Captain Vorlag. Transcend stage with a powerful Earth Bear spirit. Loyal to Marcus, brutish, effective. Cornered Lloyd in a supposedly secure corridor. The air thick with Vorlag's merged power, stone rumbling. Lloyd felt the familiar cold calm descend. He didn't fight the power head-on. He felt the connection, the energy flow between Vorlag and his merged spirit. A single, hair-thin filament of white-hot steel, woven through the air like a phantom dart, impacted the precise nexus point of their bond. Not enough to sever it completely, not yet, but enough to cause a jarring disruption, a momentary feedback loop. Vorlag roared, stumbling, clutching his chest as his spirit flickered. In that instant of vulnerability, three more threads, shaped like stilettos, found the gaps in his manifested earth armor. No sound but a soft sigh.
(End Flashback)
(Flashback - The Void User)
Baron Hessman. High-ranking Void User, renowned for his impenetrable earth defenses, 'Hessman's Fortress' they called his signature technique. Suspected architect of the assassination plot. Tracked him to a remote villa. Hessman surrounded himself in layered walls of rock, laughing. Lloyd stood outside, seemingly powerless. But he focused, extending his senses, feeling the steel reinforcing rods deep within the concrete foundations Hessman drew upon. He didn't attack the walls. He phased dozens, then hundreds, of superheated steel threads through the stone, following the rebar network, creating an intricate cage inside the earthworks. Then, he pulsed the heat. Not enough to melt the stone, just enough to turn the interior into an oven. Hessman's screams were muffled, short-lived. That had been just a month before his own death. A messy, brutal necessity, but a victory that had undoubtedly painted an even bigger target on his back.
(End Flashback)
The burning hot steel wire he had used just now against Rosa's cabinet? Flashy. A party trick, relatively speaking. A mere exclamation point compared to the silent, deadly sentences he had learned to write. In terms of the raw power and effortless control his father, Roy Ferrum, possessed right now, in this current timeline? It wasn't even one percent. Roy could likely reshape the entire cabinet into a soaring bird sculpture or slag it into a puddle of molten metal with less effort than Lloyd used to swat a fly. Lloyd's current nineteen-year-old body and reawakening abilities were a pale shadow yet.
But it didn't matter. The implication, the sheer lethal potential hinted at by that minor feat, was enough. Rosa wasn't stupid. Far from it. She understood power, its nuances, its applications. She would have instantly recognized the signature – the impossible fineness, the residual heat, the clean cut through iron. Not clumsy Iron Manipulation. Something else. Something hidden. She would understand, with chilling clarity, that if that same whisper-thin, impossibly sharp, superheated wire had been directed at her, even with her formidable Spirit Power and likely nascent defenses… the damage would have been catastrophic. Severed tendons, cauterized organs, bypassing magical shields through sheer speed and heat before she could mount a full defense. Death might not be certain, but crippling injury? Highly probable. That understanding, that sudden, terrifying glimpse of a hidden, lethal capability in the husband she dismissed as weak and 'unworthy', was the source of her profound shock.
The weight of these memories, the stark juxtaposition of the deadly skills he knew he possessed versus the current, frustrating limitations of his body and energy reserves, pressed down on Lloyd as he finally reached the secluded clearing in the garden. The ancient oak tree stood sentinel, its leaves rustling softly, offering dappled shade. Fang, the scrawny wolf-spirit, was nowhere in sight – probably off finding a comfortable, chicken-scented spot to sleep off his unexpected feast. Good. Lloyd needed solitude.
He sank onto the cool grass at the base of the tree, the rough bark a solid presence against his back. He closed his eyes, letting out a long, slow breath, consciously releasing the tension coiling tight in his gut. The confrontation had been necessary. The demonstration effective, perhaps even vital. But gods, it was draining. He needed a moment. A moment of peace, of quiet, before planning his next move. Coins. Still needed Coins. Ten to open the shop. Seven more days of chicken duty for Fang for five. Progress felt agonizingly slow.
He sat there for several long moments, just breathing. Listening to the cheerful, oblivious chirping of birdsong. Feeling the warmth of the midday sun filtering through the leaves onto his face. Trying to find his center amidst the swirling chaos of past lives and present dangers. Just as a semblance of calm began to settle over him, like dust motes gently landing after a disturbance, just as the turbulent echoes of the past began to recede into the background hum of memory…
Flicker.