Chapter 767: Ethereal
The moment Lucavion stepped past the threshold, the shift in pressure wasn't just physical—it was mnemonic. Like air carrying the scent of a long-buried battlefield, faint yet unmistakable.
The banquet hall of the Arcanis Imperial Academy unfolded in ceremonial splendor—arched ceilings hung with spell-laced chandeliers, walls lined with banners from every major faction, and polished marble floors reflecting a grandeur far too clean, far too controlled. Every line, every shimmer, every curve in this place screamed power wrapped in pretense.
And yet—
All he could hear was silence.
Not the hall's. Not the nobles'. His own.
That awful, echoing kind.
'Last time I walked into a banquet like this…'
A breath. Slow. Hollow.
'…I didn't walk out the same.'
A part of him had been waiting for this. For the step onto marbled stone. For the shift of light across his coat. For the scent of too-fine wine and spiced arrogance. And yet now, standing within it, surrounded by gleam and gaze and ambition cloaked in silk—
He felt… unmoored.
'Strange.'
He didn't slow, of course. His feet carried him in perfect rhythm with the others, each step measured but unhesitant. His posture? Impeccable. His expression? Cool, composed, mildly amused—exactly what they expected from the infamous Sword Demon. The outsider. The unaligned weapon.
But inside?
His thoughts spun like shards.
Faces blurred across his vision, not because of magic, but memory. Nobles with too-curious smiles. Professors whose gazes dipped to his blade before daring to meet his eyes. Courtiers in laughter that didn't quite reach their chins. All of them different—yet somehow the same.
The last banquet…
The last trap.
'No. Not now.'
The thought cut through the haze like the edge of his estoc—sharp, absolute, necessary.
This wasn't the time. Not for slipping. Not for unraveling.
Not after everything.
'You didn't crawl this far to break at the door.'
He felt the flicker of heat in his chest—not rage, not pride, but mana. That quiet hum at the core of him, where starlight twisted through bone and breath like a reminder of what he had become. It pulsed once, steadying.
All those years—every wound, every exile, every lie carved into the marrow of his name—he hadn't endured them to falter now.
This banquet was not a battlefield.
But it wasn't safe either.
And he would not be caught with his guard down.
He exhaled once, low and even, the motion hidden beneath the fold of his coat.
'Lucavion.'
He called himself by the name, grounding it with intent. Not just a name. A tether.
[Lucavion.]
The voice that answered wasn't his own.
It slid through his thoughts like silk pulled across the edge of a blade—soft, but never harmless.
Vitaliara's voice.
He didn't need to look. She was still perched across his shoulders, tail curled with calculated grace, but her tone—
This time, it held something else.
Support.
That subtle, familiar push he'd come to recognize only in hindsight.
And then—
He saw her.
Pink hair.
Flowing past her waist like a banner caught in the right kind of wind, a touch too vibrant for courtly halls. Violet eyes—still fierce, still clear—cutting across the crowd and landing right on him.
And he knew.
She had seen him.
'Ah…'
The sound slipped inwardly, not voiced, just an inward exhale twisted with irony.
'Of course. I should've known she'd be here.'
He scoffed to himself, and just like that, the edge of his memory turned. Not the cruel banquet of betrayal—but a different one. Warmer. Dumber.
A night of dancing shadows and half-said insults.
Of her standing beneath an overhanging moon, blade on her back, pride in her spine, and that one time he'd called her—
"Lady Knight…"
He remembered her glare. That glint of restrained fury masking the barest hint of amusement.
'Valeria.'
[It is that girl.]
Vitaliara's voice again. But this time, her tone shifted—low, dry, unmistakably annoyed.
He didn't reply.
Her gaze pierced through the room—not with the finesse of a courtly glance, but with something far more dangerous.
Intent.
It wasn't just that she was looking at him.
It was how.
As if her eyes were trying to unravel the space between them, piece by piece. Like the air itself had offended her by daring to exist in the gap that separated their steps.
Lucavion felt the echo of it—not just in his chest, but down to the marrow of his bones. Her presence, that force of familiarity wrapped in stiff posture and sharpened silence, was like mana pressed to his spine.
And her face—normally so controlled, so impeccably arranged—wasn't stiff tonight.
No.
It was alive.
Behind that glare, there were too many things. Questions unspoken. Curiosity barely leashed. Recognition that didn't belong in a stranger's eyes. And beneath it all—expectancy.
She expected something from him.
Something only he could give.
And in that instant, Lucavion felt it—his breath settled. His step regained its weight. The balance in his shoulders reasserted itself, not forced, but remembered.
Like strength returning to its rightful place.
'Tch. You never did glare like a normal person.'
His mood lifted.
Slightly.
Subtly.
But undeniably.
Then—another face drifted through the corners of his mind. Like the flick of a candle lighting a room too cold to forget.
Amber eyes.
Black hair.
That relentless girl with the voice too honest, the steps too bold, the presence too close. The one who pushed through his armor not with magic or force—but with the unbearable audacity of care.
'Aeliana…'
That name rose without warning, and he didn't shove it back down.
She, too, had become part of the shifting pieces. Part of the tangled fate he had touched. Changed. Twisted.
'Yeah…'
He remembered now.
All of them.
Those whose lives had intersected with his like blades crossing in the dark. Those whose stories weren't written until he entered the scene.
'Indeed.'
And his mouth moved, the smirk returning.
That familiar, infuriating one that Valeria always claimed to hate.
But never once looked away from.
"Hello, Pink Knight."
No sound.
Just words shaped with deliberate grace, sent across the banquet hall like a whispered dare.
A greeting.
'And you, peeping cat.'
The thought rippled beneath the surface of his smirk, directed not at the crowd, not at Valeria, but to the familiar weight perched across his shoulders.
As expected—
[I am not!]
Vitaliara's voice came sharp, immediate, bristling with the same offended dignity that she wielded like a blade when pressed. But he didn't even try to contain the low hum of amusement that stirred in his chest.
'Hehe…'
He didn't laugh aloud.
He didn't need to.
Because she felt it. And for all her indignation, he could sense her mood shifting. Her tail flicked once—slow, measured, but undeniably pleased.
He was returning.
Not all the way. Not yet.
But enough to remind her—and himself—who he was.
Lucavion.
The man who survived.
The man who chose his name not to reclaim it, but to reshape it.
His stride remained smooth, effortless as he resumed his walk down the hall. But his senses stretched far beyond the measured footfalls and noble whispers.
They were watching.
Of course they were. Everyone watched the outsider with the unyielding blade and the cat who glared like a queen.
But not all gazes were made equal.
After all there were those that were looking at him differently.
Chapter 768: Ethereal (2)
His stride didn't falter.
But his senses—oh, they were wide open now.
The hall wasn't just light and echo and carefully arranged formality. It was a storm of watching eyes, of veiled intent swaddled in jewel-toned silk and clipped dialects. Power moved here in glances, in silence, in posture. Lucavion read it like a battlefield—no blood, no steel, but every bit as deadly.
And some eyes?
Some eyes cut.
Valeria's gaze still lingered.
Sharper now. Less inquiry, more challenge.
As if his simple presence had reignited an old duel never quite settled. Her posture hadn't shifted—back straight, chin slightly lifted—but her hand hovered near the edge of her waist, not for a weapon, but in reflex. Readiness.
She wasn't here as a noble.
She was here as her.
And that made things… interesting.
But then—something else.
Something stranger.
Two more presences.
He turned his senses toward them—but hit… nothing.
Not a wall. Not a shield.
Something far more insidious.
'...Interference?'
