Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 1007: As usual, he appears....

”I’m just asking. You don’t seem to have many thoughts of your own, so I assumed the Crown Prince must’ve lent you some.”

Elara’s eyes widened, her pulse spiking. The girls’ faces twisted in unison, fury blotting out the practiced smiles.

Priscilla’s lips thinned. She drew herself up, the faint lift of a chin that tried—vainly—to make the space between her and the girls look like choice, not cage.

”You think you can break me with words?” she said, voice low and iron-threaded. ”You think names and lineage decide me? I—”

Her sentence hit the stone and broke. The braid girl didn’t wait for the rest.

A blow of mana snapped from the taller girl’s palm—clean, practiced, meant to unbalance rather than maim. It struck Priscilla across the ribs in a controlled, ugly bloom of force. The princess doubled, a small, involuntary sound tearing past her lips. Her hand flew to her side, fingers curling against fabric that was already starting to crease where bone met muscle.

”Look at her,” the shorter girl mocked as she stepped forward. ”She can’t even hold a sentence. How... royal.” Her wanding was rougher, less refined; arrogance in motion. The third circled, eyes hungry for spectacle, and unleashed a filament of light that braided around Priscilla’s wrist like a ribbon—binding, humiliating, made to show the rest they could.

Priscilla fought back with words. Sharp ones. Barbed facts. Names and insinuations that should have cut—suggestions about husbands, alliances, the thin silver thread that kept the prince’s favor. She used them like knives. Her voice was steady. It aimed to carve out dignity.

But the corridor was small and the girls were three. Their magic punched holes in the defenses words could make. A shoulder shoved. A knee to the thigh. A spell that blurred vision for a second, vertigo like a net thrown over balance. They took turns—coordinated enough to humiliate, rough enough to bruise. When Priscilla finally sank to one knee, gasping, her crownless head bowed and the white hair spilling over stone, the sight felt obscene in its quietness.

Elara watched from the shadow like a held breath. Every muscle wanted to move—wanted to step out, to put her body where Priscilla’s was, to stop the neat, performative cruelty. Her hand clenched around the column so tight her knuckles went white.

She could taste the old ache behind her teeth: the same word-knife she’d once been dragged across, the same heat of public shame.

But she did not move.

Not because she didn’t care.

Because she did—too much, and for reasons that would ruin her if exposed.

She had a different reckoning planned. A slow, sharp thing that needed time and secrecy to be effective.

Step in now and everything would scatter: her false name, the scaffolding Eveline had built, the slender chance to reclaim the things that mattered.

She had promised herself patience. She had promised herself revenge on her terms, not in a corridor’s public fury.

Selfish. Cowardly. Necessary.

The word choices fought each other in her chest and none felt honest. A taste of bile rose in her throat. She stayed, and guilt ate at her like frost.

She watched Priscilla’s shoulders tremble, watched the princess force a breath in and out, watched the girls finally step back—satisfied, victorious, already composing the story they would tell to gain favor with the prince.

The corridor’s silence twisted into something uglier—breathless, feral.

The girls had stopped laughing. Their rhythm had shifted; cruelty had turned methodical. The braid girl’s expression had hardened into focus, her lips curved in the faintest trace of satisfaction. This wasn’t about humiliation anymore. It was about punishment.

Priscilla tried to rise, one hand braced against the floor. Her sleeve was torn where one of the earlier spells had struck—thin threads of fabric fluttering against the pale skin beneath. The light from the wall runes caught on her blood, bright against white.

”Still trying to stand?” the short one jeered. ”You really don’t learn, do you?”

A pulse of mana gathered in the air, hot and sharp.

Elara’s stomach turned. She could see the distortion in the light—a compressed surge of kinetic energy, the kind that didn’t bruise so much as break. A bone, a rib, a wrist—it didn’t matter which. These girls weren’t used to consequences.

