The Assassin's Seven Principles of Manipulation

Chapter 259: Chapter 254 — Quiet

Lumi moved with the precision of a supercomputer, her figure blurring with speed. She weaved through several harpoons, but more simply kept coming, preventing her from closing the distance.

Vaelor burst into laughter.

”What’s wrong!? Is that all!? Do you finally see the difference between us? Hm? A fucking sidekick actually thought she could stand in front of a true genius? I’ll beat that delusion right out of you!”

As more harpoons shot towards her, Lumi vanished behind a tree. Several harpoons instantly reduced it to Swiss cheese.

Yet Lumi was nowhere to be found.

”Where!?”

Vaelor’s eyes frantically darted around. Then, suddenly, a glint caught his eye, and he snapped upward to see a figure hurtling toward him. Backing the moonlight, he could barely make out a face, however, its petite size made it clear who it was:

”Tch. Idiot.”

A vibrating blade formed in his grip, erupting in a storm of steam. The next moment, he raised it skyward and brought it down, cleaving the figure in half.

Vaelor exhaled.

”Pathetic.”

However, a moment later, he frowned. The spray of blood and gore he expected from a split corpse never came. Then the two halves hit the ground with dull thuds. He stared at them... and froze.

They weren’t Lumi. They were two large chunks of metal.

Vaelor’s eyes tore wide.

”...Where?”

He had barely begun to turn when something flashed past him. Lumi had suddenly appeared behind him, her back still facing him, her skin blade dancing around her. The blade itself was coated in crimson, blood slowly dripping from its edge.

Then she turned, fixing Vaelor with her chilling, hollow eyes that instantly froze him in place. Slowly, a thin line spread across his knees.

Then his world tilted.

”Huh?”

Vaelor murmured in disbelief as his body crashed onto the forest floor. His trembling eyes fixed on his severed leg, blood slowly pooling beneath it.

”W-what...? M-my leg...?”

Step. Step. Another step.

Each slow step Lumi took seemed to drain the color from Vaelor’s face.

”NO! No! My leg! My fucking leg! You... you actually cut off my leg!? Do you know who I am!? I’m a genius... I’m a fucking genius...”

Vaelor shrieked in pain, tears filling his eyes. Then he saw Lumi calmly flick the blood from her blade, not a trace of emotion in her eyes.

He immediately stiffened. Those eyes... they might as well have been death.

His expression twisted.

”...You can’t do this... The rules... there are rules! You’re not supposed to do this! It’s against the rules! She’s trying to kill me! She’s breaking the rules!”

Lumi’s leg crashed into Vaelor’s face, knocking him on the ground.

”Urgh... y-you... you can’t kill me... I-I’m... I’m a genius... I’m better than you... better than all of you...”

Vaelor’s words came out fragmented and slurred, his eyes dazed and unfocused. Even as Lumi yanked him up by the hair, exposing his neck, he seemed completely lost.

Then the silver moonlight reflected off Lumi’s raised blade, catching Vaelor’s eye and snapping him out of his daze. He seemed to finally realize his situation, and his eyes immediately trembled.

”N-no! Y-you can’t! Please! No! No! Help! Somebody help me! Father! Father!”

Vaelor screamed over and over, but the coldness in Lumi’s eyes never changed.

Her blade fell without mercy.

Grip!

A firm hand caught it just inches from Vaelor’s neck. Lumi’s head snapped around, seemingly ready to kill whoever had dared stop her, but she immediately froze.

Zephyrion met her hollow eyes calmly.

”That’s enough.”

It was as though the words carried some form of enchantment. Lumi blinked several times, and the light gradually returned to her dull eyes.

Then she tilted her head, staring at him with a faint frown. Seeing the confusion in her eyes, Zephyrion narrowed his eyes.

’She doesn’t know?’

Then, suddenly, the light shining from her throat dimmed. At the same time, her vision swam, and she collapsed. Zephyrion caught her before she could hit the ground.

He stared at her for a long moment, unsure of what to do.

”N-no... stay away... she’s a monster... she’s a fucking monster... someone... someone get me out of here... I need to leave... I need to get away...”

Cradling Lumi in his arms, Zephyrion watched as Vaelor desperately dragged himself away from them, clearly wanting to put as much distance between himself and Lumi as possible.

He looked utterly pitiful, his face slick with blood, his severed stump leaving a crimson trail in his wake.

Then, after what felt like a long moment, Zephyrion turned and began walking away. As much as he wanted to drive a blade through Vaelor’s neck, he couldn’t.