His breath held for half a second.
No aura. No weight. No ripple in the hall's woven mana fabric. Whoever—or whatever—they were, they were scrubbed from his perception. Carefully. Intentionally.
And yet…
Lucavion's lips curved—not in tension.
But recognition.
'Heh…'
He let the quiet chuckle echo inward, amusement woven with calculated acceptance.
'So, our little Protagonist and her knight are here.'
There was no need for certainty. Only two in this entire cursed script fit the profile. Hidden. Untouchable. Watched by fate's hand itself.
Elara.
Cedric.
'Only someone pretending to be no one could slip through this place like that.'
He didn't press further. He wouldn't try to locate them.
Not yet.
That moment would come when it was meant to.
But even now, Lucavion's smirk deepened just slightly as he moved further into the banquet's luminous heart.
Let the threads tangle.
He was ready to pull.
Lucavion's gaze flicked across the hall again—this time, tracing less obvious lines.
To the east side—near one of the minor drink fountains glowing with pale mana light—three other figures stood with just enough distance from the crowd to suggest deliberate removal, but close enough to mark dominion.
Lorian style.
'Heh…'
The sound wasn't uttered aloud, but it coiled behind his teeth with dry, heavy recognition.
His steps never slowed. Wouldn't. Couldn't. But his eyes—his mind—turned sharply as they traced the edge of the gathering toward the east.
Three figures.
Positioned with elegant detachment, like chess pieces deliberately placed beyond the first ranks. Just out of reach, but never out of play.
Lucavion's gaze settled on the tallest of them first.
Jet black hair, neatly combed but not slicked. Regal. Measured. His coat was the kind nobles wore to war councils rather than feasts—formal, but not ostentatious. His posture suggested refinement, but the tension in his shoulders betrayed calculation.
And his eyes—
Steel gray.
Cold. Analytical. Familiar in the way only ghosts from betrayal could be.
Lucavion didn't need the name.
He already knew.
'Adrian Lorian…'
He had been there.
Not just near the fire of Lucavion's fall—but standing comfortably in its warmth, watching the flames lick higher.
He hadn't moved then.
Hadn't spoken a word in Lucavion's defense.
And now?
He watched still. Quiet. Precise. A blade sheathed in influence.
Lucavion's fingers twitched once at his side before relaxing again.
He looked away.
And saw her.
The second one.
Deliberately positioned near Adrian's right shoulder. Not behind. Not beside. But just off—close enough to be protected, far enough to imply she never needed it.
She stood perfectly still.
Like a painting.
Platinum hair fell in silken waves down to her waist, too perfect for wind to disturb. Pale lavender eyes glinted softly beneath long lashes, veiled in something halfway between innocence and ancient insight. Her expression was gentle—too gentle.
As if sculpted.
As if chosen.
Not worn.
'Still the same…' Lucavion thought bitterly.
Even now, she stood like a relic from a dream no one asked for. Doll-like. Ethereal. Beautiful in the way temples are—worshipped from afar, hollow within.
'Isolde.'
She hadn't changed.
Not in the way others did.
Not in the way people should.
Even now, she looked on with eyes that barely seemed to move, yet reached far too deep.
And Lucavion—
He felt it.
His mind recoiled, but the memory rose anyway.
Unbidden.
The scent of crushed roses and cold stone. Her hand on his cheek. Her voice cooing like silk-wrapped poison. That same expression as she whispered—
"You'll be good for me, won't you?"
He blinked.
Once.
Hard.
The present reasserted itself. The marble under his boots. The polished walls. The gaze of nobles and scholars. The hum of mana.
But the scars in his mind?
They flinched.
She hadn't spoken.
She didn't need to.
Her very presence clawed at the edges of his composure—not through threat, not through power—but through history.
Through knowing.
Through what had been done.
[Lucavion.]
Vitaliara's voice cut in, soft—but alert.
Not chiding.
Not mocking.
Watching him, not just the world around him.
He didn't answer right away.
He just breathed.
Deep.
Even.
The memories were rising, yes—but they would not own him.
He couldn't help it.
The smile broke through—not wide, not bright, not the kind nobles wear when sealing their third lie before dessert.
But real.
Sharp at the edge. Ironic. Inevitable.
Because of all the absurdities this world could throw at him—this was its masterpiece.
There she was.
Isolde Valoria.
Standing with the Empire's blessing curled like silk around her shoulders, whispering power into the very hall that had once watched him fall. Poised like royalty, moved like myth, and plotted like a god whose only language was control.
The villain.
The one building an empire not just from ambition—but from certainty. The world was her board. Its people her pieces.
And still—Lucavion could see her.
Not the image.
The truth.
The one who smiled with grace and sculpted poison behind lace and lullabies.
"You'll be good for me, won't you?"
He scoffed inwardly.
'You always did love watching people squirm.'
But she wasn't alone.
No.
In the same room—in this glittering illusion of civility—she was here too.
Not Isolde.
Elara.
At first, the presence had been veiled. Shrouded with precision, like a ghost trained not to haunt—but to survive.
But now?
Lucavion felt it.
That tangled surge of intent cutting toward him like a thread drawn from shadow. And it wasn't delicate.
It was fierce.
Anger. Confusion. Hatred. Longing.
He didn't need her name spoken.
Didn't need her to stand beneath a crest or bear a title.
He knew.
This was her.
The sister left behind. The piece cast away. The blade that had been denied a hilt—and made one from ash and claw.
The protagonist.
Or… the one who should have been.
And between them—between Isolde and Elara, two sisters standing on opposite ends of fate, both turned toward him now with eyes too full of memory—
There he stood.
Lucavion.
The unaligned.
The unwelcome.
The outsider.
A man without crest or claim, now the fulcrum of two destinies spun like dueling storms, each trying to claim the sky.
And yet—
He wasn't afraid.
He was alive.
'Now…'
The story wouldn't be theirs anymore.
Not the Empire's. Not the sisters'. Not the gods' or the academy's.
And certainly not the world's.
It was his.
He tilted his chin just slightly, catching both of their gazes with one glance—the villainess cloaked in glory, the exiled flame burning beneath silence.
And his voice, low and unheard by any ear but his own, stirred with finality.
"I will burn this story for you."
A vow.
A warning.
A flame rising in the dark.
"And write everything by myself."
Chapter 769: The heart
Jesse's breath hitched before she even realized she'd stopped breathing.
The moment the doors opened, before the light even caught the full of him, she knew.
No voice announced him. No title rang from the lips of heralds. But it didn't matter.
She felt him.
Her eyes—sharp, trained to read shifts in battlefield tempo, in hallway politics, in the subtle flick of power between nobles—froze.
Because there he was.
Lucavion.
And everything stopped.
She couldn't remember what the other nobles around her were doing. Couldn't remember Isolde's soft voice or Adrian's faintly muttered remarks, couldn't hear the scratch of polished boots or the music still weaving in the distance.
Because he had stepped into the hall, and the rest of the world had dulled.
He was taller now. His posture—always confident—had settled into something heavier. Not arrogance. Not even command. Something deeper. As if the air bent slightly to accommodate him. As if existence had made space for someone who no longer needed to announce his place in it.
His face…
Sharper now. Cleaner lines beneath the cheekbones. A more defined edge to his jaw, refined by age, by war, by purpose.
But the biggest change—the most jarring—was what wasn't there.
The scar.
Gone.
Erased clean from his skin, as if the years in the military hadn't carved their signature into his flesh. As if the pain and fire and blood he had dragged them all through had somehow… disappeared.
But the feeling?
