Chapter : 551

He followed Ken from the manufactory, leaving the world of ledgers and profit margins behind, and entered the world of his family’s ancient, martial heritage. The private training ground was a large, circular enclosure behind the main estate, its high stone walls scarred with the marks of a thousand forgotten duels, its packed earth floor bearing the faint, ghostly outlines of generations of Ferrum warriors practicing their deadly craft.

Arch Duke Roy Ferrum stood alone in the center of the circle, his back to the entrance. He was not dressed in his formal ducal robes, but in simple, stark black training leathers that clung to his powerful, athletic frame. He stood perfectly still, his hands clasped behind his back, radiating an aura of such immense, contained power that the very air around him seemed to hum with a low, dangerous energy. It was the stillness of a coiled serpent, of a sleeping volcano.

Lloyd walked onto the packed earth, his own footsteps a soft, almost soundless counterpoint to the thundering of his own heart. Ken Park took up a position near the entrance, a silent, solitary witness, his face an unreadable mask.

Lloyd stopped a respectful ten paces from his father. “You summoned me, Father.”

Roy Ferrum turned slowly, his dark eyes, so like Lloyd’s own, fixing on his son with a new, sharp, and deeply, profoundly, challenging intensity. The proud father who had praised his innovation, the shrewd Duke who had invested in his vision—both were gone. In their place stood the warrior. The master. The ultimate, final arbiter of Ferrum strength.

“I have,” Roy stated, his voice a low, quiet rumble that seemed to vibrate through the very ground. “Your commercial successes are… commendable, Lloyd. You have proven you possess a mind for strategy, for profit. You have built a remarkable engine of commerce that will strengthen this house for generations to come.” He paused, his gaze sweeping over his son, assessing, weighing. “But an empire of soap, however profitable, is a fragile thing. It is built on perception, on desire. And it must be protected.”

He took a single, deliberate step forward. “True strength, the foundation upon which all else is built, is not in a ledger. It is in the steel of one’s arm, and the fire in one’s blood. You have shown me you have a mind. Now, you will show me if you have a warrior’s soul.”

He gestured to the empty space between them. “The tournament was a stage. The Summit, a performance. This… this is a lesson. A private duel. You, and I. No spirits. No tricks. Just the power of our bloodline.” His dark eyes gleamed with a cold, almost predatory, light. “You have hidden your strength for years, my son. You have revealed it in glimpses, in flashes. Today, you will hide nothing. You will show me everything. You will show me the full, true extent of your progress.”

It was not a request. It was not a suggestion. It was a direct, absolute, and utterly, comprehensively, non-negotiable challenge. The father was about to test the son. And the test, Lloyd knew with a certainty that was both terrifying and exhilarating, was one of survival.

The Arch Duke’s challenge hung in the air of the training ground, as stark and unyielding as the scarred stone walls that surrounded them. A duel. Not a friendly spar, not a gentle training session. A true, full-contact assessment of power, stripped of all artifice. The final, ultimate examination. Lloyd felt a jolt of something that was not quite fear, but a cold, sharp, and deeply exhilarating, thrill. He had spent his entire second life being underestimated, being dismissed as the ‘drab duckling’. He had spent the last month carefully, strategically, revealing his power in controlled, calculated glimpses. Now, his father was demanding he lay all his cards on the table.

He looked at his father, at the immense, contained power that radiated from him like heat from a furnace. He knew, with an absolute certainty, that he could not win. Not yet. Roy Ferrum was a master of the Steel Blood, a warrior who had honed his Beyond-Rank abilities over decades of war and political strife. His own B-Rank power, however potent, however refined, was still that of an apprentice compared to the grandmaster.

But winning wasn't the point. His father didn't want to see him win. He wanted to see him fight. He wanted to see his spirit, his cunning, the true measure of the man his son was becoming. He wanted to see if the steel in his blood was matched by the steel in his spine.