Priscilla saw it too. Her head lifted, just enough for her eyes—those crimson shards—to catch the reflection of the spell’s forming edge.

The taller girl’s arm drew back, fingers glowing.

”Let’s see how royal you are when you’re crawling.”

Elara’s heart slammed once against her ribs. She didn’t think—her hand was already lifting, mana gathering at her fingertips. Damn it, no—don’t. She froze mid-motion, forcing it down.

The air cracked.

The spell shot forward—

—and split apart before it could hit.

It didn’t dissolve. It shattered.

The pressure wave rolled back down the corridor, scattering dust, blowing the golden flecks from Priscilla’s torn uniform into the air like sparks.

Elara flinched, shielding her eyes.

When she looked again, someone stood at the far end of the hall.

Lucavion.

He didn’t look hurried. He didn’t even look angry. Just... present—a quiet, unshakable interruption that made the air itself tense. His coat hung open, his expression unreadable. The remnants of the broken spell glimmered faintly around his boots before fading.

For a heartbeat, no one spoke. The braid girl stared at him, hand still raised, the mana fizzing uselessly between her fingers.

”Who—” she began, but her voice faltered.

Lucavion tilted his head, eyes sliding lazily from her to the others, then to the figure kneeling on the floor. His gaze lingered on Priscilla for a moment—just long enough for recognition to flicker through his face.

Then he looked back at the girls.

”Three against one,” he said quietly. ”Not exactly impressive odds.”

The taller girl bristled, masking unease with indignation. ”This doesn’t concern you, commoner.”

”Clearly.” His tone was mild, almost amused. ”Still, I don’t remember the Academy’s etiquette exams including group assault.”

”That’s rich—coming from someone who cheats through his own,” another snapped. ”You should learn your place before you lecture nobles.”

Lucavion’s mouth curved—not quite a smile, not quite a sneer. Something in between.

The kind of expression that didn’t invite answers so much as provoked them.

He took one step forward. Then another.

Slow. Deliberate. The sound of his boots against marble filled the silence the girls had left behind.

”Report me?” he said softly, almost conversational. ”That’s adorable.”

The braid girl’s jaw tightened. ”You think this is a joke?”

Lucavion’s eyes flicked lazily toward her—black, unreadable. ”It’s starting to sound like one.”

He stopped just far enough that the golden flecks still hanging in the air brushed faintly across his coat sleeve.

”Let me guess,” he murmured, head tilting. ”You’ll run to your dear Lucien, won’t you? Tell him the commoner misbehaved? Oh, mercy—how dreadful.”

His tone dripped with mock sympathy. ”Do you think he’ll smite me from his golden chair, or just write a strongly worded reprimand?”

”You—” the shorter girl began, but he cut her off with a lazy flick of his hand.

”No, no, don’t answer. I’d rather keep the mystery alive. ’Oh mighty angel Lucien,’” he went on, voice suddenly pitching into mock reverence, one hand pressed over his heart. ”Deliver us from the horror of people who don’t know their place.”

A sharp, embarrassed silence met the echo of his words. Then, predictably, anger.

”How dare you speak of His Highness like that?” the braid girl spat. ”You’ll regret this. You think the Academy will side with you?”

Lucavion’s gaze slid back to her—slow, patient, like he was trying to remember where he’d seen her before and still wasn’t sure if it mattered.

”The Academy,” he echoed, almost fondly. ”Right. That bastion of fairness and moral clarity.”

He smiled then, just barely. ”Tell me, how many of you actually believe that?”

The shorter girl bristled. ”You’re finished. With Lucien’s influence, even Selenne won’t save you. There’s no evidence. No witnesses. No one will take your word over ours.”

”Evidence,” Lucavion repeated, as if testing the sound.

He looked past them—down the corridor, where the faint shimmer of dust still hung in the air, glowing like embers caught in moonlight.

Then back to them.

”You’re right,” he said finally, tone deceptively light. ”No evidence....”