After finishing the interrogation of Lorgar, Axis decided to spend the next few days with his son. He intended to make up for lost time and properly strengthen their father-son bond.
He initiated an intimate father-son exchange in the traditional Saiyan way.
Inside the training chamber of the Solus Prime, Axis, in his base form, delivered a sound, flesh-to-flesh beating to his son, Kratos.
He was making up for his absent fatherly love with the iron fist of affection.
The sounds of heavy impacts echoed through the room.
Kratos was reduced to merely parrying. He could not even clearly track his father's movements and could only passively endure the assault.
very one of Axis's punches was concentrated with immense power, far beyond what an ordinary man could ever hope to block. His father was a warrior who embodied speed, strength, and defense in one form. He was a practically perfect warrior, with no discernible weakness.
"I say, Dad, could you please go a little easier on me?" Kratos asked, his face already swollen to a pulp.
He looked at his father with a sense of helpless exasperation.
When his father had suggested they spend some time together with a training session, Kratos had actually been looking forward to it. He had never spent any time alone with his father since birth.
He had even asked his mother not to accompany them, wanting this time alone in the training chamber. He thought it would be a friendly session. This battle, however, made Kratos understand precisely why his father was known as the most powerful Primarch, why he was called Humanity's First Warrior.
Even in his base state, his father completely overwhelmed him. Even when Kratos activated his Golden Form, multiplying his power by fifty times, he was still no match for Axis. His father had yet to even use his own version of that fifty-fold amplification.
"I am going easy on you," Axis replied with a sigh, "This is the iron fist of a father's love. You're still too weak. How can I be at ease letting you venture out into the galaxy? You need to become much stronger."
In truth, Axis had not even transformed into a Super Saiyan. He was holding back immensely. His son's combat prowess was a little lacking. While stronger than an average Primarch, he was still a far cry from Axis himself.
Kratos managed a bitter smile. Weaker? That was a blow to his pride. Was he truly weak? In his own Golden Legion, only Khârn could last more than a few exchanges with him. Among the other Primarchs, his Uncle Guilliman was no match for him, and Uncle Sanguinius could only barely hold his own, forced onto the defensive and relying on his wings for mobility.
Furthermore, Kratos's skills were not limited to physical might.
His psychic abilities, inherited from Axis, Kasha, and even the Emperor, were also incredibly potent. He had even trained under Magnus, honing his powers to a formidable level.
"Father… I understand," Kratos said, looking utterly spent. "But next time, could the 'iron fist of love' be a little gentler? And also, being your son is incredibly stressful!"
"Absolutely not. Combat training must be rigorous. I'm going to train you properly and turn you into an exceptional warrior. I know you're not using your full strength. If you want to use your psychic powers, go ahead. I don't mind," Axis said, seeing that Kratos was holding back.
The boy's psychic power was probably on par with Kasha's when Axis had first met her, a far cry from her current strength. He had not undergone the reinforcement of ki.
Even if he had mastered some offensive psychic disciplines, could he possibly be stronger than Magnus?
"Father! The psychic sorcery I've learned is devastatingly powerful. Since this is just a sparring match, there is no need to use it," Kratos said, wiping a trickle of blood from his lip, "Perhaps you could transform into your Golden Form? Let me see how powerful you truly are in that state."
"Don't worry about it. My ki has a powerful defense against Warp sorcery, so you don't have to worry about hurting me. I need to know the true extent of your power, so come at me with everything you have. As for the transformation, I'll explain later. But for your information, the proper name is not the Golden Form. It is called Super Saiyan." As he spoke, a golden aura erupted around Axis.
His hair flashed to gold, and a blazing golden flame enveloped his body as he entered the standard Super Saiyan state.
Kratos took a deep breath. The last trace of hesitation vanished from his eyes, replaced by the focus and power befitting a Primarch. He knew his father was serious, and he, too, was eager to know the true gulf that separated him from Humanity's First Warrior.
"Then, Father, I will not hold back!"
With those words, Kratos's eyes blazed with blue light.
An immense tide of psychic energy burst forth as he prepared to unleash the powerful sorceries he had learned from Magnus.
