A tremor of something akin to awe, or perhaps apprehension, ran through him. He was about to engage in an act that bordered on the divine. He was about to create a form of life—or something that mimicked it so perfectly as to be indistinguishable—from his own will. He was about to cleave off a sliver of his own essence and give it form and purpose. It was a profound and deeply strange thought.
For a moment, he hesitated, the sheer gravity of the act giving him pause. Was he playing God in his own little fishbowl dimension?
Then, the memory of the squelch, pop, pop echoed in his mind, and all philosophical concerns were brutally incinerated by the sheer, pragmatic desire to never have to do that again.
He took a deep breath, the air of his private world feeling charged with an electric potential. He was no longer just a visitor here, a user of the System. He was becoming a part of its very architecture. He was a creator.
He focused his will on the final command, a single, powerful word of creation.
The response was not the violent, reality-warping eruption of a Transcended spirit. It was far quieter, more insidious. The air before him began to shimmer, not with heat, but with a strange, silvery distortion. It was as if a patch of reality had become liquid. Motes of ambient light and particles of shadow, pulled from the very fabric of the Farm, began to swirl and coalesce. They weaved together like threads on a loom, forming a recognizable humanoid shape with a silent, eerie grace.
Slowly, the form solidified. The broad shoulders, the lean, practical build of a swordsman, the dark hair that fell just so. It was him. A perfect, spectral replica.
The figure that stood before him was unsettling in its perfection. It wore the same dark training leathers he did. Its form, while seemingly solid, had a faint, ethereal translucence, a ghostly shimmer that marked it as something not quite real. Its face was a mask of serene neutrality, but the eyes… the eyes were the most disturbing part. They were his eyes, the same shade of dark grey, but they were utterly, terrifyingly empty. There was no spark of consciousness, no flicker of thought or emotion. It was the blank, placid gaze of a machine awaiting its initial command.
This was his Echo. His will, given form. It was a ghost of himself, haunting his own private world.
The Administrator's voice returned, a calm anchor in this strange new reality. [Psychic link established. Imprinting Task Protocol 'Slime Cull - Low Energy Method' onto the Echo's core directive. Please stand by.]
Lloyd felt that strange mental tug again, more defined this time. It was a permanent, two-way connection, a quiet hum in the background of his thoughts. Through it, he could feel the Echo’s state of being—not as an emotion, but as a series of data points: Status: Dormant. Energy Core: Stable. Directive: Receiving.
He felt the packaged memory of the grind flow down that psychic thread and into the waiting vessel. The Echo’s body trembled, a microscopic shiver running through its translucent form as the complex algorithm was integrated into its very essence. The muscle memory for the chains, the precise energy calculation for the lightning, the target acquisition patterns—it was all being written onto its soul, or whatever passed for one.
After a few tense seconds, the imprinting was complete. The psychic link stabilized, becoming a quiet, unobtrusive background process. The command interface in his mind updated with a soft chime.
[ECHO OF WILL - COMMAND INTERFACE]
[STATUS: ACTIVE - AWAITING COMMAND]
[ASSIGNED TASK: SLIME CULL - LOW ENERGY METHOD]
The Echo stood perfectly still, its empty eyes fixed on the horizon, waiting. It was ready. His creation, his tool, his slave, was ready to begin its endless work. The culmination of his agonizing grind was standing right in front of him, a silent testament to his will. The age of his freedom was about to dawn.
Lloyd stared at the Echo, his silent, spectral twin. The initial shock and philosophical strangeness of its creation were already receding, replaced by the cool, appraising eye of a commander assessing a new asset. It stood perfectly still, a statue of potential, its entire being coiled around the single, imprinted directive he had given it. Its emptiness was no longer unsettling; it was a mark of its perfection. It had no ego, no desires, no distractions. It was a pure instrument of his will.
He took a step back, creating a clear space between creator and creation. He felt the faint, persistent hum of the psychic link, a connection that felt as natural and unobtrusive as his own heartbeat. Through it, he could feel the Echo's readiness, its state of poised anticipation. It was a loaded weapon, waiting for the trigger to be pulled.
He allowed himself a final, small smile of satisfaction. The drudgery was about to be delegated. The burden was about to be lifted.
With a surge of will, as simple and direct as taking a breath, he issued the final, liberating command through their mental link.
The Echo moved. The transition from absolute stillness to fluid motion was instantaneous and utterly silent. There was no preparatory shift in weight, no tensing of muscles. One moment it was a statue, the next it was gliding forward with a mechanical grace that was both hypnotic and deeply inhuman. Its every movement was optimized for efficiency, stripped of any extraneous human flourish.
It walked toward the shimmering, verdant expanse of the plains, where the first wave of newly respawned slimes was already beginning to bubble up from the turf, their simple forms wobbling with mindless purpose.
As the Echo moved, its hands began to glow with a soft, silvery light—the spectral energy of the Soul Farm itself, harnessed and shaped by its core directive. From its palms, translucent, ghost-like chains manifested. They weren't the hard, physical B-Rank steel of Lloyd’s own power, but shimmering constructs of pure will and energy, more than sufficient for the simple task of herding the Farm's weakest inhabitants.
The air beside the Echo shimmered, and a second spectral form faded into existence. It was a translucent, pale imitation of Fang Fairy. It had her shape, her grace, but lacked the fierce, intelligent storm in her golden eyes and the crackling, high-voltage aura of her Lightning Cloak. It was another tool, a secondary drone, its existence entirely dependent on the Echo's primary directive.
Lloyd watched, transfixed, as his automated team reached the edge of the slime field. The performance began without preamble.
The phantom chains, controlled by the Echo's flawless programming, snaked out with silent precision. They didn't strike or bind; they flowed around a cluster of several dozen slimes, gently nudging and guiding them into a tight, manageable ball. The movements were economical, perfect, a textbook execution of the strategy Lloyd had perfected through hours of grueling practice.
The spectral Fang Fairy drifted forward, its expression as serenely blank as its master's. It raised a translucent hand. A single, pale dart of energy, a mere whisper of the true Lightning Dart, lanced out. It wasn't aimed at a slime, but at the nexus of the chains holding them.
A pale, shimmering wave of energy pulsed through the ghostly chains. The slimes jiggled violently for a fraction of a second. Then, in perfect, silent unison, they popped. They dissolved into motes of data and light, their brief existence erased.
Through the psychic link, Lloyd felt the immediate feedback. Ping.
His Farming Coin balance ticked up from 200 to 201.
The Echo didn't pause to admire its work. It didn't register the success. Its programming had already identified the next target. It moved to the next cluster of slimes. The phantom chains deployed. The spectral spirit attacked. The pale jolt of energy pulsed. The slimes dissolved.
His balance was now 202.
The process was a flawless, silent, and unending loop of perfect automation.
A deep, profound, and utterly overwhelming sense of liberation washed over Lloyd. It was a feeling more potent than any power-up, more satisfying than any victory in battle. The weight of the grind, a metaphysical burden he had been carrying for what felt like years within this dimension, was lifted from his shoulders and placed upon the back of his silent, tireless clone.
The sheer, beautiful logic of it was intoxicating. He had taken a problem—a tedious, time-consuming, and inefficient chore—and had engineered a perfect, automated solution. This was the mind of KM Evan unleashed upon the rules of a fantasy world. He wasn't just playing the game; he was rewriting its code to suit his needs.
He watched the silent ballet of slaughter for a full five minutes, a slow, immensely satisfied smile spreading across his face. The sight of his own back, bent to a task he now loathed, was the most beautiful, liberating image he had ever seen. He had successfully and permanently outsourced his own personal hell.