Chapter : 677

"Hold her still!" he roared, his commander's voice cutting through the panic.

Jasmin and Martha Junior, their faces pale with terror, reacted instinctively, grabbing Pia's flailing arms and trying to pin her to the floor. It was like trying to hold down a lightning strike. The dark energy coursing through her gave her a desperate, unnatural strength.

Lloyd knelt beside her, his own power flaring to life. He had no experience with curse-breaking, a highly specialized and obscure branch of magic. His own abilities were geared towards creation, destruction, and control, not the delicate, intricate work of unraveling a magical affliction. But he had to try.

He activated his Black Ring Eyes. His sclera turned a starless black, the luminous blue-white rings of his irises glowing with an ethereal light. This was the power of the Austin line, the power to "seal" and "negate." If any of his abilities could counter this, it would be this one.

He focused his will, not on Pia's body, but on the curse seal itself. He attempted to impose his own power over it, to "seal the seal," to encase the malevolent magic in a prison of his own Void energy and choke it off from its source. He visualized a ring of pure, cleansing light wrapping around the ugly black sigil, squeezing it, starving it.

For a moment, it seemed to work. The pulsing black light of the curse seal wavered, dimmed slightly under the pressure of his own potent Void power. Pia’s convulsions lessened, a brief, blessed moment of stillness. A flicker of hope ignited in the room.

But it was a false dawn. The Altamiran curse was ancient, woven with a malice and complexity that Lloyd could not comprehend. It was not a simple spell; it was a semi-sentient magical parasite, bonded directly to Pia’s life force. His attempt to suppress it was like trying to dam a tsunami with a wall of sand.

The curse fought back. With a surge of renewed, vicious power, the black light flared, shattering Lloyd’s containing ring of energy with contemptuous ease. The psychic backlash slammed into him, a wave of pure, negative energy that felt like a physical blow. He staggered back, a sharp pain lancing through his skull, the taste of blood and ash in his mouth.

The curse, now fully dominant, accelerated its gruesome work. Pia let out a final, shuddering gasp, a sound that was half-sob, half-death rattle. The black light of the seal consumed her neck, spreading in a web of dark, necrotic veins across her skin. The light in her eyes, the last spark of her terrified soul, flickered and then extinguished, leaving only the empty, staring vacancy of death.

Her body went limp. The convulsions stopped. The unnatural strength fled her limbs, leaving her a small, broken doll on the floor of the study.

A profound, horrified silence descended upon the room. It was over. The Altamirans had won. Their final, cruel failsafe had worked perfectly. Their spy had been silenced, their secrets preserved.

Lloyd stared down at Pia’s lifeless form, his hands clenched into fists so tight his knuckles were white. He felt a rage so pure, so absolute, that it was a silent, white-hot inferno in his soul. It was the rage of the powerless. He, a man who could command gods, who could reshape reality with his will, had been utterly helpless to save this one, frightened girl. He had been forced to watch as his enemies reached across the continent and murdered one of his own people right in front of him.

He had offered her a choice, a path to redemption. And her masters had responded by ripping that choice away, by demonstrating that for their pawns, there was no escape, only servitude or a horrific, agonizing death. It was a message. A message of absolute, merciless control. A message sent directly to him.

And Lloyd Ferrum had received it.

The aftermath of the curse was a tableau of frozen horror. Pia’s body lay still on the floor, her face peaceful in a way it had likely never been in life, a cruel irony that was not lost on Lloyd. The sickly black light of the curse seal had faded, the malevolent energy having consumed its host and dissipated, leaving behind only the profound, irrevocable silence of death.

Chapter : 678

Tisha was a statue of shock, her hand still pressed to her mouth, her wide, horrified eyes fixed on the body of the girl she had worked alongside for months. Her usual warmth, her boundless optimism, seemed to have been extinguished, replaced by a chilling, firsthand understanding of the true stakes of the game they were playing. This was not a friendly competition of brands and markets; it was a shadow war where the price of failure was a gruesome, magical execution.

Mei Jing’s face was a mask of stone, but her eyes were blazing with a cold, hard fire. She was not horrified; she was furious. This was an unacceptable tactical loss. The enemy had demonstrated a capability and a ruthlessness that exceeded her projections. They had not just silenced a witness; they had sent a message of terror, a psychological blow aimed at the heart of their organization. Her mind was already recalibrating, her strategies becoming colder, harder, and more unforgiving in response. She was meeting the enemy’s escalation with a silent vow of her own.

It was Jasmin who finally broke the spell. A low, keening sound of pure, heartbroken grief escaped her lips. She crawled forward on her knees, her entire body shaking. She reached out a trembling hand and gently brushed a stray lock of hair from Pia’s still face.

"Pia," she whispered, the name a broken thing. "Oh, Pia…"

She had been her friend. They had shared meals, complained about long hours, celebrated small victories. Jasmin had trusted her, had confided in her. And all that time, her friend had been living in a private hell, a prisoner of forces she couldn't even imagine. The betrayal was forgotten now, washed away by the tide of a much larger, more terrible tragedy. There was only the grief for a lost friend, and the guilt of having been blind to her suffering.

Martha Junior, who had stood frozen by the door, finally crumpled, her legs giving out from under her. She slid down the wall, her face buried in her hands, her shoulders shaking with silent, terrified sobs. The casual brutality of it was too much to process. One moment, they were a team. The next, one of them was a corpse on the floor, murdered by a ghost. The safety of her world, the predictability of her life, had been irrevocably shattered.

Lloyd stood amidst the wreckage of their broken sanctuary, a silent pillar in a storm of grief and shock. He watched his team, his family, as their innocence was brutally stripped away. He felt their fear, their sorrow, their rage. And he absorbed it all, letting it feed the cold, white-hot furnace that was now burning in the core of his soul.

He had made a promise to Pia. He had given her his vow that he would liberate her family. And he had failed. His power, his plans, his strategies—all of it had been useless in the face of this ancient, spiteful magic. He had been outmaneuvered, his mercy thrown back in his face as a weakness.

The soldier in him, the ruthless Major General who had survived a hundred battles, asserted control. Grief was a luxury. Remorse was a tactical error. What remained was the mission. And the mission had just been redefined.

It was no longer about protecting his brand or exposing a spy. It was no longer about economic warfare or political leverage. It had become something far more primal.

It was about retribution.

He looked down at Pia’s body. He had failed to save her life. But he would not fail to avenge it. He would not fail the vow he made. He would find her family. He would bring them home. And he would deliver a message of his own to the cowards who hid in the shadows and used children as weapons.

He turned to Ken Park, who had materialized silently in the doorway at some point during the chaos, his presence a comforting anchor of deadly competence.

"Ken," Lloyd said, his voice quiet, but resonating with an absolute, terrifying finality. "Secure this room. No one else enters. Prepare Pia’s body for transport. She will be given a private, respectful burial on estate grounds. She died in service to this house."

He then turned to his shattered, weeping team. "Go," he commanded, his voice gentle but firm. "Get some rest. We will reconvene tomorrow. Today, we grieve. Tomorrow, we get back to work. We will not let her sacrifice be in vain. We will win this war."