The feeling hadn't changed.
If anything, it had deepened.
Stronger. More controlled. And yet beneath that polish, Jesse could still sense it—the way his presence threaded through the room like a low drumbeat.
Her heart pounded once.
'He's more handsome now…'
The thought came unbidden, treacherous. She hated it. Hated that it sounded like something a girl would whisper behind a fan at a garden ball. Hated that it felt real.
Because he was.
More than before.
He always had a presence, even when they were soldiers. But back then it was rough. Untamed. The kind of allure you didn't trust because it came with fire and fury and silence that lingered long after he'd left the room.
Now?
Now it was like someone had taken that chaos and refined it into a weapon of elegance.
A blade dressed in silk.
And yet—despite everything, despite the changes in his face and frame and movement—
He was still Lucavion.
The boy who once stood between her and the commanding officer's wrath, shoulder bloodied but never backing down. The one who made her read reports twice because "you missed a comma," and wouldn't let her eat until she'd finished properly. The one who sat beside her during the worst week of the rain season, when the trenches collapsed and her hands wouldn't stop shaking.
The one who, without ever saying it, guided her.
Taught her to stand on her own.
He was him.
And standing there, lit in the chandelier's silver light, eyes sweeping the hall like they had already seen every truth within it—
He looked like everything she had sworn to forget.
Her fingers curled against the edge of her gloves, careful not to let the motion show. Her face remained composed, as expected. No expression. No tremble. Just breath. Controlled. Even.
But inside?
Inside, she felt herself unraveling.
Not with longing. Not with sorrow.
With something older.
Something raw.
Because the man standing across the banquet hall wasn't the Lucavion they'd all whispered about in the war briefings.
He was something more.
And Jesse?
Jesse Burns wasn't a child anymore.
She wasn't the girl who had needed saving. Not the soldier clinging to structure in a world that kept taking it from her.
She was someone now.
Someone with a name. With power. With a presence that had made the maids bow and the nobles watch.
And as she looked at him—
As her eyes found his—
Her lips parted, almost silently.
'You…'
She didn't finish the thought.
Because she didn't know whether it would end in came back, left me, or never changed.
Her breath caught again—but this time, it wasn't out of shock. Or fear.
It was hope.
That dangerous, flickering thing she had buried long ago beneath rank and ration packs and the silence that followed every empty barracks.
Because as she stared across the banquet hall—past the veils of silk and status, through the fog of nobles who had never once heard a bullet scream—her eyes stayed locked on him.
Lucavion.
And her chest—damn it, her chest actually ached.
Not from pain.
From the sudden, blinding warmth of possibility.
Will he recognize me?
She looked different now. Her hair was neater, the angles of her face more defined, her figure dressed in the kind of formal elegance she used to scoff at. Gone was the ash-stained armor and the dirt-caked boots. Gone was the girl who'd leaned on him like a crutch during that first winter in the South Ridge campaign.
But her eyes…
Her eyes were the same.
And if he looked—really looked—he'd know. Wouldn't he?
He has to.
Her hands trembled, barely. Enough for her to fold them tighter beneath the table, to anchor herself in posture if not in certainty.
Because the questions were rising. Rising like the flood she'd kept locked behind duty and silence and time.
Why did you leave me in that battlefield, Lucavion?
She had searched for him that day. After it was confirmed that he had deserted.
But he hadn't been there.
No note. No word. No trace.
Only his absence.
And the cold realization that he had vanished.
Why didn't you say anything? Not even a goodbye? Not even a lie?
Her throat tightened. Her vision blurred for a breath.
But she steadied herself.
Because now—now he was here. In flesh. In silence. In motion.
And maybe, just maybe, he'd turn his head and see her.
Not Jesse Burns.
But her.
The girl he'd left.
And she had so many questions.
So many damn questions she had forced herself to wait till the right moment came.
And she would get her answers.
Every last one.
Not tonight—maybe not even tomorrow—but soon. Because she wasn't someone who waited idly anymore. She wasn't the shadow behind the commanding officer, the ghost in formation, the girl grateful for scraps of attention or warmth.
She had built herself from the trench up. With frostbitten fingers and a spine of fire. And now—draped in silks tailored to nobility, with polished boots and a gaze that made seasoned men flinch—she chose what she wanted.
And Jesse Burns wanted him.
Not as a childhood crush. Not as some fairy tale relic of the past. But as something far more dangerous.
Real.
Lucavion had carved his place into her life without even meaning to. In the way he corrected her, the way he encouraged her when she nearly lost everything.
But now?
Now he was here.
No longer a ghost.
No longer absent.
And she would not let the chance slip again.
He belongs to me.
Not like possession. Not like conquest. But like gravity—something inevitable.
Because no matter the scars, no matter the titles, no matter what faces they had to wear in this glittering, lie-drenched hall of protocol and pretense…
He was the one who made her feel alive in that place between orders and chaos.
He was the one who saw her when no one else did.
And if he'd forgotten?
Then she'd make him remember.
She would find the right moment. The right silence. The right breath. And she would ask.
Ask why he left her in that ruin of a battlefield without a word. Ask what shattered him so badly he vanished without trace. Ask if he ever meant to come back.
But more than that—
She would make him feel it again.
Chapter 770: All rise to receive
Lucavion's eyes didn't blink.
Didn't move.
He simply looked.
Right through her.
Through the elegance, the decorum, the layers of imperial polish that Isolde wore like silk armor. His gaze didn't rage, didn't burn. It measured. Quiet and ruthless, the way a blade does before the draw.
And in return—
She looked back.
Unflinching.
A still war across a gilded hall.
Until—
A hand touched his shoulder.
Not hard. Not rushed.
Just present.
"What are you waiting for?" Caeden's voice cut in, low but steady—grounded in that way Lucavion had learned to trust without ever admitting it.
Lucavion turned.
The tension in his neck slipped away with the breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
His smirk returned—small, but real.
"Right," he said.
Not loud.
But enough.
He turned from the dais, the nobles, the eyes trying to read prophecy in every twitch of his jaw. The moment broke like glass cooling in water.
Together, the five walked.
Their table was set off to the corner—far from the imperial heart of the hall, away from the soft hush of nobility's inner ring. Not isolated… but distinctly removed. A message, quiet and clear.
They didn't belong.
And that was perfect.
The chairs were velvet-trimmed, the table polished to an unnatural sheen, candles glowing with spell-forged light. Every part of the space screamed 'inclusion' in the same way a locked door 'welcomes' you from the other side.
Lucavion sat without ceremony. Mireilla flopped across her seat like she was daring the Academy to comment. Elayne took hers with grace. Caeden remained unreadable.
And Toven?
He glanced around, then leaned in.
"Why are they glaring at us?" he asked, voice pitched just above the silk-draped hum of the hall.
He didn't look scared.
Just… curious.
Which, Lucavion had to admit, made it worse.
Across the way, the students seated at the Lorian-designated circle weren't hiding it.
Mireilla didn't look up from where she was draping her arm over the back of her chair like it was a throne she barely tolerated.
But her eyes—those sharp, amber things—glinted.
"They're not just glaring," she said, voice low but perfectly audible to their corner. "They're seething."
Toven tilted his head. "You sure? Looks more like they're constipated."
Caeden gave a small sigh, but it was Mireilla who snapped her fingers, quick and precise, inches from Toven's ear.
"Focus, sparklebrain."
She leaned forward slightly, her tone shifting—less amused now. More clinical. Like a strategist explaining a battlefield to children with swords made of bread.
"Notice how they were already here when we arrived?" she said.
