Chapter: 236
He spent the rest of the afternoon observing, fine-tuning, feeling the hum of his small, fragrant empire taking shape around him. It was a good feeling. A solid feeling. A feeling of control, of progress, of building something real from the ground up.
It was a feeling that was about to be profoundly, comprehensively, and rather mysteriously, shattered. He remembered, with a jolt that had nothing to do with soap or economics, the other pressing, deeply unsettling, item on his mental to-do list.
Ben Ferrum. The impossible, wheelchair-bound boy who knew his greatest secret. The meeting he had agreed to, the one at the Ironwood Manor conservatory. It was tonight.
The quiet satisfaction of a well-run factory evaporated, replaced by the familiar, cold knot of apprehension. He had been so immersed in the practical, logical world of saponification and workflow optimization that he had almost managed to forget the surreal, terrifying enigma that awaited him.
He looked around his bustling, fragrant manufactory, at the diligent workers, the bubbling cauldrons, the jars of cooling elixir. This was a world he understood, a world he could control, a world he was building. But the world Ben Ferrum represented… that was a world of shadows, of impossible knowledge, of secrets that could potentially destroy everything he was so carefully constructing.
“Ken,” Lloyd said quietly to the empty air beside him.
The shadow in the corner detached itself, solidifying into the familiar, stoic form of his bodyguard. “Young Lord?”
“Tonight,” Lloyd said, his voice low, serious. “I have an appointment. At the Ironwood Manor.” He met Ken’s impassive gaze. “I am going alone. You will remain here, guarding the manufactory. This is… a personal matter. And potentially a dangerous one. Your presence could complicate things.”
Ken’s expression didn't flicker, but Lloyd sensed the silent protest, the ingrained protective instinct warring with the command.
“The risk is necessary, Ken,” Lloyd insisted. “I need answers. And I need to get them on my own terms.” He paused, then added, a hint of grim humor in his tone. “But… if I’m not back by dawn… you have my full, posthumous permission to pay Lord Kyle a visit. And perhaps… ask some very pointed, very fiery, questions. Understood?”
Ken Park’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “Understood, Young Lord,” he said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. “The manufactory will be secure. And the dawn… will be watched for.”
The promise, the threat, hung in the air between them. Lloyd nodded, a silent acknowledgment. The time for building was momentarily over. The time for confronting ghosts had arrived.
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The Ironwood Manor, seat of the newly elevated Lord Kyle Ferrum, was a stark contrast to the sprawling, almost ostentatious, grandeur of the main Ferrum Estate. It was an older, more austere structure, built not for show, but for endurance. Its stone walls were thick, weathered, its lines clean and functional, radiating an aura of quiet, unyielding strength, much like its master.
Lloyd arrived on foot just as dusk was painting the sky in bruised shades of purple and orange. He had dismissed the carriage, preferring the anonymity of a solitary walk through the twilight. He felt… tense. The calm focus of the factory had been replaced by the high-alert stillness of a soldier moving into unknown territory. Fang, walking silently at his side, was a low, rumbling shadow, his golden eyes scanning the unfamiliar surroundings with a wary, protective intensity.
He was met at the heavy oak door not by a formal butler, but by a single, stoic household guard who simply nodded and gestured him inside. The interior was as austere as the exterior—polished dark wood, worn leather furniture, the scent of beeswax and old books. It felt less like a noble’s residence and more like a fortified library.
The guard led him through quiet corridors to a set of tall glass doors at the rear of the manor. Beyond them lay the conservatory. It was a breathtaking space, a vast dome of glass and wrought iron, housing a lush profusion of exotic plants. The air within was warm, humid, thick with the scent of damp earth and sweet, heavy perfume.
And there, in the center of the conservatory, bathed in the soft, ethereal glow of several enchanted light-stones that mimicked moonlight, was Ben Ferrum.
He was seated in his wheelchair, as before, a woolen blanket draped over his lap. The beautiful, blonde Inari stood a respectful distance behind him, a silent, serene guardian. Ben’s single grey eye fixed on Lloyd as he entered, and a slow, knowing smile touched his lips.
“Lord Lloyd,” Ben greeted, his voice quiet but carrying easily in the humid air. “Welcome. I am glad you decided to come.”
