Chapter : 989
He looked at her, at the fierce, unyielding determination on her face, at the way she was pouring her entire being into this small, futile act, and he felt a sudden, overwhelming, and profoundly unwelcome wave of… admiration.
“Give me that,” he said, his voice a rough, gruff command.
She looked up, her eyes narrowing slightly, a flicker of her old, defiant pride returning. “I am not a helpless child, Lloyd.”
“I never said you were,” he countered, his voice softening slightly. “But you are a terrible engineer. You are trying to power a fortress with a candle. Give it to me.”
She hesitated for a long moment, her pride warring with the quiet, unshakeable authority in his voice. Finally, with a small, defeated sigh, she handed him the stone.
He took it. It was warm, its faint, pulsing energy a pathetic trickle in his hand. He then did something that, once again, defied her entire understanding of the world.
He did not place the stone on her wound. He placed it on his own chest, directly over his heart. He then placed his other hand over hers, his fingers gently closing around her own.
He closed his eyes. “Be still,” he whispered. “And do not be afraid.”
And he reached inward. He reached past the aching void where his spirits had been. He reached past the familiar, solid hum of his Steel Blood. He reached deeper, into the very core of his being, to the place where the System had reforged him, to the unified power architecture that was the secret heart of his new existence.
And he began to draw.
He pulled the raw, untamed, and chaotic energy of his own life force, his spiritual core, to the surface. It was not fire. It was not lightning. It was pure, unrefined, and impossibly potent potential.
He then, guided by the perfect, high-resolution data provided by his [All-Seeing Eye], began to do what he had done for the Qadir heir. He began to tune it. He took the raw, chaotic energy and, with an act of profound, focused will, began to modulate its frequency, to shape it, to gentle it, until it was a perfect, harmonic match for the unique, crystalline resonance of Rosa’s own soul.
The Spirit Stone on his chest began to glow, its pale blue light intensifying, becoming a brilliant, beautiful azure. A warm, golden light began to emanate from his own hand, a light that flowed into her, a river of pure, perfectly tuned life energy.
Rosa gasped, her eyes flying open. She was not just feeling warmth. She was feeling… life. A tide of pure, vibrant, and impossibly gentle energy was pouring into her, flowing through her veins, sinking into her very bones. It was a sensation so profound, so overwhelming, so fundamentally alien to her own cold, controlled existence, that it was a form of beautiful, terrifying ecstasy.
The wound on her leg, which had been a source of roaring, agonizing pain, was now a source of warm, tingling, and miraculous sensation. She could feel the torn tissues knitting themselves back together, the severed tendons re-weaving themselves, the very cells of her body singing with a chorus of pure, unadulterated regeneration.
She stared at him, at his face, which was now beaded with sweat, his expression one of intense, agonizing concentration. She stared at their joined hands, at the impossible, divine light that was flowing from him into her.
The man she had dismissed as a fool, the man she had grudgingly come to respect as a warrior, the man she had finally, tentatively, accepted as a partner, had just revealed his another secret.
He was not only a warrior. He was not only a genius. He was not only a monster.
He was also a healer. A true healer. A healer of not just the body, but of the soul.
And he was using his own life force, his own soul, to make her whole again. In the quiet, fire-lit sanctuary of their small, forgotten cave, surrounded by the ghosts of a thousand fallen beasts, Rosa Siddik, the Ice Queen of the South, felt the last, final, and most profound wall around her heart begin to crack, to crumble, and to melt away.
The silence that settled in the aftermath of Lloyd’s impossible healing was of a different quality than the oppressive, dead quiet of the mountain. It was a heavy, charged atmosphere, thick with unspoken questions, shared vulnerability, and the profound, disorienting intimacy of the miracle that had just passed between them. The fire, which had been their only shield against the encroaching darkness, now seemed to cast a light that was too bright, too revealing, exposing the raw, uncharted territory of their new relationship.
