Four days had passed since that humiliating moment, and the shame still burned through Kai's veins like molten poison.
In the echoing halls of the Ackerman estate's main house, a lone figure strode forward with purpose that teetered dangerously close to murderous fury. His jet-black hair had been pulled back into a severe warrior's knot that emphasized the sharp, aristocratic angles of his face, and those unmistakable crimson Ackerman eyes blazed with a cold rage sharp enough to slice through steel. Standing at an imposing six-foot-one with a frame that had been forged through years of brutal training, every line of his body radiated barely contained violence and wounded pride.
Kai Ackerman's jaw was clenched so tightly that his teeth ground audibly against each other, the sound mixing with his measured footsteps like a rhythm of barely suppressed wrath. The sleek, high-collared combat suit he wore - crimson and white in the traditional family colors - clung to his powerful frame like liquid metal, the expensive fabric whispering softly with each controlled movement. His polished boots struck the cracked marble floor with the steady rhythm of a war drum, each impact echoing through corridors that had once hosted the most feared nobles in the entire domain.
His destination loomed ahead like a shrine to everything he represented: the largest and most imposing door in the entire crumbling estate.
While the rest of the once-magnificent house bore the ugly scars of political warfare and systematic neglect - walls split by weapon strikes, deep gouges carved into ancient stone by desperate battles, corners shrouded in decades of accumulated dust and broken dreams - this single chamber remained pristine and untouched. It stood as a defiant monument to unwavering discipline amidst the surrounding decay, a reminder of what the Ackerman family had once been capable of achieving.
The legendary Ackerman training room.
Here, for countless generations stretching back through the mists of history, the most feared warriors of their bloodline had honed their deadly craft to absolute perfection. They had measured themselves against the recorded echoes of past masters whose techniques had been preserved in flawless, terrifying detail, each lesson paid for in blood and sacrifice.
Kai pressed his palm firmly against the biometric identification panel embedded beside the massive entrance. A soft mechanical hum responded immediately, sophisticated sensors analyzing his genetic signature and aura patterns. The warning red light above the scanner shifted to approving green with a satisfied electronic beep, and the reinforced doors - each weighing several tons of mana-forged alloy - began to rise with a deep, grinding roar of hidden machinery.
Ancient gears turned with precision that defied their age, and mana-powered conduits pulsed with faint blue light as the grand chamber revealed itself like a temple dedicated to the art of warfare.
Inside stretched a vast rectangular space that could have easily housed a small army, every surface - floor, walls, ceiling - reinforced with multiple layers of mana-forged alloy designed to withstand attacks that could level entire city blocks. Faintly glowing energy conduits ran along every edge like a network of luminous veins, feeding the air itself with dense, almost tangible power that made breathing feel like drinking liquid strength.
The atmosphere carried the accumulated weight of centuries of combat and training, underlined by the constant low hum of the massive Leycore crystal buried deep beneath the reinforced floor. This ancient power source had been feeding the room's systems for over three hundred years without interruption.
The lighting was brilliant but perfectly neutral, ensuring that every movement could be tracked with microscopic precision and no shadow could hide even the smallest weakness or tactical flaw.
A single stasis containment pod stood against the far wall like a technological sarcophagus, its faceless training avatar locked in patient, eternal readiness.
This was a genuine Grandmaster-level training facility, one of perhaps a dozen that existed in the entire Human Domain. The moment Kai stepped across the threshold, the ambient pressure made his spine straighten instinctively and his muscles coil like springs ready to explode into deadly action.
He crossed to the central control panel with measured, deliberate steps, his fingers dancing across the interface with the practiced ease of someone who had performed this ritual countless times before. Intermediate-level difficulty settings appeared on the holographic display - challenging enough to push his limits without risking serious injury.
His fingers then moved through an extensive database of recorded Ackerman warriors, legendary figures whose fighting styles had been captured and preserved in perfect detail through advanced magical and technological means. He scrolled past dozens of names that belonged to heroes of ages past, pausing only when he reached the entry he sought with grim determination.
Khan Ackerman. His father. The current head of their fallen house.
A muscle twitched visibly in Kai's clenched jaw as bitter memories flooded back like poison through an open wound.
Four days ago, in that throne room that reeked of faded power and broken dreams, Fenix had humiliated him without even trying. The family's legendary "useless heir" - the boy everyone had written off as a genetic dead end - had somehow awakened his dormant aura core after years of pathetic failure.
But infinitely worse than the awakening itself was the 'color' of that aura when it had erupted like wildfire.
