Chapter : 569

The demon of fire, his second Transcended spirit, had been dismissed, returned to the conceptual space of his soul. But its power, the raw, chaotic, and utterly, comprehensively, destructive energy of ‘Absolute Annihilation Fire’, had left a residue. A stain on his soul. A memory of the inferno.

And in his new, merged, and hypersensitive state, he found that he could… touch it. He could reach for that lingering, fiery echo.

He focused his will, a new, dangerous curiosity sparking within him. He reached for the memory of Iffrit, for the feeling of the roaring, crimson flames of his zanbatō. And he tried to pull that memory, that essence, into the real world.

A new, terrifying transformation occurred. The brilliant, azure lightning that had been sheathing his sword did not vanish. It was consumed. A single, angry, and deeply, profoundly, wrong, flicker of black-red flame erupted at the base of his blade. It was not the clean, white-hot fire of a forge, nor the vibrant, living crimson of Iffrit’s own inferno. This was a corrupt, twisted fire, the color of cooling embers and dried blood. It was the demonic energy of Iffrit, filtered through his own human soul, tainted, changed, but no less deadly.

The black-red flames spread, devouring the azure lightning, a chaotic, hungry fire that seemed to feed on the very energy of the storm. Within seconds, his entire sword was wreathed in a swirling, unnatural corona of black-and-red flame, the air around it crackling not with the clean scent of ozone, but with the foul, sulfurous stench of something… unholy.

He could feel the power within the blade. It was not the clean, piercing power of lightning. It was a raw, chaotic, and purely destructive force. It was the power of annihilation, a small, tainted sliver of the sun’s fire he had once commanded, now brought to heel by his own will.

He had become a chimera himself. A fusion of man and storm, now wielding a blade of fire and shadow. The paradox of his own existence made manifest in a single, terrifying weapon.

Across the ruined training ground, Arch Duke Roy Ferrum watched the transformation with a new, profound, and deeply, deeply, unsettled expression. The initial shock of the merge, the stunning, beautiful appearance of the ‘Storm-Forged Prince’, had been a blow to his understanding of the world. But this… this was something else entirely.

He saw the pure, azure lightning that had wreathed his son’s blade, a testament to the perfect, symbiotic fusion with his spirit partner. It was a power he could understand, a power of a known, if rare, quantity. But then he saw the flicker of black-red flame. He saw it consume the lightning, replace it, twist it into something… wrong. He smelled the sulfurous stench, felt the raw, chaotic, purely destructive aura that emanated from the new, flame-wreathed blade.

This was not the power of Fang Fairy. This was not the power of a lightning spirit. This was… demonic energy. The corrupt, unmaking fire of the abyss.

Roy’s mind raced, a whirlwind of confusion and dawning, horrified suspicion. Where had he acquired such a power? Had his son, in his desperation, in his secret training, made a pact? Had he, like the pathetic Jacob Croft, become a Devil Worshiper? Had he sold a piece of his soul in exchange for this dark, terrible, and undeniably potent, new strength? The thought was a spike of ice in his heart, a fear far greater, far more profound, than any fear for his son’s physical safety. To see his heir, the future of their house, tainted by such a forbidden, unholy power… it was a fate worse than death.

But then, he looked closer. He looked past the ugly, chaotic flames, and he saw his son’s eyes. They were still the molten gold of the merged spirit, yes. But they were clear. Focused. They held no trace of the mad, zealous light of a true Devil Worshiper. They held only the cold, sharp, and utterly, comprehensively, sane focus of a warrior who was in absolute control of the weapon in his hand.

He is not possessed, Roy realized with a jolt of profound relief. He is not a worshiper. He is… wielding it. Controlling it. As a tool. But how? How could a man wield the fire of a demon without being consumed by it? The paradox of his son, the enigma, deepened, becoming a chasm of unknowns that Roy could no longer even begin to fathom.