Chapter: 237
Lloyd didn’t return the smile. He stopped a few paces away, his senses on high alert, Fang a low, growling presence at his side. The atmosphere in the conservatory, for all its beauty, felt charged, expectant. Trapped.
“I’m here for answers, Ben,” Lloyd stated, his voice cold, direct. “Not pleasantries. Let’s start with the big one. Who are you?”
Ben’s smile didn’t falter. He simply gestured to a small stone bench nearby. “Patience. All will be revealed. But not here. This is merely the… reception area.” He looked at Inari, who nodded once, then began to push his wheelchair slowly towards a less dense, more open part of the conservatory. “Follow me. Let us meet somewhere… quieter.”
Lloyd hesitated, his instincts screaming at him not to follow. But the promise of answers, the tantalizing pull of the System quest, was too strong. With a silent command to Fang to stay close, he followed.
They emerged into a large, open field that bordered the estate, the true night sky now a vast, star-dusted canopy above them. The air was cooler here, cleaner.
Ben signaled for Inari to stop. He sat there, his single eye fixed on the heavens, a look of profound, ancient weariness on his young, broken face.
“Have you ever looked at the stars, Lord Lloyd,” Ben asked softly, “and felt… a sense of homesickness? A longing for a place you can’t quite remember, but know, in your very soul, that you belong? A place with… different stars?”
The question, so specific, so pointed, sent a jolt of ice through Lloyd’s veins. Different stars. He fought to keep his expression neutral, but his heart began to hammer against his ribs.
“I can’t say that I have,” Lloyd replied, his voice tight. “The stars here are the only ones I’ve ever known.” A lie. A necessary, desperate lie.
Ben chuckled, a low, sad sound. “Of course. The soldier. Always maintaining cover.” He turned his gaze from the sky back to Lloyd, and his expression was no longer smiling. It was raw. Vulnerable. Filled with a pain so deep it seemed to eclipse the physical brokenness of his body.
“You asked who I am,” Ben said, his voice quiet, almost breaking. “The truth is… I am not Ben Ferrum. That is merely the name of this vessel. This… broken shell… I was forced to inhabit after my… previous life… came to a rather abrupt and violent end.”
He paused, then asked the question that shattered Lloyd's carefully constructed reality into a million pieces. “Tell me, Major General KM Evan. Does the name… ‘B’… mean anything to you?”
The name. The rank. The designation.
It was a catastrophic system shock. The world dissolved into a roaring static in Lloyd’s ears. Major General KM Evan. The name he had carried for eighty years on a world called Earth. And ‘B’. The designation for his most hated, most formidable, most brilliant nemesis.
B.
The enigmatic commander of Firefly, the world’s largest and most dangerous private military corporation. A shadow empire that presented a public face of cutting-edge technology and philanthropic ventures, but operated in the darkness, dealing in corporate espionage, political assassination, and trafficking stolen advanced weaponry. B was a ghost, a legend, a master strategist who had been his dark mirror for over a decade. They had never met face-to-face, their war fought through proxies, through intelligence networks, through clashes of technology and strategy across a global chessboard. B’s Firefly had been responsible for the theft of early Battle Suit prototypes, for the assassination of key scientists on his project, for acts of terror that had destabilized entire nations.
The realization crashed down on Lloyd with the force of a physical blow. The boy in the wheelchair… his knowing smile, his quiet confidence, his unsettlingly familiar intelligence… it wasn’t just a sharp mind. It was the echo of a mind he had fought, a mind he had hated, a mind from another world.
This wasn’t a political squabble of Riverio. This was a ghost from Earth. A ghost that knew his name.
And just as Lloyd’s mind, his world, his very understanding of reality, completely, comprehensively, shattered, the familiar, almost smug, chime echoed in his consciousness.
[Task Complete: A Ghost at the Feast – The Ben Ferrum Enigma]
[Objective Achieved: True identity of ‘Ben Ferrum’ discovered. Subject identified as ‘B’, a significant and hostile figure from User’s previous life on Planet Earth. Acknowledgment of shared history confirmed.]