Lucavion blinked once. He hadn't missed it. But he hadn't considered it.
"In noble politics," Mireilla continued, "arrival order isn't about convenience. It's about power. Rank. Reception. The highest-ranking parties arrive last—because everyone else is already present to see them. Applaud them. Validate them."
Her gaze flicked across the hall—once, sharp.
"Royalty always arrives last," she said. "It's tradition. And that's why the fact that the Lorian students were seated before us means one thing."
She leaned back, arms folding across her chest with the smugness of someone who'd just checkmated a fool across three boards.
"The Academy—and the Arcanis Empire—are using this entrance to undermine them."
Caeden blinked, the line settling into his understanding.
"Oh… so it was like that."
Toven followed, eyes widening slightly. "Wait, wait—so we were positioned after the noble faction? Like… as if we were more important?"
Mireilla turned her head so slowly it should've creaked, eyes narrowing in theatrical disdain.
"Congratulations," she said dryly. "You've just grasped lesson two of day four's etiquette module."
Toven winced.
Toven leaned back in his chair with exaggerated wounded pride. "I did listen to them. I just… retained them in fragments. You know. Selectively."
Caeden's mouth twitched. "You mean you filtered out the entire structure of imperial reception hierarchy."
"I retained the vibe," Toven said defensively, tapping the table. "Royalty last. Us first. Vibes confirmed."
"You don't get a medal for vibes," Mireilla said flatly, but her tone carried the kind of bored amusement only a tired tutor could master. She flicked a crumb off the velvet near her elbow, then let her gaze shift—more precisely now.
To Lucavion.
And unlike her usual theatrics, this time her look carried weight.
Subtle. Focused.
"You were strange," she said.
Lucavion arched a brow. "Strange is my baseline."
"No," she countered, leaning in, elbows resting on the table now. "Strange even for you."
Toven blinked between them
Toven blinked between them. "You mean the thing where he got all weirdly still for like… a full minute?"
"Exactly," Mireilla said, without looking away. "You froze. When you entered. I saw it. Like you were already ten miles away."
Lucavion didn't answer.
Didn't shift.
Just stared back, his expression unreadable but not deflective.
"And then," Mireilla added, her gaze sharpening, "you looked at her."
Caeden looked up now too. "Her?"
"The platinum-haired one," Mireilla said, gesturing subtly with a nod toward Isolde's side of the hall. "Near the tall one. Imperial-something. Who is she?"
Lucavion didn't reply at first.
His eyes tracked, just briefly, toward the place where Isolde still sat—composed, delicate, imperial in posture and poison alike.
His fingers tapped once against the goblet in front of him.
Then, his voice came—low, dry, and without any of the charm he usually laced his truths with.
"A ghost."
Mireilla blinked.
Toven frowned.
Caeden's jaw shifted—like a man starting to understand the shape of something ugly beneath the surface.
Elayne hadn't spoken.
Not once during their whole exchange. But now, her voice slipped into the quiet with the precision of a blade sliding into silk.
"…A ghost."
It wasn't a question. Just an echo.
Lucavion didn't glance her way—but his lips quirked, just slightly.
Mireilla exhaled through her nose. "He's being cryptic again."
She leaned back with a shrug, letting the weight of it roll off her. "Whatever she is, she's probably trouble. But talking to this one about 'who's who' is like asking a cat for tax advice. You get riddles. Or scratched."
Toven made a mock-wince. "Or both."
Even Caeden let out a low exhale, the tension in his jaw easing slightly.
Lucavion reached for his goblet, eyes still faintly distant. But when he spoke again, his tone had shifted—lighter, dry, returning to that cool observational rhythm he wielded like an old habit.
"So now," he said, "I presume the Crown Prince enters?"
Mireilla nodded, brushing a strand of hair back over her shoulder. "Yes. He should be here soon. And if the Empire's intent on theatrics—"
The words hadn't even cooled in the air when the sound struck.
Clear.
Formal.
And deliberately magnified.
"All rise to receive His Highness, Prince Lucien of Arcanis—the Heir of the Fire, Warden of the Center Seal.
The entire hall stilled.
The announcer's voice rang like a bell wrapped in velvet—sharp, but poised, meant to command attention without demanding it.
And it worked.
Every noble. Every professor. Every attendant in the grand hall moved.
Because this wasn't just ceremony.
This was power being announced.
And the air shifted with it.
"The Crown Prince, enters."
Chapter 771: Your Highness
The hall shifted like breath drawn in.
Not loud. Not dramatic.
Just… sharp.
The way air moves before a storm.
And then—he appeared.
Lucien Arcturus Lysandra.
The Crown Prince of Arcanis.
He did not stride in like a man entering his home.
He arrived like gravity.
Tall. Still. Unhurried.
His banquet attire was nothing short of artistry—deep violet tailored to precise imperial lines, framed in obsidian-black threading that shimmered faintly under the hall's enchanted light. The inner lining of his coat bore warding sigils so subtly sewn they read like whispers of authority—undeniable, if you knew how to see. His gloves were a shade of porcelain white, unmarred, bearing the imperial crest in embossed silver on each wrist.
And not a single thread was out of place.
Not a hair disarranged.
Even the cut of his boots—the gleam at the edge of polished leather—spoke of discipline honed to obsession.
Lucien didn't look at the room.
He measured it.
Eyes the color of cold crimson—blood drained of warmth, fire frozen into clarity—swept across the gathering with the stillness of a blade before the draw. They did not wander. They locked. One figure, then the next. Not to greet. Not to acknowledge. But to catalog as it seemed.
Lucavion's eyes traced the prince with the precision of a man who had long stopped trusting first impressions.
He watched how the hall bent—not physically, not magically—but atmospherically, the way lesser gravity folds toward a denser core.
And in the stillness of that breathless moment, his thoughts stirred.
'Indeed… the words didn't do you any justice, did they?'
His smirk was faint. Private.
But not mocking.
Because for once—perhaps the only time—Shattered Innocence had undersold it.
The pages had described Lucien with reverence hidden under subtext: A prince made not to rule by blood, but by inevitability. The contrast had been drawn early, stark and unyielding—between the gilded pride of Prince Adrian, all charm wrapped in performance, and this man. Lucien. A force, not a performer.
He took another sip of his wine—more for the motion than the taste.
'The author was just writing hierarchy.'
Because that's what it was, wasn't it?
From the very beginning, the contrast had been planted like a seed. Adrian—arrogant, beautiful, surrounded by shadowed praise. But Lucien? Lucien was purpose. Discipline that didn't demand attention because it knew attention would come.
And more importantly—he had been Elara's.
From the earliest chapters, before the story had even turned to blood and exile and betrayal, the text had made its choice. The girl cast out, the sister denied her title, would not only rise—but rise with him.
Lucavion leaned slightly back in his chair, eyes still pinned to the man who now commanded the hall's axis. No one moved until Lucien moved. No one breathed until he blinked. That was the power of crafted presence—of narrative made manifest through bloodlines and spectacle.
'So this is how you tell the reader,' he mused.
Not with dialogue. Not with conflict. But with arrival.
'Of course.'
For an author, what better way to cement superiority than with silence? No battle. No kiss. Just a prince who walked like law and a room that obeyed like scripture. Shattered Innocence had understood that rhythm too well—using Lucien's presence to frame Elara's eventual ascent. Not just romantically. But politically. Symbolically. Strategically.
Lucavion's gaze didn't waver. His thoughts spiraled inward, sharp and observant.
'Elara rises. So her chosen must rise with her.'
