Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

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.”