Part of the reason he had stopped Lumi was because the academy instructors were watching. If he hadn’t stopped her, they would have. And then Lumi might have been punished for attempting to kill another cadet. At that point, it was clearly no longer self defense.

For several seconds, there was nothing but silence, broken only by the distant sounds of cadets rushing toward their location, having clearly heard the battle.

Then, suddenly, a gust of wind swept through the forest.

As expected, Vaelor’s whimpering faded behind him as he was whisked away.

Zephyrion found himself staring at Lumi’s unconscious figure in his arms, a complicated look settling over his face.

The power he had felt from Lumi during the fight was unlike anything he had ever experienced. Vaelor, a mark six and wielding the powerful Ocren House art, hadn’t even stood a chance against her.

More than that, his mind kept replaying the shrill... and the barrier collapsing. In his life, he had never encountered such a power before.

’What power are you carrying?’

...

Soon after, the area was flooded with cadets.

Tobias, Kaiden, Fiona, and Kaelion rushed over with a barrage of questions, but it wasn’t until enough cadets had gathered that Zephyrion addressed them.

He had seen the need to take control of the narrative, and rather than explain it, he simply displayed footage of what had happened through his perfect memory. Of course, he blurred out the parts involving Lumi’s powers and abilities.

Several reactions rippled through the crowd.

Kaiden and Kaelion were instantly enraged, and even Tobias’s and Fiona’s expressions darkened.

Nedra, Draven, and Lucien wore shocked expressions. Each of them had certainly been battling for a chance to become Prime, losing, yes, but still battling.

Still, Zephyrion was, without a doubt, a Calderalth. A dynasty heir to one of the four giants of the Great Ferran Empire. That Vaelor would dare go after his life came as an impossible shock to them. They couldn’t help but think of the repercussions that would befall the Ocren household.

The rest of the cadets, however, erupted. That someone would actually try to harm their benevolent Prime was nigh treason in their eyes. Several even rushed toward the forest in search of Vaelor, but were soon called back after Zephyrion explained that he was no longer part of the test.

It wasn’t long before several piercing looks settled on the Ocren cadets still participating. Each of them stood with faces pale as ice, not daring to utter a word.

It took Zephyrion’s intervention, ordering the others not to touch them after emphasizing that Vaelor alone was the culprit, before the cadets finally withdrew their murderous glares.

Eventually, with the situation more or less handled, Zephyrion left the scene despite Tobias’s and Fiona’s insistence on staying with him.

He needed time to think, away from everyone else.

After everything that had happened, he needed silence.

...

Several minutes later, Lumi’s eyes fluttered open. She yawned, indulging in a long, deep stretch. Then she sat upright, groggily rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

”...!”

She froze the moment she saw Zephyrion staring at her. But her surprise lasted only a moment before she smiled brightly at him, then quickly signed, asking how his night had been.

Zephyrion frowned.

”You don’t remember anything?”

Lumi tilted her head, giving it a thoughtful look. A moment later, her face scrunched up, and she quickly signed that she could only remember having a really really bad dream.

”...What happened in it?”

Lumi nodded repeatedly and began recounting everything.

She woke up to Vaelor almost piercing his eye. Then a strange darkness clouded her vision. During that state, she felt her body moving constantly, but it was as though she were merely a passenger rather than the one in control. Then the feeling ended the moment she saw Zephyrion. The next thing she knew, she was waking up from her sleep.

She finished by emphasizing that it had been a pretty disturbing dream, repeatedly shaking her head.

Zephyrion gave her a long look.

”Where do you remember falling asleep?”

Lumi quickly signed, in a bed, then froze as she realized there was nothing like that here. Even the branch they were currently sitting on was different.

”How do you think we got to this place?” Zephyrion patiently asked.

Lumi stared at him, now noticeably more cautious, hesitantly signing that they must have... moved?

Zephyrion nodded.

”Why?”

A flicker of apprehension crossed Lumi’s face as she realized. Even more hesitantly, she signed,

...The dream was real?

Zephyrion nodded.

Lumi shot to her feet, panic flooding her face.

Zephyrion expected several things; checking herself for injuries, searching for Vaelor; but what he had never expected was for her to rush toward him, frantically checking his body for injuries.

Zephyrion stared at her in disbelief. He hadn’t even fought...

Then, a moment later, he felt an unexplainable surge of anger well up inside him, and he slapped her hand away.

Lumi blinked up at him, worry written all over her face, but Zephyrion’s gaze remained cold.

”I need some time alone to think. Don’t follow me.”

He jumped down from the tree before she could even respond and walked away.