The psychology of romance fiction was hardly subtle. Prestige by association. Superiority framed by intimacy. It wasn't just about who the protagonist loved—it was about what that love meant. And Lucien? He wasn't a character. He was an argument. A rebuttal to every slight Isolde had ever cast.
Elara was denied a title.
Lucien gave her sovereignty.
Adrian played the prince.
Lucien was the Empire.
And Isolde?
Still holding court with eyes too poised and a past too poisoned.
Still wearing her throne like it was borrowed silk.
'They were always meant to be the imperfect pair,' he thought. 'Adrian and Isolde. Half-truths in perfect clothes.'
The contrast wasn't subtle.
It was design.
But then—
Lucavion's smile faded.
Just a bit.
Because to him… this wasn't fiction.
He wasn't reading a story.
He was in it.
And he wasn't the supporting cast. He wasn't the rival. He wasn't the misunderstanding love interest who loses the girl for the sake of closure.
No.
He was real.
And Lucien?
Lucien wasn't a love interest.
He was a tyrant.
Lucavion watched the hall tilt.
Not physically. Not through magic. But through gravity—his gravity.
Lucien stepped forward, and the world bent.
The nobles rose, heads dipped with precise deference. Professors stilled mid-conversation. Even the hall's ambient mana seemed to quiet, as though the very threads of the Academy understood the need to pause for perfection.
Lucavion's thoughts sharpened again, gaze cool behind the curve of his goblet.
'Just look at you…'
The others whispered softly—Toven marveling at Lucien's coat embroidery, Caeden nodding once, expression unreadable. Mireilla's lips curved in something between assessment and disdain.
"He does look like a prince," she admitted.
But Lucavion didn't nod. Didn't speak.
Because his eyes weren't on Lucien anymore.
They were behind him.
There—just a step behind the crown prince, walking with measured silence—was a girl.
She didn't glow like him. She wasn't framed in grandeur or drowned in reverence. She was silent. Present. And outshined.
And yet—Lucavion saw her.
White hair, long and loose like moonlight left untamed, fell to her waist. Her dress was modest, but imperial in cut. Her movements graceful—but restrained, as if every step was weighed before it was taken.
Her eyes—deep crimson, not unlike Lucien's—glinted under the chandelier's layered glow.
And no one bowed.
No one called her name.
No one moved for her.
Lucavion's lips pressed faintly, his thoughts drawing taut like strings over a bow.
'Ah… There you are.'
Of course. The girl from that scene. The one everyone pretended not to see until it was necessary to use her name like a flag of convenience.
Priscilla Lysandra.
Mireilla's eyes narrowed suddenly. She sat forward.
"That's her," she murmured.
Elayne turned slightly. "Who?"
"The other royal. The one not quite royal."
Toven blinked. "Huh?"
Mireilla didn't answer him directly. She kept her gaze on the girl behind the prince. "We learned about her last week. A royal daughter joining the Academy alongside Lucien. No title. No fanfare. And tied to… scandal."
Lucavion didn't look at Mireilla, but he could feel her putting it together piece by piece, faster than most.
"She's entering with Lucien," Mireilla said, slowly, "because she has to. She's royal blood—no one can arrive before her. It'd be an insult to the throne."
Her eyes sharpened.
"But she wasn't named."
Silence hung in their little corner.
Toven whistled low. "So she's royalty… but not really."
"Exactly," Mireilla muttered. "A ghost in velvet."
Chapter 772: A ghost in Velvet
"A ghost in velvet."
Lucavion's mouth curved—not into one of his razor-thin smirks or those crooked mockeries he wore like armor.
But into a genuine smile.
Low. Wry. Inevitable.
"Ghost in velvet…" he murmured, almost to himself. "Quite a name."
Mireilla tilted her head, one brow rising.
Then Lucavion turned toward her, eyes faintly amused, something playful threading beneath the surface of his tone.
"And what would you say," he asked, "for the one in front?"
There was no need to clarify. Every gaze in the hall still followed him—the Crown Prince, Lucien Arcturus Lysandra, walking like inevitability made flesh.
Mireilla took a beat too long to answer. Not from hesitation—but calculation.
"Hm." Her tone grew thoughtful. "Impeccable. Composed. Intimidating in the textbook kind of way."
A pause.
"Regal," she settled on, safely diplomatic.
Lucavion's smile broke wider—this time with unmistakable mirth. His laugh, low and quick, slipped out before he stopped it.
"Regal," he echoed. "That's what we're going with?"
Mireilla folded her arms, chin lifting with mock defiance. "What? It's accurate."
"Accurate," he repeated, as if tasting the word like overcooked meat.
"What?" Mireilla challenged, half amused, half daring. "If you've got a better one, then say it."
Lucavion's expression didn't smirk.
It shifted.
A smile bloomed—slow, quiet, but not casual. This one had teeth beneath it, and eyes that glinted like steel catching starlight. Not because of malice. But because of clarity.
The kind of clarity that came from understanding exactly what something was made of.
Lucavion watched as the Crown Prince continued his path—unbothered by the weight of the hall, untouched by the heat of attention. Every step was measured, every turn rehearsed until it passed for instinct. Nothing uncertain. Nothing out of place.
It was perfection.
But it was too perfect.
Too smoothed. Too symmetrical. Like marble carved into something lifelike but never living.
'A prince not raised among people,' Lucavion thought, gaze narrowing slightly, 'but above them. Beyond them. Built on them.'
The smile never returned to his lips, but the gleam in his eyes sharpened.
Because it was clear—undeniable now.
Lucien's kind of flawlessness wasn't honed in effort. It was filtered through privilege, layered over generations of silence paid for in coin and blood. It wasn't that he didn't see the world below him.
He chose not to.
He believed he didn't have to.
As if suffering beneath his feet was simply poor lighting in the grand portrait of his empire.
Lucavion's fingers brushed once against the table's edge.
Not in anger.
In understanding.
'You don't rule by earning. You rule by erasing.'
And that was it, wasn't it?
The name that fit.
He didn't say it aloud.
But in his mind, it rang like a bell cast in iron and debt.
"The Crown of Silence."
A crown that didn't answer.
A rule that didn't see.
And a man who had never needed to understand how to kneel, how to struggle.
Yes.
It fit.
Not just as a moniker, but as a truth worn in every gleam of Lucien's polished perfection. A man wrapped in command, untouched by dirt or doubt. Not because he had transcended the world—
But because he had never once stepped into it.
Mireilla turned toward him, brows drawn. "Okay… What does that even mean?"
Toven leaned forward on one elbow, whispering like a child peeking behind curtains. "Are you insane? You just entered this banquet, and you're already giving titles to the Crown Prince like you're writing a eulogy."
Even Caeden's brow furrowed slightly, though he said nothing.
Lucavion's gaze didn't leave Lucien's back.
But his smile curved once more—razor-thin now, sharp not with mockery, but with purpose.
"By this point," he said softly, "don't you understand?"
He lifted his right hand.
And raised his index finger.
Not in flourish. Not in provocation.
Just fact.
"No one," Lucavion said, voice low but steady, "I bow to no one."
And he meant it.
Lucavion's gaze didn't shift—not to the others, not even when their reactions came as expected.
Toven scoffed. "Right. Here he goes again."
"Better write that on a banner," Caeden muttered dryly, though his lips twitched just faintly at the corner.
Elayne said nothing, but her eyes flicked away, as if accustomed to the cadence of Lucavion's declarations by now.
But Mireilla… Mireilla didn't look away.
She was still watching him.
Watching him.
Not in jest. Not in confusion.
But in sharp, steady silence.
