Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 813: Let us hold a competition

Thalor’s smile didn’t waver—but the warmth behind it calcified.

Test first.

Always test.

He could afford curiosity. He could even afford miscalculation—once.

But before he shifted his approach, he needed to know: was Lucavion guessing? Or was he involved?

He let the silence stretch, deliberately unhurried. Let the hum of the ballroom swell around them, the laughter, the clinking glasses—all background to a very quiet battlefield.

Thalor let the tension cool by a fraction. Just enough to seem relaxed. Just enough to lay bait.

”Mind if I ask,” he said lightly, swirling the contents of his untouched glass, ”what ionization is?”

The tone was casual. Disarming. But the words were anything but.

Lucavion’s smile didn’t change.

But his eyes?

They blinked once—slow. Controlled. And then the answer came, smooth and lazy as drifting smoke.

”Oh.....” At first it was a pause, and he looked troubled, as if he got caught.....

And this made Thalor smile.

”Oh?”

He pressured trying to get something out of him. Yet, Lucavion shrugged then.

”Nothing much,” Lucavion replied, tone light, dismissive. ”Just a buzzword I’ve heard tossed around. You know how mages are. Always naming things with more syllables than substance.”

He gave a small shrug, as if bored by his own words.

But Thalor saw it.

Too fast.

Too neat.

No pause to recall the term. No flicker of confusion. No natural curiosity. Just... an answer.

An answer that dodged the question.

He knows.

He’s hiding it.

Because Lucavion wasn’t just brushing the term aside—he was managing it. Flattening the subject, redirecting it like a man skilled in closing doors before they’re opened.

Thalor’s fingers curled against the side of his glass again—just slightly. He kept his expression polite.

”Ah,” he said with a nod. ”A buzzword.”

Another beat, colder this time.

Of course.

It made sense now.

The ionization term was one thing—maybe a coincidence.

But the stabilizer?

Thalor’s mind flicked back to it—the flicker of resonance he had barely caught during Lucavion’s earlier maneuver, when the pressure he had been weaving into Priscilla unraveled.

It hadn’t been brute force.

Hadn’t been a simple interference.

It was timed.

Perfectly timed.

Down to the echo.

He knew what that meant now.

A Temporal Echo Stabilizer.

The Tower had only recently begun field-testing them, and even then—only internally. They weren’t public. They weren’t even documented for circulation beyond the core circles of the Grand Assembly.

Hell, he barely had access to one.

Only five prototypes even existed that he knew of.

And yet Lucavion had used one.

Discreetly. Precisely. As if he knew exactly how it functioned.

So either this provincial upstart had stumbled into technology even Thalor had to requisition three levels above his rank for—which didn’t exist in this world....

Or someone gave it to him.

And that, finally, clarified the discomfort behind his spine.

Lucavion wasn’t working alone.

He had a backer.

Not just money.

Access. Position. Leverage deep enough to pull from the Tower’s vaults without raising alarm.

Thalor’s lips curved, slow and cold.

’So that’s how it is...’

He wasn’t just threading through power structures. He was being threaded through them.

By whom?

And why?

He took a measured sip from his glass, not for thirst—but to cover the flicker of sharpened thought behind his eyes.

Because now the game wasn’t about Lucavion.

It was about who had decided to move him.

And that changed everything.

This changed everything.

And it changed nothing.

Lucavion, once a curiosity, was now a fracture line through the floorboards of the ballroom—quiet, elegant, and absolutely threaded with explosives.

But the thrill?

Oh, that stayed.

That grew.

Thalor hadn’t felt this precise an edge of exhilaration in months. Years, maybe. The last time he’d looked into someone’s eyes and not known what cards they were hiding had been back when court politics still felt like blood sport instead of ballroom decor.

He smiled.

Slow. Civil. Icy.

Because if Lucavion was being moved by someone else—well. That made him a piece. A carefully crafted, beautifully sharpened piece.

And Thalor?

He had always liked turning pieces against their players.

”Still,” Thalor said smoothly, gently pivoting the conversation as though it were a dance, ”you carry yourself well for someone fresh to this kind of air.”

He stepped just slightly closer, the distance polite—but no longer neutral.

”There’s a confidence to you. Not court confidence, mind you. Something more... fabricated.” He raised his glass again, swirling it thoughtfully, a noble’s posture masquerading as musings. ”Tailored. As if you were made for something—but not here.”

The implication was subtle.

You don’t belong here.

But someone put you here anyway.

He let the words linger, unpinned. Then he smiled again—wider this time. Warmer, for those who didn’t know the difference.

”Then again,” he said softly, ”perhaps I’m overthinking. After all, it’s just a party. One scene more or less shouldn’t matter, right?”

He turned slightly to the crowd, letting the hum of nobles return to his periphery.

”But perhaps we ought to make it count,” he added with deliberate nonchalance. ”Now that people are watching.”

A spark ignited in his chest. Not rage. Not suspicion.

Play.

Lucavion smiled. Calm. Cool. And then—

He lifted a brow. Just one. Subtle.

The kind of gesture that didn’t need words to carry weight.

Still, he offered them anyway.

Polite. Curious. Razor-lined.

”And what exactly,” he said, voice still light, ”are you implying?”

Thalor didn’t answer.

Not at first.

He turned to Priscilla.

She was still pale—still recovering breath that had been stolen. But her posture had returned, chin lifted, spine taut like a blade she refused to sheath. Her silence was eloquent. Her defiance even more so.

And Thalor watched her.

Just for a second.

A slow gaze. Not possessive—no, not now.

Strategic.

Like checking if a pawn had turned bishop while his back was turned.

Then, with deliberate poise, he shifted his gaze again.

Not to Lucavion.

But past him.

To the group along the marble railing near the fountain alcove—clustered like decor, half-forgotten now that the nobles had refocused on their own.

Students.

Not of Arcanis.

But Lorian.

The envoy delegation.

Well-dressed, their accents still sharp with foreign syllables. They stood clean and dignified like the Empire wanted them to be—a reminder that Arcanis had won, that their enemies had bent the knee and now polished the floors of their conquerors.

A trophy group.

Held up for display.

But Thalor?

He saw opportunity.

Thalor turned back to Lucavion, eyes half-lidded, the smile on his lips now cut from a sharper cloth. Something closer to amusement. Something colder.

”Your eyes,” he murmured, swirling the last remnants of his wine. ”They’re quite insolent.”

He said it softly—like a joke shared over the rim of a glass. But it wasn’t a joke.

It was a warning.

Framed in silk, sealed with venom.

And then—

He tapped the glass once against the side of the column.

Just once.

But mana flowed beneath the gesture, subtle and clean—threaded through the chime like a whisper woven into crystal.

The sound carried.

Not loud. Not alarming.

But pure.

Too pure.

It resonated across the ballroom with unnatural clarity, slicing through chatter, laughter, even the soft trill of the quartet in the corner. Heads turned—slowly at first, then in waves.

Eyes shifted.

And suddenly—

All attention was on them.

Perfect.