Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 793: A new person appeared!

Lucien’s vision dimmed—not from magic, not from fury, but from something more primal.

A single, foreign thought eclipsed the calculated storm of his mind:

I want to tear him apart.

The sensation crawled beneath his skin like embers under silk—intimate, savage, intoxicating. It was not anger. Lucien had known anger since birth. This was different.

This was the urge to maim.

To desecrate.

To feel flesh split beneath his hands.

To gouge out those insolent black eyes that stared through him. To rip that smirking mouth from his face, one arrogant syllable at a time. To peel the truth from his tongue and leave the carcass of audacity behind.

’How dare he speak to me like this.’

The blood in Lucien’s veins no longer ran—it seethed.

No noble had dared. No foreign emissary. No court scholar or imperial senator. Even his father had never heard this voice from below and let it go unpunished.

And yet this—

This thing, born of nothing, sired by no name, cast in mud and dressed in irony—

Dared mock him.

Dared expose him.

Dared turn his court against him.

Lucien’s nails bit into his palms, silent and bloodless.

The hall around him faded.

It no longer mattered what the others saw.

Not the lords with uncertain eyes.

Not the women hiding smiles behind silk.

Not even the guards, too frozen to move.

All Lucien could see—was him.

Lucavion.

Still smiling.

Still breathing.

Still untouched.

And for the first time in years, Lucien wanted not control.

He wanted pain.

Lucien’s rage was a noose tightening around his own throat.

He could hear his own breath—each inhale serrated, each exhale trembling beneath the pressure of unshed fire.

He was burning, but the flame had no direction. No target.

Because if he moved, if he acted now—it would not be justice.

It would be violence.

And the Empire would see it.

They would see what lies beneath the polish of his name. The monster. The truth.

And Lucavion—curse his bones—knew it.

The boy turned away from him now, deliberately, as if Lucien no longer merited even his full gaze.

He turned to Priscilla.

And the gall of it—the audacity—Lucavion didn’t even raise his voice. He let it ring out like it belonged to the room.

”Now, everyone,” Lucavion said, his tone theatrical, almost weary with false pity. ”Apparently, our dear Lucien regards the truth as a problem.”

He glanced at the gathered nobles with that same unreadable calm.

”I wonder... is this a habit of his? Or just a one-time slip-up?” His lips curved. ”Anyone want to take a guess?”

Laughter didn’t follow.

Not because they disagreed.

But because no one dared be first.

The silence teetered, a coin in the air.

And then—

”Stop this this instant!”

The words rang clear—not shouted, but carried with the force of someone unaccustomed to being ignored.

Heads turned.

And there he stood—just inside the ring of nobles, flanked by the golden light of the candelabras—Rowen Drayke, son of the Knight Commander. The Second Sword of the Empire

His hands.....They bore the scuffs of use, the polish of discipline. The man himself—broad-shouldered, sharp-eyed—was a monument to pragmatic authority.

Rowen’s boots struck the marble with unhurried weight as he stepped forward, parting the nobles like a blade sheathed in resolve. His presence wasn’t loud—it didn’t need to be. It commanded.

He halted just paces from Lucavion, the glow of chandeliers glinting off the faint wear of his armor. His posture was flawless. Measured. As if sculpted from a lifetime of oaths and expectations.

His gaze dropped onto Lucavion like a verdict.

”How dare you speak of the Crown in that tone,” he said, voice flat but forged in steel. ”To mock the heir of the Empire, in his own hall, in front of his people—”

He didn’t shout. He didn’t need to.

His fury was not like Lucien’s—scorching and volatile. It was colder. Institutional. The fury of a man bred to protect a system that didn’t ask for forgiveness.

”You are no court jester,” Rowen said, eyes narrowing, ”and this is not a tavern for you to parade your ’truths’.”

The nobles leaned in, listening. Some hopeful. Some horrified.

Lucavion?

He smiled.

Not broadly. Not cruelly.

But with that same maddening, infuriating calm.

”I see,” he said lightly, head tilted as if Rowen had just asked a riddle. ”So truth, when it’s inconvenient, becomes disrespect?”