Lucavion didn't miss it.
He lowered his hand, voice still quiet but distinct, every syllable carved like glass.
"And I don't live by the fear of offending those," he said, "nor by the rules that are put there to chain the freedom of mind."
He exhaled through his nose, soft.
"This," he said, "is what I live by."
Toven groaned into his goblet. "If he starts quoting ancient poets next, I'm jumping out the window."
"Which one?" Caeden asked idly. "We're three floors up."
"Worth it."
But Lucavion didn't smile this time.
Not fully.
Because Mireilla hadn't looked away.
And she wasn't smirking.
She was still staring, and there was something in her gaze—quiet. Focused. A sort of pause that rarely visited her usually sharp tongue.
Like she saw something she didn't quite expect.
He met her stare without hesitation.
He didn't need to speak.
Because whatever strange, silent current passed between them didn't ask for words.
It just was.
And then, across the banquet hall, the shift came.
Not dramatic.
Just… movement.
Lucien arrived at his designated seat—raised slightly above the noble cluster, not quite a throne, but unmistakably imperial. The platform was arranged with deliberate symmetry, flanked by high-backed chairs of blackwood and etched sigils, but Lucien sat alone in the center.
Because of course he did.
He didn't need an entourage to prove his weight.
The empire moved for him.
His coat settled flawlessly as he sat, every line of his attire maintaining its perfect fold. He didn't look at the crowd, nor at the whispers rippling through the outer ring. He simply reached for the goblet laid before him, lifted it, and sipped.
As if nothing around him mattered enough to deserve acknowledgement.
Behind him—just barely behind—Priscilla moved to her seat.
Not beside him.
Not in prominence.
But behind.
A silent seat, half-lit by the chandeliers. Her gown brushed the edge of the dais as she moved—unescorted, unannounced.
The hall didn't still for her.
No ripple. No shift.
Only a few glances. A few sideways murmurs.
But no bows.
Lucavion's eyes flicked toward her—not sharply. Just enough to confirm.
Ghost in velvet, indeed.
She carried herself like she'd long since grown accustomed to this choreography of absence. Like she knew precisely how to move in order not to disturb the symmetry.
And then—
Another shift.
The tone of the hall changed—not in noise, but in energy.
The headmaster had arrived.
He didn't announce himself.
He didn't need to.
The doors near the end of the platform opened with a slow glide of reinforced mana, and the headmaster stepped through in robes of cobalt and black, his shoulders marked with silvered arcane embroidery that shimmered not with spellcraft, but age. The man didn't walk. He flowed—his steps practiced, yet not performative.
And everyone knew.
Because every professor, every official lining the far corners of the room, straightened.
And the nobles?
The ones who had postured so confidently before?
They turned.
All eyes shifted, like stars pivoting in alignment.
The headmaster walked with the kind of presence that couldn't be learned.
The kind that came only from wielding power long enough to forget what it was like not to have it.
He approached the front, stepped onto the platform—and paused.
The room held its breath.
Even Lucien inclined his head.
Not deeply.
But enough.
Because this was one of the few men in the Empire who could be bowed to.
And still choose not to demand it.
Chapter 773: Headmaster Verius
Elara watched the Crown Prince without meaning to.
It was difficult not to.
There was something about the way he stood—no, held the room. He didn't demand it like Adrian, didn't pierce it like Lucavion, didn't weave through it like that girl, her name was Valeria.
No. Lucien Lysandra rooted the room. Like a truth that didn't care if you agreed.
His presence was cut from another cloth—disciplined, severe, but not brutal. Regal not just in title, but in effect. He didn't shimmer. The air around him did.
Her eyes narrowed faintly. Not from doubt—just from the way instinct tickled at something behind her thoughts.
He was sharp, yes. But not like a blade drawn on a battlefield.
No. He was administrative sharpness. The kind that rewrote tax law with the same precision used to authorize invasions. The kind of sharpness that bled not from swords, but from signatures.
'Like Valeria,' she thought. But not quite.
Valeria was a blade wielded. Lucien was the hand that never had to raise the blade at all.
Power in its purest form: absolute. Assured. Untouched.
Beside her, Selphine let out a low, appreciative exhale. "He looks… composed."
Aurelian nodded slowly, his gaze resting on Lucien with the kind of ancestral approval bred into noble bones. "That's what a ruler looks like," he said simply. "Presence without noise."
Selphine's eyes gleamed, and there was no sarcasm in her tone. "Our house will never rise that high—but at least we're aligned properly."
Elara said nothing. To her, the politics of the empire was something that is on the second-hand, as she was here for revenge. But when paying attention to the talks of Selphine and Aurelian, she came to learn that, their households were aligned with crown prince's faction.
She heard them. She even agreed, in part.
But her gaze… her gaze drifted. Pulled like thread to flame.
Across the hall. To a table at the edge of ceremony, away from thrones and crowns.
To him.
Lucavion.
She hadn't meant to look. She didn't plan it. She wasn't even sure why her eyes moved in that moment, when Selphine's words still hung in the air like praise wrapped in silk.
But they did.
And what she saw—
His face hadn't changed. Not from earlier. Not from the moment he had locked eyes with her and whispered her name without breath.
But his eyes—
They were fixed on Lucien.
Sharp. Focused.
And full.
Full of intent.
Not admiration.
Not fear.
Not curiosity.
But something active. Something alive and pacing.
Elara's heart gave a single, careful thud.
'Why?'
Why that look?
'Why him?'
Lucavion wasn't supposed to look at anyone like that.
Not the boy she remembered. Not Luca.
He was the kind who watched storms for their beauty, not for their destruction. Who grinned through bruises and challenged fate with laughter. He wasn't... this. Whatever this was.
That look—intent, cold, measured—wasn't curiosity. It was assessment. Strategy. As if Lucien Lysandra were not a prince to revere, but a variable to map. A figure to counter.
And Elara—
She couldn't understand it.
Because she didn't know him.
Not really.
Not anymore.
The boy from the garden, from the laughter and the late-night sparring, the boy who hadn't spoken up when it counted—he wouldn't look at someone like that. Wouldn't carry that kind of edge in his gaze unless—
Unless there was history.
Or purpose.
'Is there a connection between them?'
The thought unsettled her.
Too speculative. Too rooted in the unfamiliar.
And perhaps more disconcerting than the question was the fact that she kept looking at him. As if something in her blood remembered the shape of him even when her mind tried to forget.
Elara turned her gaze away.
Sharply. As if it might cut the thread that bound her thoughts to that moment.
She focused instead on the chandeliers—on the shimmer of mana-light diffused through etched crystal. On the murmur of shifting silverware and the clink of goblets. Anything. Anything to drag herself back into the safety of detachment.
'Focus. This is not the time.'
And then—without warning, without fanfare—
The hall changed again.
The doors at the peak of the dais parted with slow, deliberate grandeur.
A ripple passed through the room—not loud, not immediate—but inevitable.
The professors stood straighter. The nobles lowered their voices to reverent murmurs.
He had arrived.
The chamber dimmed—not in light, but in presence. As though some deeper current had been drawn taut, pulling every sense inward.
The great doors atop the dais parted with slow, architectural elegance, carved sigils glowing briefly along the arch as they responded to a presence that required no fanfare.
He didn't walk in.
He entered.
A man robed in deep indigo, embroidered with constellations too ancient for the sky to remember, stepped forward. His hair, long and snow-white, was tied behind him in a manner both formal and effortless. He walked with a straightness that defied age—each step patient, exact. Not slow. Not hurried. Simply correct.
