Chapter : 555

He had been prepared for his son to have a secret. He had been prepared for a hidden skill, a surprising tactic. He had even, after the Summit, been prepared for the reality of Lloyd’s awakened Steel Blood. He was not prepared for this.

A single Transcended spirit was a formidable asset, a power capable of turning the tide of a battle, a resource that could define the strength of a noble house for a generation. Ken Park possessed one, and it made him one of the most dangerous men in the kingdom. But two…

Two Transcended spirits, bound to a single master… it was not just rare; it was a statistical impossibility, a myth, a legend spoken of only in the most ancient, most fantastical, texts. It was a level of power that was supposed to be reserved for the gods themselves, for the legendary heroes of the founding age. And his son, his quiet, mediocre, soap-making son, was standing before him, flanked by a goddess of lightning and a demon of fire, wielding a power that defied all logic, all precedent, all understanding.

Even Ken Park, the stoic, immovable sentinel at the edge of the circle, was moved. His own impassive mask had cracked, his eyes wide, his body rigid with a tension that was not fear, but a profound, almost religious, awe. He was a Transcended user himself. He understood, on a visceral, fundamental level, the sheer, impossible magnitude of the power he was now witnessing. He was looking at a boy who had, somehow, inexplicably, broken the very laws of their world.

Lloyd stood at the heart of the storm he had unleashed, his two magnificent, terrifying partners at his side. He looked at his father’s shocked, disbelieving face, at the first, true, undeniable crack in the Arch Duke’s unshakeable composure.

The rapier had been swatted aside. The mountain had proven unmovable. So, he had done the only logical thing. He had summoned a thunderstorm and a volcano.

“Now, Father,” Lloyd’s voice was quiet, but it carried over the silent, roaring power of his spirits, a calm, deadly challenge in the heart of the elemental maelstrom. “The lesson continues. Shall we… proceed?” The unbridgeable gulf was still there. But it was no longer just his to cross.

The training ground had become a crucible, an arena where the fundamental laws of nature had been suspended, replaced by the raw, untamed will of the three figures at its center. The air itself was a battlefield, a chaotic war between the dry, searing heat radiating from Iffrit and the crisp, ozone-charged chill that emanated from Fang Fairy. The ground beneath their feet was a fractured mosaic of cracked stone and superheated earth. And at the heart of it all, Roy Ferrum stood, his initial, profound shock slowly, painstakingly, being forced back down, locked away behind the iron-hard discipline of a lifetime of command.

His mind, a formidable engine of strategy, was struggling to reboot, to process the impossible new data. Two Transcended spirits. Bound to his son. His weak, unremarkable, soap-making son. It defied all logic, all known principles of Spirit Power. The energy requirements alone should have been impossible for a boy with a single, mediocre Spirit Core. The spiritual and mental strain of bonding with, let alone commanding, two such powerful, distinct entities should have shattered his consciousness into a million pieces. Yet, there he stood. Calm. Confident. Flanked by a storm and an inferno.

How? The question was a silent, screaming roar in the Arch Duke’s mind. What is the source of this power? What secrets have you been keeping, my son?

But there was no time for questions. There was no time for analysis. There was only the fight. The challenge he himself had issued. And his son, it seemed, had accepted it with a terrifying, overwhelming enthusiasm.

“So,” Roy said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble, the first words spoken since the cataclysmic summoning. He forced his own shock down, replacing it with the cold, hard focus of the warrior. He could see the pride, the challenge, the absolute, unwavering confidence blazing in Lloyd’s eyes. His son was not just displaying power; he was making a statement. A declaration of his own, independent, and terrifyingly potent, strength. Roy knew he had to meet it. Not as a father, not as a Duke. But as a warrior. To do any less would be to disrespect the very power his son was now so magnificently, so terrifyingly, wielding.

Chapter : 556

A slow, grim, and almost predatory smile touched Roy’s lips. The initial shock had passed, replaced by something else. A thrill. A fierce, almost forgotten, exhilaration. The thrill of facing a true, worthy, and utterly unpredictable, opponent. For the first time in decades, since his own brutal battles in the Northern Wars, Roy Ferrum felt the familiar, intoxicating call of a real fight.

“You have learned new tricks, Lloyd,” Roy acknowledged, his own Void power beginning to stir, the air around him shimmering with a contained, immense heat. “Impressive tricks.” He settled into his own combat stance, a low, powerful crouch that was the epitome of grounded, immovable strength. “But a Transcended spirit is still just a tool. It is the will, the skill, of the master that truly determines the outcome of a battle.” His gaze was a physical blow, a challenge thrown back at his son. “Show me, then. Show me if your will is as strong as the storm and the fire you now command.”

The invitation was all Lloyd needed. He had been waiting for this. A chance to test his new arsenal against the ultimate opponent. A chance to truly understand the nature of his own, new, tripartite power.

He didn't need to speak. The command was a thought, a feeling, a shared, synchronous pulse of intent that flowed through the bonds he shared with his two spirits. Attack.

And the world erupted into a symphony of elemental fury.

Fang Fairy moved first. She was speed. She was lightning. She was a blur of silver-grey and azure, her movements a disorienting, impossible dance. She did not charge head-on. She flowed, a river of storm, circling Roy, her very presence a constant, harassing threat from a dozen different angles at once. The air around her crackled, a thousand tiny, azure sparks leaping from her ethereal form, a prelude to the storm she was about to unleash.

She attacked not with her claws, not with the Chirp, but with pure, controlled lightning. She raised her slender hands, and a web of brilliant, blue-white energy, a net woven from pure electricity, shot from her fingertips, aiming to ensnare, to immobilize, to trap the Arch Duke in a cage of high-voltage death.

Simultaneously, Iffrit charged. He was not a blur; he was an avalanche. A nine-foot-tall mountain of magma-forged steel and roaring, internal fire. His massive feet slammed into the cracked stone floor, each step a concussive boom that sent shockwaves through the ground. He raised his colossal, flame-wreathed zanbatō, not for a precise strike, but for a single, devastating, and overwhelmingly powerful, overhead cleave. The roaring flames that sheathed the blade intensified, coalescing into a massive, descending arc of pure, annihilating fire, a wave of incineration designed to sunder not just a man, but the very earth upon which he stood.

It was a perfect, two-pronged assault. A pincer movement of elemental devastation. From one side, the swift, entrapping cage of lightning. From the other, the slow, inexorable, and absolutely, comprehensively, overwhelming hammer-blow of fire. There was nowhere to dodge, nowhere to run. Any lesser man, any other warrior in the entire kingdom, would have been instantly, utterly, annihilated, caught between the storm and the inferno.

But Roy Ferrum was not any other man.

He watched the twin vectors of elemental doom converge upon him, his face a mask of absolute, chilling calm. The web of lightning, designed to ensnare. The descending scythe of flame, designed to obliterate. He stood at the nexus of the two attacks, the still point in a raging, elemental hurricane.

He did not raise a shield. He did not attempt to dodge. He simply acted.

His hands, which had been clasped behind his back, moved. They were a blur, a flicker of motion so fast it was almost impossible to follow. And as they moved, his own, immense, Beyond-Rank Steel Blood power answered his will.

From the air around him, from the very ground at his feet, they erupted. Chains. Not the elegant, almost delicate, tendrils Lloyd wielded. But thick, heavy, brutal lengths of dark, almost black, steel. Each link was as thick as a man’s thigh, humming with a contained, terrifying power that seemed to absorb the very light around it.

They did not fly. They did not slither. They simply… were. An instantaneous fortress of interlocking, unyielding metal.