He stepped forward—not challenging, but steady.

”And here I thought the Academy stood for merit. That once we wore its crest, we were equals. Or am I mistaken, Sir Drayke?”

The use of his title was deliberate. Iced in mock respect.

Rowen’s jaw tightened.

Lucavion’s voice dropped lower, intimate but projected enough for the crowd to catch the shape of it.

”Am I not a student of the Academy, as of today?” he asked. ”Have I not passed the entrance trial? Was my name not read aloud with the rest?”

He raised a brow, ever so slightly.

”Or does equality end the moment it becomes... inconvenient to nobility?”

The room stirred.

A ripple of something dangerous.

And in that breath of silence, Lucavion offered one last dagger—tucked in velvet.

”I’m merely voicing my opinion. Stating what I witnessed. Sharing a truth. Surely the Empire isn’t afraid of a few honest words...?”

Rowen’s reply came fast—measured, but unmistakably sharp.

”No,” he said, his voice cutting clean through the hum of unsettled nobles. ”It is not wrong to speak the truth.”

His words rang with conviction, not concession. He would not be painted a blind sword.

”But it is wrong,” he continued, stepping forward once more, ”to dress it in barbs and call it virtue. To smear the Crown while pointing fingers at others. To lace every syllable with disdain and expect it to pass as integrity.”

Lucavion’s smile didn’t waver, but something in his posture stilled—just slightly.

Rowen pressed on, his voice rising by a fraction, clear enough to be heard by every ear in the hall.

”You accuse a noble of misconduct and provide proof—fine. Let the Academy judge it. Let the Imperial court see it through.”

He turned, just enough, to include the nobles in the reach of his words.

”But to stretch that accusation into a strike against the Crown itself—to suggest the Prince shares in the guilt of another—that is slander.”

He met Lucavion’s eyes again, unflinching.

”Is that clear?”

Lucavion’s laugh came low and quick—sharp, sudden, ringing with a theatrical clarity that defied the weight of the moment.

He clapped, once, loud and deliberate.

”Wow...” he breathed, gaze sweeping the hall. ”Such loyalty. Defending the one you serve instantly. The Empire would be proud.”

Then his eyes settled back on Rowen, all pretense of restraint dripping with mock reverence.

”But there seems to be some kind of... mix-up, doesn’t there?” he said lightly. ”A little miscommunication. Maybe I’m the problem here.”

He tapped a finger to his temple.

”Oh right... that’s it. I have a memory issue, don’t I?” he mused, grinning wide. ”Clearly. That’s the only explanation.”

His tone turned sugar-sweet, and he projected his voice again to the room—each word wrapped in velvet and razors.

”I must’ve imagined it—when someone very recently answered the question...”

He pivoted just slightly, mimicking the posture of Lucien moments ago, and in a voice chillingly close to the prince’s measured cadence, repeated:

”’Do you testify, here and now, before these guests, that the Daughter of the Crown—Priscilla Lysandra—is lying? And that the heir of House Crane, Reynard Crane, did not commit the act of harassing a lower-ranked noble?’”

He let the silence breathe—just long enough for everyone to recall it.

And then he snapped back to his own voice.

”Did someone not respond with—”

Now his words came with deliberate gravity, every syllable enunciated like a blade being drawn.

”’I testify, before this hall, before its nobles, its scribes, and its echoes, that the account given by my dear sister is flawed. And that Reynard Crane, heir to House Crane, has done no such thing.’”

Another beat of silence.

Lucavion spread his arms, almost apologetically.

”Or was I the only one who heard that?”

He turned, slowly, gaze grazing the crowd, letting their silence confirm the echo.

Then he looked back to Rowen, all innocence poisoned with irony.

”So forgive me, Sir Drayke. I may not know court etiquette... but when a prince publicly defends a harasser and calls his own sister confused—is it really slander to point that out?”

His smile curved, just barely.

”Or are we just pretending that never happened, too?”

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

The end of the previous Chapter was meant for this one. Sorry for the inconvenience again.