Chapter : 552

A slow, confident smile touched Lloyd’s lips, a smile that held no arrogance, only a quiet, unwavering acceptance of the challenge. “As you command, Father,” he said, his voice calm, steady. He slipped out of his own formal tunic, leaving him in a simple, dark undershirt that allowed for greater freedom of movement. He fell into a low, ready stance, his body a coiled spring of contained energy.

Roy Ferrum nodded once, a sharp, almost imperceptible gesture of approval at his son’s lack of hesitation. “Begin,” he commanded.

Lloyd did not wait. He knew his only advantage, if he had one at all, was in speed, in surprise, in the unorthodox application of a power his father had not yet seen him wield in its true, terrifying form. He moved, exploding into action, his feet barely seeming to touch the packed earth as he closed the distance between them.

He raised his hands, and the air around him shimmered with the familiar, whisper-thin light of his will. “Chain Shackles!” he roared, unleashing his primary, signature attack.

Not one, not two, but a dozen gleaming, solid chains of polished Ferrum steel erupted from the void around him. They were not the heavy, binding chains he had used against the Croft brothers. These were his assassin’s chains—sleek, fast, each link honed to a razor’s edge, moving with the silent, inescapable speed of striking vipers. They shot forward, a complex, intersecting web of shimmering, deadly steel, aiming not just to bind his father, but to slice, to disarm, to overwhelm him with a multi-pronged assault from a dozen different angles at once.

It was a beautiful, terrifying display of his B-Rank power, a storm of controlled, lethal steel that would have overwhelmed any lesser opponent, that would have shredded a man like Victor into ribbons before he could even blink.

Arch Duke Roy Ferrum watched the screaming, shimmering web of razor-edged death approach him. And he did not move. He did not flinch. He did not even seem to tense. His expression remained one of calm, almost bored, assessment.

Just as the first of Lloyd’s chains was about to reach him, just as its razor-sharp links were about to bite into his flesh, Roy moved his hand. It was not a block. It was not a parry. It was a gesture. A simple, almost casual, flick of his wrist.

And the world turned to steel.

From the air around Roy, from the very ground at his feet, his own power erupted. It was not the shimmering, almost delicate, light of Lloyd’s chains. It was a solid, overwhelming, and utterly, comprehensively, absolute manifestation of pure, undeniable force. A wall of chains, thicker, denser, darker, than Lloyd’s, a fortress of interlocking, steel links, materialized from nothingness in the space of a single, silent heartbeat.

Lloyd’s razor-thin assassin’s chains slammed into the wall of Roy’s power. And they shattered.

There was a high-pitched, screaming shriek of metal on metal, a sound that grated on the teeth, as Lloyd’s elegant, deadly creations, the weapons he had honed over three years of brutal, clandestine warfare, simply… disintegrated. They shattered like brittle glass against an unyielding granite cliff, dissolving into a shower of harmless, fading sparks.

Lloyd stared, his attack utterly, comprehensively, and almost contemptuously, neutralized. The backlash, the psychic shock of having his manifested power so completely, so brutally, broken, slammed into him. He staggered back, a grunt of pain and surprise escaping his lips, his head throbbing, his Void reserves feeling as if they had just been violently siphoned away.

The wall of Roy’s chains dissolved, vanishing as silently as it had appeared. He stood there, unmoved, his hands once more clasped behind his back, his expression unchanged.

“Your control is precise, Lloyd,” Roy commented, his voice a flat, clinical assessment. “Your speed is commendable. But your power… your density… it is that of a child. You wield a rapier. I,” he paused, a flicker of the true, terrifying, Beyond-Rank power of the Arch Duke blazing in his eyes, “wield a mountain.”

The demonstration was over. The lesson was clear. The gulf between them was not just a gap; it was a chasm. An ocean. A vast, seemingly unbridgeable abyss of raw, overwhelming power and centuries of perfected, absolute mastery. Lloyd’s best, his most refined, his most lethal attack, had been swatted aside like a bothersome fly.

He stood there, panting slightly, the taste of failure, of his own relative weakness, a bitter, familiar taste in his mouth. He had known he couldn't win. But he had not been prepared for the sheer, effortless, and deeply, profoundly, humbling nature of his father’s dominance.