," Mina said firmly. "You fought the demon. You stopped the machine. You are not small."

Lloyd smiled weakly. "I had help. A lot of help."

He stood up and walked over to the window. The sun was setting over the crags. The world looked peaceful, despite the horrors they had seen.

"We should go," Lloyd said. "We need to get this thing to the capital. King Liam needs to know. And I need to figure out how to keep Elisa safe without... you know... turning her into a battery."

"We will figure it out," Mina said. "Together."

They said their goodbyes to Elder Corin. The old man gave them a rare, toothless smile.

"Don't come back," Corin said. "I like my quiet. And take your drama with you."

"We will," Lloyd promised. "Enjoy your tea."

They walked down the mountain path. They found a quiet spot in the lower library of the monastery at the base of the mountain—a place Mina had insisted they stop at to "decompress" and check for any other copies of the texts. It was empty. The monks were at prayer.

They sat at a long wooden table, the Golem Heart resting between them. The smell of old paper and incense filled the air. It was peaceful.

Lloyd looked at Mina. She was reading the diary again, lost in thought. She looked beautiful in the dim light. Smart. Brave. Compassionate.

He reached out and took her hand. She didn't pull away. She looked up, her eyes meeting his.

They sat there in silence, holding hands over the table. They didn't need to speak. They both knew what they had been through. They knew the weight of the secrets they shared.

"We make a good team," Lloyd said quietly.

"We do," Mina agreed. "The Soldier and the Scholar."

"It sounds like a bad tavern song," Lloyd chuckled.

"I like it," Mina smiled. She squeezed his hand. "Lloyd... what happens when we get back? To the capital?"

Lloyd's smile faded slightly. "Reality happens. Politics. Rosa. Amina. The King. It's going to be a mess."

"I know," Mina said. "But... for this moment, let's just be here. In the library. With the ghosts."

"Okay," Lloyd said. "Just us. And the ghosts."

He squeezed her hand back. For a few minutes, the world stopped. There were no corporations, no wars, no marriages. Just two people who had survived the end of the world, finding comfort in the silence of a room full of stories.

It was a rare moment of peace. And Lloyd knew, with the certainty of a soldier, that moments like this were the only things worth fighting for.

The return to the capital was less of a victory parade and more of a covert extraction. Lloyd and Mina traveled fast, avoiding main roads. They had the Golem Heart—or rather, Elisa—wrapped in layers of shielding cloth to prevent any magical tracking.

"Wilfred is gone," Lloyd said during a rest stop. He had sent Ken to check the ruins one last time. "Vanished. His escape tunnel led to a teleportation circle. It was a one-way trip. He scorched the runes behind him."

"Where would he go?" Mina asked, feeding an apple to her horse.

"To his masters," Lloyd said grimly. "To Firefly."

He paced around the small clearing. "I don't know why they wanted a Golem. Firefly makes guns. Missiles. Why do they want a magical rock monster?"

"Maybe they want the technology," Mina suggested. "The soul transfer. If they can put a human mind into a machine... they could make perfect soldiers. Soldiers who don't die."

"Cybernetics," Lloyd realized. "That's their endgame. They want to merge magic with their tech. They want to build an army of immortals."

It was a terrifying thought. Firefly was bad enough with bullets. Firefly with magic was a nightmare scenario.

"They aren't just hunting me anymore," Lloyd said. "They are actively trying to replicate Earth's worst inventions here. Wilfred was a test run. Oakhaven was a test run. They are testing the waters."

"And we stopped them," Mina said. "Twice."

"We annoyed them," Lloyd corrected. "We poked the bear. Now the bear is going to wake up."

He looked at the Golem Heart. "We need to make sure they never get this back. I'm going to ask the King for custody. The museum can't protect it. I can."

"Will the King agree?"

"The King likes winning," Lloyd said. "And he likes me. Mostly because I solve his problems. I'll tell him it's a matter of national security. Which it is."