My Anime Shopping Tree & My Cold Prodigy Wife!
Episode : 121

Chapter: 241

The conservatory, once a place of tense, almost silent, psychological warfare, now felt like the epicenter of a barely contained earthquake. The air, thick with the scent of exotic flowers and damp earth, was now charged with the raw, metallic tang of two powerful, diametrically opposed, Ferrum bloodlines clashing. On one side, Lloyd, his Black Ring Eyes glowing with a cold, ethereal, almost alien light, radiating an aura of subtle, insidious, metaphysical control. On the other, Ben, a broken boy made whole by sheer, brutal willpower, standing unsteadily but defiantly on his newly forged iron limbs, emanating a raw, physical power that felt as solid and unyielding as the very earth beneath their feet.

Lloyd stared, the initial shock of Ben’s impossible transformation slowly giving way to a cold, hard, tactical reassessment. This changed everything. Ben wasn't just a crippled mastermind hiding behind a powerful bodyguard. He was a warrior. A Ferrum warrior, wielding a form of their shared bloodline power that was crude, yes, but undeniably potent. The sheer force of will required to manifest functional prosthetics from raw Void power… it spoke of a level of control, of raw, desperate strength, that was deeply, profoundly, unsettling.

And he was challenging him. To a fight. On equal footing. The sheer, unadulterated audacity of it, coming from a boy who looked as if a strong breeze might shatter him, was almost… impressive.

“Equal footing, Ben?” Lloyd’s voice was a low, dangerous purr, the ethereal light of his Black Rings seeming to intensify. “You stand there, a broken thing held together by rust and sheer, bloody-minded stubbornness, and you call this ‘equal’? You have no idea what you’re facing.”

Ben’s single grey eye narrowed. The crude iron fist at his side clenched, the sound a low, grinding groan of metal on metal. “Don’t I, Major General?” he retorted, his voice a low rumble. “I’ve spent the better part of the last seventeen years studying you. Your history. Your tactics. Your victories. Your failures. I know you better than you know yourself.” He took another clanking, deliberate step forward. “I know you favor speed. Precision. Misdirection. The lightning-fast strike. You are a scalpel, designed for surgical, efficient kills. But I,” he pounded his newly forged iron fist against his chest, the sound a dull, heavy thud that resonated through the conservatory, “am a sledgehammer. And sometimes, Major General, all the surgical precision in the world doesn’t matter when the fortress wall is about to come down on top of you.”

Without another word, Ben charged.

He didn't move with grace. He moved with the inexorable, earth-shaking momentum of a landslide. His iron leg stomped on the stone floor, each step a concussive boom, his iron arm swung back, preparing for a blow designed not to cut, but to crush.

Lloyd, wary, furious, but ever the strategist, reacted instantly. He didn’t try to meet the charge head-on. That would be suicide. Ben was right; he was a scalpel. And you don’t try to parry a sledgehammer with a scalpel. You get out of the way and look for an opening.

Lloyd moved, a blur of motion, sidestepping the clumsy, powerful charge with that same preternatural, flowing grace he had displayed in the tournament. But even as he moved, he focused his will, unleashing his own signature attack.

“Let’s see how your sledgehammer deals with a thousand needles, Ben!” he snarled, flinging his hands outwards.

A shimmering cloud of razor-fine steel wires, far denser, far more numerous than the ones he had used against the scavengers, erupted from his hands, converging on Ben in a screaming, silver whirlwind. This wasn't a tripwire; this was a shredder.

But Ben, impossibly, didn’t even try to dodge. He met the attack head-on, a roar of pure, defiant fury ripping from his throat. He brought his newly forged iron arm up, not to block, but to smash directly into the heart of the swirling wire-cloud.

The impact was immense. The sound was a deafening, high-pitched screech of metal on metal, of a thousand razors scraping against an unyielding anvil. Sparks flew, brilliant and white, illuminating Ben’s face, contorted in a mask of sheer, agonizing effort.

Lloyd felt the backlash, a jarring shock through his Void connection. His wires, his beautiful, deadly, superheated steel wires, the weapons that had disarmed, tripped, and terrified every opponent he had faced… they weren’t cutting. They weren’t binding. They were… shattering. Breaking against the raw, unyielding density of Ben’s iron arm like brittle threads of glass.