[Reward Issued: 100 System Coins (SC)]
[Current System Coins: 498 (Previous) + 100 (Reward) = 598 SC]
The coins, the System… it all faded into insignificance. All that mattered was the impossible, infuriating, hate-filled truth before him. His greatest enemy from Earth. He was here.
---
Chapter: 238
The hundred-coin reward was a mocking, insignificant flash in the roaring inferno of Lloyd’s rage. The System had confirmed it. This broken boy, this manipulative ghost in a wheelchair, was ‘B’. The architect of a shadow war that had defined a decade of his life on Earth. The man whose actions had led to the deaths of colleagues and friends.
A pure, white-hot fury, colder and more dangerous than any bonfire, erupted in the core of his being. The carefully constructed facade of Lloyd Ferrum, the awkward heir, the burgeoning soap tycoon, vaporized. All that remained was Major General KM Evan, the warrior, confronting the specter of his greatest foe.
“You,” Lloyd hissed, the word a whisper of freezing venom. His eyes, which had been filled with wary confusion, hardened into chips of obsidian ice. “Firefly.”
The air in the open field, already cool, plummeted in temperature. The beautiful, serene Inari visibly paled, taking a half-step back, her hand flying to the silver dagger at her belt, her eyes wide with alarm at the sudden, terrifying transformation in Lloyd’s demeanor. Fang, sensing the shift to absolute killing intent in his master, sprang to his feet, a low, guttural growl rumbling in his chest, his form crackling with a barely suppressed nimbus of azure lightning.
B’s calm, almost weary smile finally faltered. He saw the shift, the pure, undiluted murderous rage in Lloyd’s eyes. This wasn't the reaction of a curious young lord; this was the reaction of a soldier confronting his nemesis.
“Major General…” B began, his voice losing some of its earlier confidence, a flicker of something—surprise? Miscalculation?—in his single grey eye. “Wait. It’s not what you think…”
But Lloyd was beyond words. He was beyond reason. He was pure, focused, righteous fury. This creature had crossed worlds, crossed lifetimes, to reappear before him. There was no room for negotiation. There was only erasure.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“You dare,” Lloyd whispered, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that seemed to vibrate with the hum of his awakened Void power. “You dare to exist in the same world as me again. For that… for that, there is no forgiveness. There is only… consequence.”
He didn’t shout. He didn’t roar. He simply acted.
With a speed born of pure, unadulterated rage, he unleashed his power. The air around him shimmered, tore, as dozens, then hundreds, of whisper-thin filaments of gleaming Ferrum steel erupted from the void, not just from his hands, but from the very space around him. They weren’t the non-lethal binding wires from the tournament. These were different. Sharper. Colder. Imbued with a chilling, lethal intent, each one a razor-edged promise of a thousand cuts. They converged, a screaming, shimmering hornet’s nest of steel, and shot, with the silent, inescapable speed of thought, directly at the boy in the wheelchair.
This wasn't a warning shot. This wasn't a display. This was an execution.
But just as the deadly cloud of steel wires was about to reach its target, just as it was about to shred ‘B’ and his finely crafted wheelchair into a bloody, splintered ruin, the serene, beautiful Inari moved.
She moved with a speed that was utterly, breathtakingly, inhuman. One moment she was standing behind the wheelchair, a picture of delicate, floral grace. The next, she was a blur of motion, positioning herself directly between Lloyd’s attack and her charge, her gentle, serene expression vanished, replaced by a mask of fierce, cold, protective fury. Her blue eyes, moments before warm and kind, now blazed with a chilling, predatory light.
“You will not touch him!” she snarled, her voice no longer soft and melodic, but a low, dangerous growl that resonated with a power Lloyd’s senses hadn't even registered.
She didn't draw her dagger. She didn't need to. She simply thrust her hand forward, her Spirit Stone, a shard of what looked like polished, solidified night embedded in a simple leather bracelet, flaring with an explosive burst of dark, shadowy energy. “Kaelan! Intercept!”
The shadows in the field deepened, converged, coalesced before her, forming into a creature of sleek, terrifying, midnight beauty. It was a Puma, larger than any natural feline, its body seemingly sculpted from living, flowing shadow, its fur the color of a starless night sky. It wasn't solid, yet it possessed a terrifying, tangible presence. And its eyes… its eyes were twin pools of luminous, emerald-green fire, blazing with a savage, predatory intelligence and an absolute, unwavering loyalty to its mistress. It let out a silent roar, a concussive blast of pure, shadow-infused will that made the very air seem to curdle.