'Crimson.' The rarest shade in all of existence, whispered about in reverent, fearful tones by those who understood its true significance. Aura color revealed everything about a person's fundamental nature - their willpower, their inner character, even the shape of their immortal soul. It was as unique and identifying as a fingerprint, and infinitely more revealing.
And crimson meant only one thing: a force of will that absolutely refused to be broken, no matter what tried to crush it. The same impossible color that had marked his legendary uncle Zeke as one of the most feared warriors in the domain's bloody history.
In that moment of revelation, Kai had done the unthinkable. He had flinched. Stepped backward. Shown weakness in front of his family and subordinates.
He could still feel it with crystal clarity - that instant when Fenix's raw, untrained energy had exploded into the chamber like a natural disaster made manifest. It had made him instinctively retreat despite knowing with absolute certainty that the boy was merely Novice rank compared to his own hard-earned Intermediate+ status.
That single moment of involuntary fear had been an unforgivable crack in his carefully constructed armor of superiority.
Now, surrounded by the tools of his trade, he would remind himself exactly why he was still the superior warrior. Why bloodline and training mattered more than raw talent.
Stepping into the center of the training floor, he crossed the clearly marked boundary that separated the safe observation zone from the active combat area. The moment his boots touched the designated space, the stasis pod responded immediately with a sharp hiss of releasing pressure, venting aromatic steam that carried the scent of ozone and preserved combat data.
The faceless avatar stepped forward with fluid, inhuman grace - pale as polished bone, featureless as a blank canvas, but radiating an aura of barely contained menace that made the hair on Kai's arms stand up. It cradled a glowing white orb in its right hand like a pearl that contained compressed starlight.
The orb suddenly flared with brilliant illumination, wrapping the avatar's entire form in a cocoon of pure white energy that was almost painful to look at directly. When the blinding light finally faded, the figure had been completely transformed. It now wore sleek black-and-white full-arm gauntlets that covered everything from fingertips to shoulders - Khan's signature weapons recreated down to the smallest cosmetic detail and behavioral protocol.
This was no simple training dummy or mindless punching bag designed to absorb punishment. The combat data stored within its crystalline core contained the exact fighting style, reaction patterns, tactical knowledge, and combat instincts that an Intermediate+ rank Khan himself would employ in a real battle to the death.
Kai reached into the spatial storage ring on his index finger, his concentrated will commanding the contained dimensional space to release his chosen weapon. A massive two-handed battle axe materialized in his grip, its futuristic design gleaming under the chamber's intense illumination. The weapon was a masterwork of both magical and technological engineering, perfectly balanced despite its intimidating size.
The axe's cutting edge shimmered with an unsettling interplay between pure black and deep crimson - colors that seemed to devour ambient light rather than simply reflecting it. Runes of power had been etched along the haft, glowing faintly with contained energy that hummed in harmony with his aura.
He shifted the substantial weight onto his shoulder with practiced ease, the motion as natural as breathing after years of intensive training. His burning crimson eyes locked onto the featureless mask of his artificial opponent, seeing not just a training tool but a representation of everything he needed to prove.
The moment stretched taut between them like a bowstring ready to snap, humming with barely contained violence and the promise of devastating combat.
Then, without any warning or ceremonial countdown, the chamber erupted into pure chaos.
Azure blue and brilliant gold aura detonated from the two fighters simultaneously, their energies clashing like opposing hurricanes meeting in the same patch of sky. The crushing pressure warped the very air around them, making it shimmer like heated glass. Their conflicting power wrapped around each other and crashed together in visible waves of force that made the reinforced mana conduits along the walls rattle ominously in their housing.
The ambient temperature dropped several degrees as raw energy was converted into kinetic force.
And then - as if both combatants had choreographed the moment through some shared instinct - both auras collapsed inward at precisely the same instant, condensing into their bodies like compressed springs ready to explode outward again.
The sudden silence that followed was more terrifying than any sound could have been.
Both figures vanished from sight in identical blurs of motion that left afterimages burned into the air.
Kai's massive axe arced forward in a deadly, perfectly executed sweep designed to cleave his opponent completely in half, the enchanted blade singing through the air with lethal precision. Simultaneously, the avatar's gauntleted fist shot out to meet the attack head-on, its artificial muscles channeling the exact same devastating force that Khan would have used in identical circumstances.
When enchanted steel met reinforced alloy and concentrated will met preserved technique, the resulting shockwave cracked through the specially reinforced training floor like the roar of an angry god.
The real battle had finally begun, and with it, Kai's desperate attempt to prove that he was still the superior warrior - regardless of whatever impossible potential Fenix might possess.