Chapter: 242

Ben roared again, a sound of triumph this time, and with a final, explosive flex of his arm, he shattered the last of the wire cloud, the remnants dissipating into harmless motes of fading light. He stood there, panting, his iron arm scarred, deeply gouged from the impact of a thousand slicing threads, but intact. Unbroken.

“Your tricks are useless, Major General!” Ben gasped, his single eye blazing with a triumphant, almost manic, light. “Your precision means nothing against overwhelming, absolute force!”

Lloyd stared, his mind reeling. He shattered them? He just… broke them? With sheer, brute strength? The power disparity, the sheer difference in the nature of their abilities, was terrifyingly, starkly, clear. Lloyd’s power was in finesse, in control, in the impossible sharpness and heat of his refined steel. Ben’s… Ben’s was just raw, unadulterated, overwhelming power. A force of nature that didn't need to be sharp when it could simply crush.

Wary now, deeply unsettled, Lloyd changed tactics. If wires wouldn't work, perhaps a more… direct… approach was needed. He moved again, a shadow, circling Ben, looking for an opening, for a weakness in his clumsy, powerful stance.

Ben, however, was not as clumsy as he looked. His artificial limbs, while slow, gave him an incredibly solid, immovable base. He turned, tracking Lloyd’s movements, his single eye sharp, analytical, his iron fist held ready.

Lloyd saw an opening. A slight over-rotation as Ben turned. He lunged, his own fist a blur, aiming not for a knockout blow, but for a disabling strike to Ben’s remaining, flesh-and-blood arm, aiming to disarm, to unbalance.

Ben met the attack, not by dodging, but by blocking. He brought his artificial iron arm up, catching Lloyd’s fist with his own.

The impact was bone-jarring. Lloyd let out a sharp, involuntary grunt of pain as his knuckles connected not with flesh, not even with crude iron, but with something far harder, far more resilient. He felt a sharp, cracking sensation in his own hand, a surge of agony shooting up his arm. It felt like punching a solid granite wall.

He recoiled, cradling his hand, his eyes wide with a new, even more profound, shock. He stared at Ben’s artificial arm, at the deep gouges his own wires had left. And in the depths of those gouges, beneath the rough, iron-like exterior, he saw it. A gleam. A familiar, cold, hard lustre. The undeniable, unmistakable sheen of true, refined, impossibly strong, Ferrum steel.

It wasn't just iron. It was Steel. The same rare, potent, main-line-only bloodline power that he possessed.

This boy… this broken, crippled, impossible boy… he wasn’t just strong. He wasn't just a powerful Void user.

He was like him.

“You…” Lloyd breathed, the realization a cold stone in his gut. “The Steel Blood… how…?”

Ben Ferrum offered a slow, grim, almost painful smile. His artificial steel arm, scarred but unbroken, hung at his side. “I told you, Major General,” he said, his voice a low, weary rumble. “I have studied you. All of you. All of our shared, cursed, beautiful bloodline.” He took a clanking step forward, his single grey eye holding a universe of pain, of loss, of unyielding resolve. “And I have learned. I have adapted. And I,” he raised his gleaming steel fist, a testament to his pain, his power, his sheer, unadulterated will, “have surpassed the original model.”

The weight of that statement, the weight of that gleaming steel fist, was absolute. The power disparity wasn't just one of brute force versus finesse. It was a matter of sheer, overwhelming, terrifying, mirrored power. And in this strange, new, impossible war, Lloyd Ferrum had just discovered, with bone-crushing certainty, that he was no longer the only one who could wield the Steel. And his enemy’s version, it seemed, was forged in a far hotter, far more painful, fire than his own.

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The revelation struck Lloyd with the force of a physical blow, more jarring than the impact that had sent a web of agony spidering up his arm. Steel. Not crude, brute-force iron, but true, refined, main-line Ferrum Steel. The same impossible power that hummed in his own veins, the legacy he thought was his and his alone, was staring back at him, forged into the very prosthetic limbs of his greatest nemesis.

The questions, a frantic, chaotic cascade, threatened to overwhelm him. How? Was Kyle Ferrum’s line not a cadet branch after all? Was there another, hidden lineage? Or had Ben, like him, somehow awakened this power through sheer, desperate will? The implications were staggering, rewriting everything Lloyd thought he knew about his own family, his own unique advantages.

But there was no time for genealogical debate. No time for existential pondering. There was only the fight.

And the fight was going very, very badly.