The Puma, Kaelan, met Lloyd’s screaming cloud of steel wires head-on.
Chapter: 239
The clash was not one of sound, but of silent, violent, metaphysical force. Spectral claw, woven from shadow and will, met razor-edged steel, forged from Void and fury. The air crackled, shimmered, tore. Wires snapped, their contained energy dissipating into faint wisps of smoke. Shadows were shredded, only to instantly reform. For a heart-stopping, impossible moment, the two forces met in a stalemate, a swirling vortex of gleaming steel and writhing shadow, a silent, deadly battle between two diametrically opposed, yet terrifyingly potent, powers.
Lloyd stared, his initial furious lunge momentarily checked, his mind reeling. This woman… Inari… the quiet, beautiful fiancée… her spirit… it wasn't just powerful. It was Ascended. At least. The sheer density of its shadow energy, its ability to intercept and neutralize his full-force steel wire assault… it was on a level far beyond any spirit he had encountered, save perhaps for Ken’s own transcendent Redborn.
She had blocked him. Completely. His surprise attack, his execution strike, fueled by the purest rage he had felt in two lifetimes, had been stopped cold by a girl who looked like she spent her afternoons arranging flowers and writing poetry.
The identity of B was no longer the only, or perhaps even the most pressing, mystery of the night. Who in the hells, Lloyd thought, the fury in his veins now mixed with a healthy, grudging dose of profound, life-or-death caution, are these people?
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The field, once a place of quiet, starlit conversation, was now a silent, deadly battlefield. The air crackled with the aftermath of the clash, a tense, humming stillness where Lloyd’s gleaming steel wires and Inari’s writhing shadow-puma, Kaelan, had met and neutralized each other. The attack was over, but the killing intent, a cold, palpable miasma, still hung thick and heavy between them.
Lloyd stood his ground, his body coiled like a spring, the remnants of his shattered wire-cloud slowly dissipating around him. His Black Ring Eyes, which had flared to life instinctively at the peak of his rage, now burned with a cold, analytical fire, their luminous bluish-white rings fixed on the two figures before him. He was no longer just the furious Major General. He was the strategist, reassessing a tactical situation that had just become infinitely more complicated.
Inari, the serene, flower-braided beauty, was no longer serene. She stood planted before B’s wheelchair, a fierce, protective sentinel, her blue eyes blazing with a cold, predatory light that was utterly at odds with her delicate features. Her spirit, the massive shadow-puma Kaelan, had not dissipated. It flowed around her, a semi-corporeal mass of living darkness, its emerald eyes locked on Lloyd, a low, menacing growl rumbling in its spectral chest. Its claws, forged from pure shadow, flexed, ready to lunge, ready to tear, ready to obey its mistress’s slightest command. The power radiating from it was immense, a suffocating pressure that made the very air feel thick and hard to breathe. Ascension-level was an understatement. This felt closer to the upper echelons of that stage, humming with a power that bordered on the transcendent.
Lloyd’s fury, while still a cold, hard knot in his gut, was now tempered by a healthy dose of pragmatic caution. This woman was dangerous. Exceedingly so. A direct confrontation, would be… unwise. He could probably win, he thought, a flicker of his innate Ferrum arrogance surfacing. The Black Ring Eyes offered him options beyond mere physical assault. A Seal of Severed Perception on her, or her spirit, could end this quickly. But the cost, the energy drain, would be significant. And he still didn’t understand the full picture. Why were they here, in earth? Charging in blindly was no longer a viable option.
Just as the shadow-puma, Kaelan, tensed its powerful haunches, its muscles bunching for a devastating lunge, just as Lloyd was preparing to unleash a new, more subtle, and infinitely more insidious, attack with his Black Ring Eyes, a voice cut through the supercharged tension.
“Inari. Enough.”
The voice was quiet, strained, yet it carried an undeniable, absolute authority that made the fierce, protective Inari freeze mid-motion. B, the broken boy in the wheelchair, the catalyst for this entire chaotic confrontation, raised his single, remaining hand, a clear, commanding gesture.