Elara's breath caught in her throat—not for who he was, but for what he carried.
Not in his hands. In the air.
The mana around him bent. Not crushed, not whipped into shape like raw power unleashed—but guided. Tempered. Coaxed into silence by the mere nearness of his body.
'Archmage.'
She knew the taste of that presence. Had trained beneath its shadow, had knelt before it and begged understanding from the chaos of the weave. Her master had carried it.
But this one was a little different.
'It is stronger….'
That endless, sovereign calm, it was even stronger than her master's.
"Is that…?" Aurelian began, barely audible.
Selphine nodded, her voice lower than he'd ever heard it. "That's him. The Headmaster of the Imperial Arcanis Academy."
"Verius Itharion," Aurelian murmured. "I thought he'd look more… Imperial."
Selphine's eyes narrowed faintly. "You don't need armor when you are the battlefield."
Her voice dipped to a hush, reverent not from superstition, but fact.
"He's been alive for over a century. Maybe more. No one knows exactly. He became a 5-star in his twenties. Hit 8-star before the last succession war even started. And he's been Headmaster for forty years."
Aurelian blinked. "Forty?"
Selphine nodded. "Since before we were born. Since before our parents were even old enough to apply."
Elara didn't speak. Her eyes hadn't moved from the man.
Verius Itharion.
She had read the name. All candidates had. But the paper didn't breathe like this. Didn't explain how the air would fold in his wake—not with fear, not with reverence, but with recognition.
"That's the Archmage of Space," Selphine continued, almost as if telling a bedtime legend. "The one who rewrote the fundamentals of displacement theory. The one who bent leyline fracture to his will. The one who created the Pseudo-Ten."
Selphine's lips curved—not into a smile, but something wry. "That's what they call it, at least. The Pseudo-Ten. A living space, shaped entirely by magic. A realm where time and pressure shift at will. The entrance trials were conducted inside it."
She remembered the sensation: the way gravity itself had changed with every breath, the spatial tugs, the fragmented light, the monsters that seemed real even as they bled.
"That wasn't an arena," Selphine went on. "It was an artifact. A spell you can walk inside."
Aurelian leaned forward, brow furrowed. "But that's all rumor, right? There's no proof. I mean… no one's ever made a Ten-Star spell. Not since—"
"Lysandra the First Flame."
Chapter 774: Headmaster Verius (2)
"But that's all rumor, right? There's no proof. I mean… no one's ever made a Ten-Star spell. Not since—"
"Lysandra the First Flame," Selphine supplied.
He nodded. "Right. The founder of the Empire. The flame that burned down the Old Kingdoms. That was—what—over a thousand years ago?"
"A thousand and seventy-three," Selphine corrected automatically. "She was the first. The only. Ten-Star confirmed by Ascension."
"And if the Empire's never produced another one since," Aurelian added, "why would it suddenly happen now?"
He didn't mean it as an insult. Just the quiet voice of reason that lingered behind every legend.
But Elara… felt her breath settle.
Not with disbelief.
With awe.
'Master always spoke of him as if he weren't quite human.'
Not with fear. Not with worship. But with that strange edge in her voice—the one that hovered between admiration and memory, like she had once stood beneath his shadow and still hadn't quite left.
'Verius Itharion isn't just powerful, Elara. He is what power becomes when it no longer needs to prove itself.'
And now, seeing him—
She understood.
She remembered Eveline's eyes, storm-grey and ever calm, the way she had wrapped discipline in warmth, knowledge in gentleness. The way her spells never fractured when cast—because they belonged to her. Controlled.
But even Eveline had hesitated when speaking of Itharion.
Elara studied the lines of his robe, the breathless way the mana bent without resistance, like it knew its master. As though the air itself had grown used to his weight, to the silence he demanded not with command, but with presence.
She could not sense the end of his power.
It wasn't just more than hers—it was structured, infinite. And old. Like the magic that curled in his wake had been part of the world long before language, and would remain long after names like hers and Lucavion's and even Lysandra's were buried beneath the dirt.
But even as awe pressed into her chest, something else stirred beneath it.
Not defiance. Not rivalry.
Just… edge.
The edge of a blade she'd carried for years, even as her master's teachings tried to soften it. The edge of what she had come here for.
'Even gods bleed if you strike the right vein.'
She did not look away as the Headmaster reached the center of the stage, robes settling like dusk around his frame.
The hall held its breath.
Then he spoke.
"Welcome," Verius Itharion said—and the word itself changed the shape of the air.
No magic. No amplification. Just voice.
Perfect. Calm. Deep enough to settle in bone.
"To the Imperial Arcanis Academy. The gate between what you were—and what you might become."
And just like that, silence was not just silence anymore.
It was ceremony. It was challenge. It was the quiet before the forge.
Elara didn't blink.
She just listened.
Because when power spoke, even vengeance paused to learn.
*****
Headmaster Verius Itharion stood motionless for a moment longer, letting silence wrap the hall in its embrace. Then, his voice emerged once more—measured, rich, and anchored with the weight of centuries.
"Long before you were born—long before I was born—this land was not united. Kingdoms rose and fell like tides, ruled not by vision, but by appetite."
He stepped forward, each motion a punctuation.
"But a flame came. A singular will. Lysandra the First Flame. She did not merely conquer—she unified. She forged the foundations of the Empire with the same fire that scorched the old world to ash. And among her first decrees…"
He paused, letting the weight of it settle.
"Was this."
A slow, precise gesture swept toward the hall.
"The Imperial Arcanis Academy."
He did not raise his voice. He didn't need to. The words carried all the force of legacy.
"This institution is not a school. It is not merely a place of study. It is the marrow of the Empire—the spine that supports it. The First Flame believed that power, if unshaped, is ruinous. That magic without discipline breeds not greatness, but monsters."
The room was still, held in the orbit of his cadence.
"And so, she created us. A forge for talent. A crucible for will. A place where knowledge would be as sharp as blades, and where ambition would be tested by more than desire."
Verius Itharion's gaze moved over the assembled students—not as a surveyor of worth, but as a reader of potential yet unwritten. His next words emerged slowly, each one deliberate, deliberate as the brushstroke of a master calligrapher inscribing history.
"She built everything from nothing."
His voice did not swell. If anything, it softened. Not with sentiment, but with reverence born of absolute truth.
"Lysandra the First Flame did not inherit greatness—she authored it. She rewrote the rules of cultivation. She dissected the flow of the arcane and bent the bones of the world until they aligned with vision. And in doing so, she gave us this: the foundation for not just survival… but ascendance."
He gestured lightly to the ceiling, where the etched constellations shimmered with ambient mana, casting glints of silver across their faces.
"This Academy was her mandate. Her sanctuary. Her warning."
He let those three words linger.
"She knew. That knowledge untethered from growth is stagnation. That strength without discipline is collapse. And above all, she knew our world would never be safe."
The air in the chamber dimmed slightly, not from light—but from the mood. As though a shadow had passed through memory itself.
"There have always been threats," Itharion said. "From beneath the roots of the earth, from beyond the skies, from the twisted reaches of forgotten realms. And above all, from within."
Then, his voice took on a different weight—older, darker.
"Her final battle was not with a kingdom, or a tyrant. It was with a thing born of broken promises and twisted divinity. The 'Fallen One'—a god that devoured its own name, and sought to unmake what it could not control."
Silence. Utter and immediate.
"And in the end," Itharion said quietly, "she gave her life not to destroy it—but to seal it. To leave the world with one last breath."
He closed his eyes, and the words that followed came not as his own—but as those of a memory passed from mouth to mouth, soul to soul, for a thousand and seventy-three years.