"The Saiyan way is to fight with all your might, so don't be polite," Axis said with a smirk.
The very air in the training chamber turned violent. Blinding psychic lightning, crackling with destructive energy, condensed from stray arcs into several colossal, pale serpents.
They tore through the air with a deafening roar, striking at the golden figure from all directions. Simultaneously, a bone-chilling frost manifested from nothing, encasing the floor in thick crystal.
The air itself froze, forming countless razor-sharp shards of ice that swirled towards Axis in a raging storm. A powerful, unseen gravity field slammed down, attempting to pin him to the spot.
At the storm's center, Axis's golden aura merely flickered, as steadfast as a rock in a hurricane. Faced with an elemental torrent that could rip a Space Marine to shreds or freeze a Dreadnought solid, he simply lifted an arm casually.
The psychic lightning, capable of melting plasteel and sundering iron, struck his golden aura and dissipated with a few insignificant sparks.
It failed to even ruffle a single strand of his golden hair. The blizzard of ice shards shattered against his invisible ki shield, turning into a cloud of fine crystal dust that never came within half a meter of his body. The extreme cold was instantly vaporized by his blazing aura.
As for the crushing gravity field?
Axis simply rolled his neck and shrugged his shoulders. The adamantium floor beneath him groaned under the immense pressure, but he himself seemed unaffected, his movements as light as ever.
The force that could have crushed a Leman Russ battle tank felt like a gentle breeze to him.
"My foolish son, your gravity sorcery is completely useless," Axis said with a laugh, "Your father used to train under one hundred times normal gravity. Besides, the gravity of my birth world was already more than ten times that of Holy Terra."
Using a gravity-based power against a Saiyan was a fool's errand. They thrived on training in such environments. Kasha often used similar abilities to help Axis with his training, so such an attack was utterly ineffective against him.
Seeing that physical elemental attacks were futile, Kratos immediately switched tactics. His eyes became deep and unsettling as he focused his formidable mind into an invisible, intangible lance and thrust it toward Axis's consciousness.
This was a high-level psychic technique learned from Magnus, the Mind-Scream, designed to shatter an opponent's will and even tear at their soul. At the same time, subtler mental suggestions probed like a thousand tiny feelers, seeking to bypass his father's defenses and induce fear or confusion.
However, as these psychic assaults met the seemingly gentle, yet indestructible golden aura surrounding Axis, something unexpected happened.
A far grander, purer energy, blazing with the heat of life itself, surged from within him. The golden aura seemed to ignite, becoming blindingly bright and intensely hot.
Kratos's Mind-Scream, which he had poured so much of his power into, crashed against this energy field and vanished like a snowflake in a furnace, failing to create even a single ripple. The mental probes were purified and incinerated before they could even get close.
Axis did not even adopt a defensive mental stance. He simply stood there, a faint, almost pitying smile on his face.
The innate defense formed by his ki naturally repelled and purified the energies of the Warp. Kratos's psychic attacks, which were fundamentally a manipulation of Warp energy, were completely neutralized.
"A good attempt, Kratos. Your psychic techniques truly show the mark of Magnus's tutelage. They are very aggressive. But unfortunately, they are useless against me. The power of ki, especially in the Super Saiyan state, is the physical manifestation of life energy and willpower. It naturally repels the 'unclean' forces of the Warp. Your attacks cannot even break through the passive shield of my aura."
Kratos staggered.
His most powerful mental attack, a technique his master Magnus had warned him never to use lightly, could not even force his father to mount a proper defense. Axis had used no psychic counter of his own; his body's natural aura had rendered the attack completely ineffective.
"If you are not going to attack, then it is my turn," Axis said with a cold snort. His body became a streak of golden light, closing the distance to his son in an instant, "Let's see how strong your psychic defenses are."
A flurry of blows sounded through the chamber. Within moments, Kratos lay on the floor like a discarded rag doll.
He finally accepted it.
His father simply had a very unique way of showing affection.
"Kratos," Axis stated simply, looking down at his son, "You are too weak."
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ps?