Chapter: 240
“Stand down, Kaelan. If he uses those eyes you cannot sustain a few seconds,” he commanded. Inari hesitated for a fraction of a second, her jaw tight, her eyes still blazing with protective fury. But then, with a reluctant, almost resentful sigh, she gave a sharp, almost imperceptible nod. The massive shadow-puma, with a final, rumbling growl that promised future violence, dissolved, flowing back into the shadows from whence it came, leaving behind only the lingering scent of ozone and cold, dark places. Inari’s own fierce expression softened, her posture relaxing fractionally, though her gaze, when it rested on Lloyd, remained wary, hostile.
“This is not your fight, Inari,” B said, his voice soft but firm. He turned his single grey eye, which now held a strange mixture of profound weariness and an unshakeable, almost stubborn, resolve, towards Lloyd. “This is between us. Between me… and the Major General.”
Lloyd watched, his own attack held in abeyance, his Black Ring Eyes still glowing with their cold, ethereal light. He said nothing, simply waiting, observing, his mind a whirlwind of calculation and suspicion.
Then, B did something that seemed, on the surface, utterly impossible.
With a low grunt of immense, teeth-gritting effort, a sound of pure, unadulterated willpower overcoming physical limitation, he began to push himself up from his wheelchair. His body, frail and broken, trembled violently with the strain. The muscles in his remaining arm corded, his face, pale and slick with a sudden sheen of sweat, contorted in a mask of agonizing exertion.
“Ben!” Inari was moving to assist him.
“Stay back, Inari,” B gasped, his voice tight with pain, waving her away with a sharp, insistent gesture. “I said… this is my fight.”
And as he pushed himself upwards, as he struggled to rise from the confines of his chair, the air around his severed limbs, the stumps of his left arm and left leg, began to shimmer. Not with spirit energy, not with the ethereal glow of Lloyd’s Black Rings, but with the familiar, unmistakable, thrumming hum of Ferrum Void power.
Then, the shimmering intensified. And from the raw, severed ends of his limbs, something began to extrude. Not flesh and bone. But metal. Gleaming, solid, undeniable metal.
Tendrils of what looked like molten, half-formed iron flowed from his left shoulder, weaving themselves together with a painful, audible grinding sound, coalescing, shaping, solidifying with agonizing slowness into the crude, functional form of a hand, a wrist, an arm. Simultaneously, an even larger mass of the same metallic substance flowed from his left hip, building downwards, forming a thick, powerful, if somewhat ungainly, prosthetic leg, ending in a wide, stable, metallic foot that clanked heavily as it met the grassy earth.
The process was clearly excruciating. B’s face was ashen, his body shaking with the immense strain of the transformation, his breath coming in ragged, painful gasps. But he did not stop. He poured his will, his very life force, into the act of creation, forcing his bloodline power to obey, to build, to forge for him the limbs he had lost.
Finally, it was done. B, the cripple, stood before Lloyd, unsteadily at first, then with a growing, solid, immovable presence. He was supported not by flesh, but by his own, self-forged appendages of gleaming, raw iron. He looked like a broken porcelain doll that had been crudely, brutally, repaired with scrap metal, a strange, tragic, yet undeniably powerful fusion of fragile humanity and unyielding Ferrum will.
He took a slow, deliberate, clanking step forward, then another, his new iron leg thudding heavily on the ground, his new iron hand clenching into a solid, metallic fist. He stood tall, or as tall as his broken body would allow, his single grey eye blazing with a fire that was a direct, unwavering challenge.
“Now, Major General,” B said, the name a deliberate, mocking echo of a forgotten rank, his voice no longer weak or strained, but resonating with the full, deep power of his awakened Ferrum bloodline. “Now we can talk. Or,” he added, a flicker of that old, dangerous B-commander confidence returning to his gaze, “if you still prefer… we can fight.” He looked from his own newly forged iron fist to Lloyd’s glowing, ethereal Black Ring Eyes. “On equal footing. This is my fight. And I will not hide behind a woman, or a wheelchair, when I face an old enemy.”
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2025-07-01 08:00
