Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

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.”

----------A/N------------

I have an exam tomorrow, and because of a report that suddenly appeared in our project definition for my term project, I became busy for no reason....

In any case, when I have time, I will upload the illustrations for our new characters.

Especially, a certain girl.