Chapter : 990
With the immediate crisis of Rosa’s wound managed, the cold, pragmatic mind of the soldier reasserted its dominance in Lloyd. The brief, almost overwhelming wave of empathy he had felt was ruthlessly suppressed, replaced by the urgent, unforgiving calculus of survival. He had poured a significant portion of his own life force into her, a reckless expenditure of a finite resource. He was now not just tired; he was fundamentally, spiritually diminished, a hollowed-out vessel. And they were still trapped.
He moved with a stiff, deliberate efficiency, his body a map of screaming, protesting muscles. He built up the fire, its flickering light a small, defiant fist against the oppressive gloom of the cave. He checked the perimeter of their small sanctuary, his senses, though dulled by exhaustion, still straining to detect any new threat in the howling wind.
Rosa watched him, her mind a storm of contradictions. The man she had known, the political footnote in the grand, cold narrative of her life, had been a simple, easily classifiable entity: a weak, unimpressive, and ultimately irrelevant variable. The man who had returned from his self-imposed exile was a paradox, a creature of impossible, terrifying power. And now, this third man, the one who had knelt before her, who had healed her with a touch that felt like a benediction, he was the most dangerous of all.
His calm, quiet competence was a source of profound, almost infuriating irritation. It was a direct, unspoken challenge to her own lifetime of carefully cultivated strength. She, Rosa Siddik, the Transcended-level prodigy, the Ice Flower of the South whose very presence could command the elements, was now a patient. A liability. A piece of fragile cargo, utterly, completely dependent on the very man she had held in such cool, unwavering contempt.
The memory of his touch, of the impossible, divine light that had flowed from him into her, lingered not just on her skin, but in her very soul. It was a strange, unfamiliar warmth, a sensation that refused to align with the cold, hard, and verifiable facts she had so meticulously assembled about him. Her mind, her greatest fortress, was in a state of chaotic, mutinous disarray. The facts were no longer adding up. The equation of Lloyd Ferrum no longer had a simple solution.
“Your Void power,” he said, his voice breaking the charged silence. He moved back to the fire and offered her a waterskin, the gesture practical, impersonal. His tone was not one of idle curiosity; it was tactical, the flat, analytical sound of a commander debriefing a soldier after a failed engagement. “The ice. It is precise. Exquisitely so. But it lacks… force. Kinetic impact. Why?”
The question was an anchor in the storm of her confusion. This, she understood. Power. Strategy. The cold, hard mechanics of their world. She gratefully seized upon the familiar, solid ground of a tactical discussion, a welcome refuge from the treacherous, shifting landscape of her own emotions.
“My bloodline is… specialized,” she answered, her voice regaining some of its familiar, clinical edge. She took a sip of the cool, clean water, the simple act a way to recenter herself, to rebuild a small part of her shattered composure. “The Siddik lineage is not a pure Void power like your Ferrum Steel. It is symbiotic. It is designed to work in perfect harmony with our spirits. My Spirit Core is my primary weapon. It is the engine that gives my ice its mass, its power, its… will. Without it…” she paused, the admission a thing that tasted like ash in her mouth, “my Void power is… adequate. It is a tool for control, for creating surfaces, for subtle manipulation. It is not a weapon of war. It is not… exceptional.”
It was a confession of weakness she had never before uttered to another living soul. It was the most profound, most humiliating secret of her existence. In a world that valued absolute, overwhelming power, she was a queen who was nothing without her army.
Lloyd simply nodded, his expression unreadable in the flickering firelight. He was processing the information, filing it away, updating his tactical assessment. “A glass cannon,” he murmured, the words a strange, foreign-sounding phrase from another world that she, with her sharp, analytical mind, somehow understood perfectly. “All offense, minimal defense without your main armament.”
He looked away from her, his gaze fixed on the dancing flames. “Then we are both crippled here,” he stated, his voice a flat, unemotional declaration of fact. “A balanced team of two broken weapons. I have the force but lack the stamina. You have the control but lack the force.”