Episode-256

Words : 1548 Updated : Oct 3rd, 2025

Chapter : 511 He was losing consciousness, his mind a flickering candle in the heart of a hurricane, the agony too immense, too absolute, to bear. His last, coherent thought before the darkness claimed him completely was one of profound, almost comical, irony. The volcano within him had erupted. And Lloyd Ferrum, the master of control, the brilliant strategist, the man from three worlds, was now just a helpless, broken vessel, being consumed by the very power he had sought to command. The Ferrum Estate slept under a blanket of peaceful, moonlit silence. The night was calm, the air still, the only sounds the distant call of a night bird and the soft, rhythmic sigh of the wind in the ancient oaks. It was a peace that was about to be comprehensively, violently, shattered. In his vast, silent study in the main wing of the estate, Arch Duke Roy Ferrum was not sleeping. He sat behind his massive mahogany desk, the only light the cool, steady glow from a single, enchanted crystal, his mind a fortress of quiet, strategic contemplation. He was reviewing the latest intelligence reports from Ken Park—whispers of unusual troop movements along the Altamiran border, reports of a new, aggressive players in the southern trade guilds. He was playing the Great Game, his mind moving pieces on a continent-wide chessboard. And then, he felt it. It was not a sound. It was not a tremor in the earth. It was a feeling. A profound, violent, and deeply, personally, offensive lurch in the very fabric of the world’s Void power. It was as if a master musician, listening to a perfect symphony, had suddenly heard a single, deafening, and catastrophically off-key note, a note so powerful it threatened to shatter the entire instrument. He froze, his quill hovering over the parchment. His senses, honed by decades of wielding his own immense, Beyond-Rank Steel Blood, reached out, trying to identify the source of the disturbance. It was close. Frighteningly close. Within the estate walls. It felt... chaotic. Uncontrolled. A raw, untamed eruption of immense power. It felt like... a declaration of war, detonated in his own backyard. His first, cold, logical thought was: Attack. An enemy Void Master, a powerful one, had somehow breached their defenses and was unleashing an attack on the estate. An Altamiran assassin? A rival Duke making a bold, suicidal move? He shot to his feet, his own immense Void power roaring to life, the very air in the study beginning to shimmer with a contained, invisible heat. The granite mask of the Arch Duke was gone, replaced by the grim, terrifying face of the warrior, ready to meet this unprecedented threat head-on. But then, he felt the nuances of the energy signature. It was chaotic, yes. But it held a familiar, almost intimate, resonance. A thread of power he knew as well as his own. The Ferrum Steel Blood. His own lineage. But twisted, amplified, raging out of control. And intertwined with it... something else. Something cold. Something alien. Something that felt, impossibly, like the icy, precise power of the Austin bloodline. His son. Lloyd. The realization hit him with the force of a physical blow. The fury, the readiness for battle, was instantly replaced by a new, far colder, and far more terrifying, emotion. Fear. A stark, paternal fear so potent it almost made him stumble. This was not an attack from without. This was a catastrophe from within. In the silent, shadowy corridors of the Elixir Manufactory, a ghost moved. Ken Park, his duty for the night seemingly concluded, was conducting his own, private, final security sweep. He moved with a silence that was absolute, his presence less a physical thing and more a subtle disturbance in the air. His senses, the preternatural awareness of a Transcended warrior, were a constant, invisible net, tasting the air, feeling the vibrations in the stone, aware of every scurrying rat, every shifting shadow. And then, he felt the world ripple. It was a sensation he had only felt a few times before, in the heat of the most desperate, high-stakes battles. A sudden, violent distortion in the magical field of the entire estate. It was as if someone had taken the placid surface of a lake and dropped a mountain into it. The ambient energy of the world, usually a calm, steady river, was now a raging, chaotic tsunami. He froze, his hand instinctively going to the hilt of the longsword that was never far from his reach. His own immense power, the fiery, earthy essence of his bond with Redborn, flared to life, a silent, defensive