The polished stone floor of the training hall was cold against Barak's bruised cheek. The taste of blood and humiliation was thick in his mouth. The phantom pain of Elysia's black lightning still danced along his nerves, a cruel reminder of his own staggering weakness. The initial, white-hot fury had burned away, leaving behind a colder, harder substance: a mortifying, soul-deep frustration that threatened to crack his very spirit.

He pushed himself up, his body screaming in protest. Every movement was a fresh lesson in the vast gulf of power that separated him from his sister. But as his golden eyes, now shadowed with a new, grim determination, scanned the wreckage of his pride, the target of his hatred shifted. It wasn't Elysia he blamed, not truly. It was the source, the catalyst for his downfall. Nero. That cursed half-breed. His very existence was a stain, and now his unprecedented power was the reason Barak had been cast aside like garbage. The hatred was a cold, sharp stone in his gut.

He would not break. He would not be irrelevant. If his father and sister saw only power, then he would become power. He would train until his bones cracked and his spirit frayed. He would produce results that even they could not ignore.

Staggering to his feet, he limped to a communication rune on the wall. His voice was hoarse but steady as he spoke a single name. "Kael."

Within the hour, a man entered the training hall. He was not old, but carried an air of weathered experience, his hair a steely grey, his movements economical and precise. This was Kael, a distant cousin of the main Raizen bloodline, a man who had dedicated his life to the Law of Lightning. He was Barak's former combat instructor, and his sharp eyes took in the scene—the shattered dummy, the scorch marks, the way Barak held his injured side—in a single, comprehensive glance.

"So," Kael said, his voice a low rumble. "The news is true. And the fallout has begun." He had heard of Nero's second Law, and he understood the seismic shift it caused within the family hierarchy.

"I will not be left behind," Barak stated, his voice tight with pain and resolve. "Train me. Now. I don't care how hard it is."

Kael studied his former pupil. He saw the petulant boy he had once known, but beneath the anger, he now saw the glint of something else: desperation forged into a sharp, dangerous edge. He nodded slowly. "Very well. But understand, Barak. You are not sparring with a peer today. You are a student before a master. I will use half my strength. It will be more than enough."

They moved to the center of the hall. Barak, ignoring his injuries, fell into a combat stance, golden lightning crackling eagerly around his fists. Kael simply stood, his hands at his sides. He gave no signal.

"Begin," Barak snarled, and launched himself forward.

He was fast. The Raizen blood guaranteed that. He closed the distance in a blink, aiming a devastating, lightning-charged punch straight for Kael's chest. It was the same move he had tried on Elysia.

Kael didn't absorb the blow. He didn't block it. With a movement so subtle it was barely perceptible, he shifted his torso an inch to the side. Barak's fist whistled past him. Before Barak could recover his balance, Kael's hand, now wreathed in a calm, steady blue-white lightning, shot out. He didn't strike Barak. He simply placed his palm on Barak's extended elbow.

There was a sharp CRACK of discharged energy, and Barak's entire arm went numb, his own lightning snuffing out. He cried out, stumbling back.

"You rely on brute force," Kael stated, his voice calm. "You shout your intentions to the world. Your power is a wildfire—impressive, but uncontrolled."

Enraged, Barak unleashed a wild volley of Lightning Orbs, spheres of sizzling energy that shot towards Kael from multiple angles. Kael didn't move from his spot. He raised a single finger, and with minute, precise flicks of his wrist, he fired needle-thin bolts of his own lightning. Each one of his bolts intercepted Barak's orbs mid-flight, causing them to detonate harmlessly in the space between them, filling the air with the smell of ozone and wasted power.

"You see only the big targets," Kael chided. "You waste energy on spectacle. Control. Precision. That is the path to true power."

Barak, panting and humiliated, tried a new tactic. He Flash Stepped, appearing behind Kael with a roar, bringing a lightning-wreathed elbow down toward his teacher's spine.

Kael didn't turn. He didn't need to. He dropped into a low crouze, the elbow passing over his head, and simultaneously thrust his own elbow backward. It connected with Barak's solar plexus with a sickening thud. The air whooshed out of Barak's lungs, and he collapsed to his knees, gagging.

"You use Flash Step as a crude bludgeon," Kael said, turning to look down at him. "A predictable, linear tool. True speed is in the mind. It is knowing where your opponent will be before they do."

For the next hour, it was a brutal, one-sided lesson in humiliation. Barak threw everything he had at his teacher—every technique, every ounce of his rage and frustration. Kael, using only half his stated strength, dismantled him every single time. He used Barak's own momentum against him, redirected his attacks with minimal effort, and struck with pinpoint accuracy at nerve clusters and joints, leaving Barak bruised, battered, and seething with a new kind of frustration—the frustration of understanding just how much he didn't know.

The "fight" ended as it began. Barak, driven by a final, desperate surge of hatred, gathered all his remaining prana for one massive Lightning Lance. He screamed as he hurled it, a thick, roaring spear of golden energy meant to pierce through anything.

Kael simply raised his open hand. The Lance struck his palm. Instead of exploding, the chaotic energy seemed to calm, to be tamed. It swirled around Kael's hand, compressing from a wild spear into a dense, humming sphere of pure power. He held it, examining it for a moment, before closing his fist. The sphere vanished with a soft pop.

"You have the potential for great power, Barak," Kael said, his voice losing its instructional tone and becoming almost… pitying. "But power without control is a death sentence. And power driven by hatred is a poison that will consume you long before it consumes your enemy."

He turned and walked towards the exit, leaving Barak kneeling on the floor, his body a tapestry of pain, his spirit at its lowest ebb. He had lost. Miserably. To a man using only half his strength.

But as he knelt there, breathing in the scent of his own failure, the lesson began to sink in past the anger. The image of Kael's calm, precise movements, his effortless control, the way he had turned Barak's own overwhelming force into nothing… it was a stark contrast to his own wild, flailing attacks.

He had learned. The path forward was no longer just about gathering more power. It was about mastering what he already had. It was about control. It was a bitter, painful lesson, learned on a foundation of hatred and humiliation, but it was a lesson nonetheless. He would not be outdone. He would become so precise, so controlled, that not even Elysia's cold judgment could find him wanting. The road was long, and it started here, on his knees, in the ruins of his pride.