Chapter : 570

The new, transformed Lloyd, the chimera of storm and fire, took a single step forward, his molten-gold eyes fixed on his father, a silent, deadly challenge. The practice duel had just escalated, transformed from a test of bloodline and skill into a clash of fundamental, cosmic forces.

“Now, Father,” Lloyd’s resonant, dual-toned voice was a low, dangerous hum, a promise of a battle unlike any Roy had ever faced before. “Let us see if the mountain can withstand the fire of a fallen star.”

He moved. And the true duel began. It was a breathtaking, terrifying spectacle, a dance of gods in a ruined arena. Lloyd, in his merged form, was a blur of silver-streaked hair and swirling, moonlit storm-energy. He was faster than he had ever been, his every movement crackling with contained lightning, his feet seeming to not just run, but to skate across the stone floor on cushions of pure, kinetic energy.

He was no longer just dodging; he was attacking, a whirlwind of motion. His sword, wreathed in those strange, ugly, but terrifyingly potent, black-red flames, was a blur, a constant, probing assault against his father’s defenses. He did not possess his father’s centuries of refined swordsmanship, his perfect, classical forms. He fought with the brutal, efficient, and utterly unpredictable, pragmatism of the Major General, a fusion of a dozen different martial arts from a dozen different worlds, all adapted, enhanced, by his new, supernatural speed and strength.

Roy was forced onto the defensive, a position he had not been in for decades. He was no longer a static, immovable fortress. He was a dynamic, reactive whirlwind of dark steel, his own chain defenses flowing, shifting, constantly adapting to meet the relentless, unpredictable assault of his son.

The clash of their powers was a symphony of destruction. A slash from Lloyd’s flame-wreathed blade would be met by a shimmering, interlocking shield of Roy’s chains, the impact a concussive boom that sent showers of black-and-red sparks flying. A lunge from Lloyd, his body crackling with lightning, would be intercepted by a lashing tendril of dark steel, the two forces meeting with a shriek of protesting energy.

It was a battle of two opposing philosophies of power. Roy was mastery, control, the absolute, perfected expression of a single, profound discipline. His every move was economical, precise, a lifetime of experience and training honed to a razor’s edge. Lloyd was chaos, fusion, the explosive, unpredictable power of a hybrid, a being who wielded a dozen different, often conflicting, powers with a raw, intuitive, and brutally effective, genius.

The training ground became their canvas, their duel a masterpiece of elemental violence. They moved through the ruined space, a blur of black and silver, of lightning and flame, of dark steel and contained thunder. The very stones seemed to cry out under the strain of their clashing powers.

For long, breathtaking minutes, they were perfectly, impossibly, matched. Lloyd’s raw, explosive power and unpredictable speed were countered by Roy’s absolute, flawless defense and superior experience. Lloyd would find an opening, a flicker of a weakness in the chain-wall, only to find it sealed an instant before his blade could strike. Roy would attempt a counter-attack, a swift, deadly lash of a steel tendril, only to find Lloyd gone, a mere afterimage of lightning and shadow, his blow striking empty air.

The strain was immense, a constant, grinding expenditure of will and power. Lloyd could feel his own unified core, his vast but finite reservoir of energy, beginning to ache, to protest the relentless demands he was placing on it. He was faster, stronger, more powerful than he had ever been. But he was fighting a mountain. And the mountain, it seemed, was endless.

He knew he could not win a battle of attrition. He had to end it. One final, all-or-nothing gambit. A move so audacious, so powerful, that it would either shatter his father’s perfect defense, or shatter himself in the attempt.

He gathered his will, his power, his very being, for one final, desperate, and glorious, assault. The duel of wills was about to reach its final, cataclysmic, and utterly, comprehensively, decisive conclusion.

The battle had transcended a mere physical duel. It had become a conversation, a violent, elemental dialogue between two masters of the Ferrum bloodline, each speaking a different dialect of the same ancient, powerful language of steel. The training ground was a testament to their terrible, beautiful argument, a landscape of shattered stone, scorched earth, and the lingering, almost visible, pressure of their clashing wills.