shield against the encroaching chaos. His mind, a cold, analytical engine of threat assessment, instantly triangulated the source. The manufactory office. The young lord’s private study. Chapter : 512 His expression, for the first time in years, broke through the impassive mask of the butler. It was not a look of fear. It was a look of cold, absolute, professional fury. His charge was under attack. The heir of House Ferrum was in danger. It was a failure of his protection. A failure of his duty. And it was a failure that was utterly, completely, unacceptable. He did not hesitate. He did not wait for a summons. He became a shadow, a blur of motion, flowing through the silent, dark corridors of the manufactory, moving with a speed that was not human, a silent, avenging angel of death racing towards the source of the cataclysm. In the quiet, elegant chambers of the East Wing, Duchess Milody Austin Ferrum sat before her vanity, her unbound silver-blonde hair a shimmering river down her back. She was brushing it slowly, methodically, the simple, repetitive motion a form of quiet, end-of-day meditation. The air in her room was calm, serene, filled with the gentle, familiar scent of jasmine and peace. And then, her world turned to screaming, agonizing, chaotic noise. It was not a sound she heard with her ears. It was a psychic scream that erupted directly within her soul, a violent, agonizing feedback loop through the one thing that was more sacred, more intimate, to her than anything else: her bloodline. She cried out, a sharp, choked gasp of pain, dropping the silver-backed brush to the floor with a clatter. Her own Black Ring Eye flared to life, unbidden, the sclera of her left eye turning a deep, unnerving black, the luminous ring of bluish-white light pulsing erratically, painfully. She felt him. Her son. Her Lloyd. She felt the echo of his own Austin power, the one she had so recently encouraged him to explore, now raging, uncontrolled, a volcano of chaotic, creative and destructive energy. But it was not just the Austin power. It was... contaminated. Warped. Twisted together with the fiery, aggressive power of his Ferrum heritage, and something else, something cold and sharp as a shard of glacier ice, a power she recognized with a jolt of horrified disbelief as the signature of the Siddik lineage. She felt his pain as if it were her own. The agony of his body being torn apart by the warring, elemental forces within him. The confusion of his mind, a flickering candle in the heart of a hurricane. The terror of a soul on the verge of being extinguished by its own, unleashed potential. “Lloyd!” she whispered, the name a raw, broken sound of pure, maternal terror. The serene, elegant Duchess vanished, replaced by the fierce, protective matriarch, the wielder of an ancient, powerful, and now terrifyingly awoken, bloodline. She shot to her feet, her silken robe swirling around her, her face a mask of pale, desperate alarm. She did not know what was happening. She did not know why. But she knew, with an absolute, soul-deep certainty, that her son was dying. And she was the only one in the world who might, just might, understand the nature of the fire, and the ice, that was consuming him. She ran, her bare feet silent on the cold marble floors, a silver-haired wraith moving through the sleeping palace, drawn by the invisible, screaming tether of her own blood. The three most powerful guardians of House Ferrum, the Duke, the Butler, and the Duchess, were now converging, drawn by three different senses, three different bonds, to a single, catastrophic point. The manufactory study. And the broken, unconscious boy who lay at the heart of the storm. The quiet corridor outside the manufactory study became the silent, charged focal point of three converging vectors of immense power. Roy arrived first, a thundercloud of controlled fury and stark, paternal fear, his very presence making the stone walls seem to hum with a contained, thermal energy. He raised his fist to smash the door from its hinges, his patience for obstacles utterly gone. But before his blow could land, a shadow detached itself from the gloom at the end of the corridor. Ken Park moved with a speed that was a blur to the human eye, a silent, dark meteor. He did not slow as he reached the door. He simply pivoted, his entire body a single, coiled spring of focused, explosive force, and delivered a single, brutal, and exquisitely controlled, side-kick to the heavy oak panel, just beside the lock.

Episode-256

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