Chapter : 681

He thought of Pia’s family, prisoners in a hostile land. He thought of Jager, the ghost with the green eyes, moving silently through the shadows of his city. He thought of the Altamiran royal family, so confident in their power, so utterly unaware of the storm that was gathering on their horizon.

His rage was a powerful fuel, but it would not be enough. He needed more power. He needed the kind of absolute, overwhelming force that could shatter armies, break down fortress walls, and hold the fate of nations in the palm of his hand.

He closed his eyes and retreated into the quiet, internal space of his System. He looked at his accumulated coins, the fruits of his tedious, soul-crushing grind in the Soul Farm. They were no longer just a resource for his own progression. They were his war chest.

He had been saving them, hoarding them, waiting for the right moment to invest in a major upgrade. The right moment was now. The price of loyalty had been paid in blood. Now, it was time to cash in his chips and purchase the power to exact the price of betrayal.

The study was a tomb. The air was heavy with the ghost of Pia’s last, agonizing moments. The scent of ozone from the curse had long since faded, but Lloyd could still smell it, a phantom stench of black magic and despair that clung to the back of his throat. He stood in the center of the room, a solitary figure amidst the ghosts of his own making.

The faces of his team were etched into his mind. He had seen their shock transform into sorrow, and their sorrow harden into a brittle, furious resolve. He had given them a target for their pain, a direction for their rage. He had pointed them at House Altamira and promised them a war. But promises were easy. Wars were won with steel, strategy, and overwhelming, uncompromising power.

His power.

He closed his eyes, shutting out the tragic ghosts of the study, and retreated into the cool, silent cathedral of his mind where the System resided. The sleek, star-filled interface of System 2.0 greeted him, its logic and order a stark contrast to the chaotic, messy emotions of the real world. Here, there was no grief, no guilt. There was only data, variables, and a clear, quantifiable path to ascension.

He reviewed his resources. The AURA empire was a juggernaut, a river of gold that flowed into his coffers daily. This allowed him to max out his new, tripled currency conversion rate, turning tangible wealth into the intangible, but far more valuable, System Coins. His Echo of Will was tirelessly harvesting the Slime Plains in the Soul Farm, a slow but steady trickle of passive income. His own active, brutal hunts in the Savage Brushland were yielding massive returns, though at a significant cost to his own energy and time.

His accumulated wealth was substantial. But it was not enough. Not for the war he now intended to wage.

He looked at Pia’s body, now respectfully covered by a simple linen sheet that Ken had provided. He saw not just a murdered friend, but a symbol of his own inadequacy. He had possessed the power of two Transcended spirits, the legendary Steel Blood, and the mythical Black Ring Eyes. And yet, he had been helpless. He had been a god in a cage, unable to stop a simple, insidious curse from claiming one of his own.

The problem was not a lack of power, but a lack of the right power. He needed more than just destructive force. He needed versatility. He needed control. He needed a way to counter the insidious, esoteric magics that his enemies clearly commanded.

His gaze in the System interface fell upon the upgrade tree for his Austin bloodline, the path of the Black Ring Eyes. It was a path he had largely neglected. His Ferrum power was tangible, direct, a warrior’s tool. His spirits were his divine artillery. The Austin power was subtle, mysterious, and difficult to master. He had used it to seal his cousin’s senses and to forge a single, simple cup. He had only scratched the surface of its true potential.

He recalled his mother’s lesson in the ruined training hall. The Right Eye, the Seal, was a power of negation. The Left Eye, the Forge, a power of creation. She had called it a power that could "define reality." Could it define the reality of a curse? Could it negate a malevolent magic?

He didn't know. But the possibility was there.

Chapter : 682

Then he looked at his other options. He could continue to pour resources into his Steel Blood, raising it from B-Rank to A-Rank, making his chains stronger, his control more absolute. Or he could invest in his spirits, perhaps unlocking new, devastating abilities for Iffrit and Fang Fairy. These were the paths of the warrior, the paths of direct confrontation.

But the war he was facing would not be won by direct confrontation alone. It would be a war fought in the shadows, a war of assassins, spies, and forbidden curses. He needed a dagger for the shadows, not just a sledgehammer for the battlefield.

A new, cold resolve settled over him. He had been focusing on overwhelming his enemies. Now, he would learn to unmake them.

The fury he felt over Pia's death was a raw, primal thing. A storm of rage that demanded a target. He looked at her still form one last time. He had made her a vow to save her family. That vow was sacred. But he now made a second, silent vow. A vow to himself.

He would never be helpless again.

He would master every facet of his power. He would become a chimera of steel, storm, fire, and the void. He would become a force so absolute that the very concept of resistance would be rendered meaningless.

He focused his will on the System interface. The decision was made. The path was chosen.

"Administrator," he commanded, his mental voice a blade of cold steel. "Access the Bloodline Skill Tree for the Austin lineage. And show me everything."

The interface shimmered and reformed, the familiar upgrade paths for his other powers fading away, replaced by a new, intricate, and deeply mysterious web of potential. It was a star-chart of terrifying possibility, and he was about to take his first step into its dark, unknown constellations. The rage in his heart had found its purpose. It would be the forge in which he would craft the weapons of his vengeance.

The study, with its heavy silence and the tragic burden at its center, seemed to dissolve away. Lloyd was adrift in the star-dusted void of the System interface, his entire consciousness focused on the new, intricate tapestry of power that had just unfurled before him. The Austin Bloodline Skill Tree was not like the others. The paths for his Steel Blood and his spirits were relatively linear, focused on augmenting existing abilities—more power, greater speed, stronger defense. This… this was different.

It was a complex, web-like structure, radiating out from a central core labeled [BLACK RING EYES: FOUNDATIONAL]. Two primary branches extended from this core, labeled [THE RIGHT EYE: PATH OF THE SEAL] and [THE LEFT EYE: PATH OF THE FORGE], confirming his mother’s lesson. But from these two main branches, dozens of smaller, interconnected tendrils snaked outwards, their nodes glowing with the names of abilities that were both terrifying and esoteric.

Under the Path of the Seal, he saw skills like ‘Seal of Severed Perception,’ which he had already used, but also ‘Seal of Stilled Momentum,’ ‘Seal of Binding Will,’ and, at the far, most expensive reaches of the branch, a node that pulsed with a dark, ominous light labeled ‘Seal of Conceptual Erasure.’ The description was brief and chilling: Negates a target concept. Existence. Memory. Magic. Permanently.

It was the power to unmake reality.

Under the Path of the Forge, the abilities were just as staggering. He saw the foundational ‘Manifestation: Ephemeral Construct,’ which he had used to create the energy war hammer, but beyond it lay ‘Manifestation: Stable Matter,’ his cup-making breakthrough, and further still, abilities like ‘Forge of Living Steel,’ ‘Creation of Homunculus,’ and a final, brilliant node named ‘Genesis Locus.’ The description for that one was even more cryptic: Impose a new, localized law of reality.

It was the power to become a god in a small corner of the world.

He felt a profound sense of awe and a deep, humbling respect for the Austin lineage. This was not a bloodline of warriors. It was a bloodline of philosophers and reality-benders, beings who treated the fundamental laws of the universe as suggestions, not rules.

His eyes, however, were drawn to a third, smaller, and previously hidden branch that seemed to connect the two main paths. It was labeled [THE HARMONIC EYE: PATH OF SYNERGY]. The skills here were different. They were not about direct creation or negation, but about interaction. He saw nodes like ‘Aura Analysis,’ ‘Curse Deconstruction,’ and ‘Resonant Frequency Manipulation.’