"This world will not always love you. It will not always be kind. But it will always challenge you. And if you seek peace without strength, you will find neither. Seek knowledge. Seek power. Seek truth. Never kneel to ease. Never surrender to comfort. Greatness is not born. It is chosen—again and again—until your name burns brighter than the stars."
Verius opened his eyes.
"That was her final gift. Her final order."
He looked to the students now—not at them, but into them.
"To be here is to inherit that command."
He raised one hand, and the ambient mana of the hall swirled toward his palm—condensing, refracting, forming a single rune.
"To study is not to survive," he said. "It is to overcome. To change. To master the storm—and in doing so, become the lightning."
The rune pulsed, and then dispersed in a flicker of silver.
"This is the beginning of your trials," he said. "And only the worthy will write their names in the lineage of fire."
Then, silence.
Not the absence of sound.
But the birth of reverence.
Chapter 775: Headmaster Verius (3)
Verius Itharion let the silence breathe.
Then, as if picking up a thread woven before any of them were born, he continued—his voice quieter now, but no less certain.
"This year," he said, "the Academy changes."
The air stilled again. Not in awe, this time. In attention.
"You will find new faces among your peers—new voices among your halls. Commoners, yes. Born without crest or title. Admitted not by blood, but by trial. And they passed."
There were no gasps. No murmurs. Only the quiet weight of truth laid bare.
"This decision is not a concession," Itharion said calmly. "It is an evolution. A return to form, not a departure. For when Lysandra the First Flame forged this place, she did not ask for noble lineage. She demanded excellence."
He stepped forward, just once. His robes whispered with the movement.
"And more than that…"
He turned slightly now, facing the long stretch of students seated near the center of the chamber. His gaze found the group from the Lorian Empire—nobles in gold-threaded uniforms, their posture carefully trained, their eyes locked in place. And yet… there was tension. The kind bred by legacy, by rivalry.
"…we welcome this year a delegation from the Lorian Empire."
The words settled with ceremonial grace, but they echoed louder than bells.
"An envoy of scholars, warriors, and heirs," Itharion continued. "Sent not as guests—but as students."
The weight behind the clarification did not go unnoticed.
"They stand here under the terms of the Treaty of Valerius Plains. A peace forged not in sentiment, but necessity. We respect that peace. We honor its ink."
His eyes scanned across the Lorian seats once more.
"But let no one mistake this for sanctuary."
A beat.
"Within these halls, we are not Lorian. Nor Arcanis. Nor Northhold nor Suraen nor Kervaille. We are students. No barons. No dukes. No royals."
And then, smoothly, subtly—he turned.
Lucien.
Even seated, even silent, the Crown Prince seemed to radiate stillness like a law written in stone. But Itharion's gaze didn't falter.
"Even princes," he said, "learn here."
Lucien inclined his head a fraction—neither challenge nor submission. Just acknowledgment.
And Itharion moved again.
To the far side of the hall now. To the edge of ceremony.
Where five students sat apart from crowns and banners and histories older than any of them.
Lucavion's table.
The headmaster's gaze landed there—and held.
"And of course," Itharion said, "we welcome the special students."
His tone was even.
But not dismissive.
"This year, we have admitted five candidates through an experimental stream—evaluated outside noble lineage, unbound by Academy tradition."
Verius Itharion let the weight of his last words settle.
Then, without shift in tone, he resumed—threading seamlessly from decree to recognition.
"Those who paid attention…" he said, and for the first time, his voice curved with the faintest note of dry gravity. "—will have watched the entire process of this year's entrance trial."
A murmur of acknowledgment rippled beneath the stillness. Not challenge. Not doubt. Just memory—of a trial so merciless, so impossible in scope, it had left even veteran scholars silent. The Pseudo-Ten. The arena of fracture and fold.
"And if you watched," Itharion continued, "then you saw them."
He gestured lightly—not to the nobility. Not to the crown.
But to the five.
"You saw their decisions. You saw their instincts. You saw the cost of their success."
His eyes, silver and ageless, passed over them. Not with affection. Not even with pride.
But with the same grave reverence he had afforded Lysandra's memory.
"Lucavion. Kaeden. Elayne. Toven. Mireilla."
He spoke their names with deliberate care. Like oaths. Like promises.
"You were not admitted because of heritage. You were not chosen for luck. You are here because you dared to challenge what you were… and won."
Then—he inclined his head. Barely. A gesture not often given by the Headmaster of the Arcanis Academy.
"Congratulations," he said quietly, "for surviving yourselves."
Silence followed. A different kind. A silence not just of awe, but recognition. Of five names etched now into the story of the year—and perhaps more.
Then, Itharion's voice deepened, the echo returning, not louder, but broader—more expansive. As though the hall itself had leaned forward to listen.
"I will not lie to you."
His gaze swept the room.
"This world will not improve on its own. Magic will not wait for consensus. Power, left untamed, will always seek a throne—or a grave."
His eyes returned to the five.
"But it is my wish—my charge—that each of you, no matter the path you follow, contribute to more than strength."
A breath. A pause.
"Contribute to wellness. To the betterment of the world. To the vision left behind by the First Flame—a vision not of conquest, but of elevation."
His next words struck not with power—but with hope honed to steel.
"Create something better."
Then he turned to the chamber.
"All of you."
Verius Itharion let the silence echo, not as an ending—but as a conclusion.
Then, without drama or spectacle, he lifted his hand.
And clapped.
Once.
The sound rang crisp and clean through the air—and the world shifted.
Not violently. Not with flash or blaze.
But with elegance.
The hall did not simply change—it transformed. The ambient mana bent, folded, and rethreaded itself like silk guided by an unseen loom. The vaulted ceiling melted into an illusion of twilight skies, constellations blooming in real time overhead, their light shimmering in hues that no natural star could claim. The floor restructured beneath their feet, elongating and reforming into tiers of soft gleaming marble and gold-veined obsidian.
Tables unfurled from the space between breaths—long, ornate, set with crystalline dishes, enchanted cutlery, and plates that shimmered with the memory of flame. Aromas began to rise—spiced venison, goldenroot stew, chilled orchis fruits and emberbread still steaming from conjured ovens.
Gasps filled the room—not from fear, but wonder. Even the nobles, so used to excess and spectacle, sat straighter.
It wasn't just the spell.
It was the precision.
The beauty of absolute control.
And Itharion, still standing at the dais, simply let it settle. Like a painter stepping back from his finished canvas.
Then he spoke, voice smooth, timeless.
Then he spoke, voice smooth, timeless.
"The banquet," Verius Itharion said, "has begun."
The words were gentle, but final—like the closing of a gate that opened only once in a generation. Students began to shift, murmuring anew, the tension of ceremony now easing into the hum of anticipation. Yet before the room could break fully into celebration—
Itharion raised one hand again.
Not to conjure. Not to alter.
But to invite.
"And now," he continued, "as is tradition of our generous Empire… we offer the floor to our honored guests."
His gaze turned once more to the gilded row at the hall's center. To the delegation of the Lorian Empire, whose uniforms gleamed like embossed sigils under the mana-lit constellations. Some shifted in their seats. Others stilled entirely.
"We welcome the voice of the Lorian Empire," Itharion said. "Let their thoughts be shared in peace, and their presence be acknowledged as fellow scholars of this age."
A long pause.
Then a single figure rose.
He moved with calm, measured elegance—the kind that came not from pride, but inheritance. Every motion rehearsed. Every step etched in the marrow of his upbringing.
Prince Adrian of Loria.