Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra - Chapter 653

Chapter 653: Bring it on
The clang of steel still echoed in the clearing when she disengaged, vanishing once more into the folds of illusion.

But Lucavion didn’t chase.

He didn’t need to.

Her vitality shimmered against the backdrop of the world like a heat signature beneath glass—fast, agile, but ultimately human. Not divine. Not something beyond.

Just another contestant.

‘Skilled,’ he noted, rotating his wrist with a slow, elegant twist as he brought the estoc back into line. ‘But she bleeds like the rest.’

Then—she came again.

A flicker from the right.

No—left.

She split, twin shadows lunging in a pincer formation, both cloaked in mirage, the glint of her daggers barely visible through the shimmer of warped light. Her footsteps were silent, erased by mana-infused cloth, but her intent—ah, that was always audible, if you knew how to listen.

Lucavion pivoted smoothly, letting his left heel trace a crescent arc across the mossy floor, drawing the estoc upward in a high guard. He didn’t look at her directly. His eyes remained soft, unfocused, tracking pulse rather than form.

CLANG!

Her right dagger met the flat of his blade—sharp, thin, serrated. Designed to parry and rake in the same breath.

He deflected cleanly, but she was already spinning, low, dagger two slicing in from below like a second whisper. Lucavion’s free hand snapped down, bracing the estoc’s hilt as he rotated the blade with precise torque.

KSHHH!

Sparks leapt between them as the second dagger ground along the edge of his estoc, her momentum dragging it in a long, screeching slide.

He shifted back, half a step, narrowly avoiding a follow-up feint aimed at his knee.

‘Dual daggers. Illusion-stepped footwork. Uses trick angles to fish for openings.’

A faint smile pulled at the corner of his lips.

‘Cute.’

She twisted again, using the blurred folds of her cloak to vanish mid-turn, her afterimage slashing forward—but Lucavion leaned left, sword sweeping sideways in a mirrored crescent.

The air screamed.

Her dagger met his blade again—this time higher.

CLANK!

He felt the force—stronger than expected. Her mana surged through the daggers in bursts, small pulses that reinforced the strikes just before impact. A timed amplification—subtle, but efficient.

Lucavion responded in kind. His estoc shimmered faintly as his mana surged down the length—not in violent flares, but a coating, fine as silk. Not flames. Just pressure.

Precision.

With every turn of his wrist, the estoc moved like a thread needle—narrow, surgical, constantly threading through the smallest openings between her slashes.

She came again, faster now.

Right. Left. High. Low.

Her form blurred and flickered, illusion veils disguising her direction. To an outside viewer, it would’ve seemed like she moved from all angles at once—three shadows dashing, only one real, the others a death trap for those who hesitated.

Lucavion didn’t.

He stepped forward, inside her rhythm.

Let her illusions try to confuse.

He didn’t fight rhythm.

He dismantled it.

CLANG! KSHHH! TINK—

The estoc twisted, caught the flat of her dagger, and pushed it wide—just as she leaned in for a throat feint with the second blade.

He ducked—not wildly, but just enough.

Steel hissed past his ear.

And then he moved.

His foot swept low, clipping her balance—not to throw, but to disrupt. Her knee bent instinctively, breaking the momentum of her illusion-linked sequence. She backflipped to reset, cloak fluttering in retreat.

But her breathing had changed.

Faster now.

Unsettled.

Lucavion exhaled, raising his sword in a loose, unhurried posture—still no flames. Just the soft shimmer of mana clinging to steel like dew on glass.

“You’re skilled,” he said calmly, voice light. “But you’re relying too much on spectacle.”

The shadows around her shimmered once more. Her form reappeared—partially.

Lower half revealed. Upper body flickering.

“And you’re arrogant,” she shot back, her tone clipped. “You think your sword can track what your eyes can’t see?”

Lucavion smiled faintly.

“Oh, I’m not tracking with my eyes.”

Then he moved.

Not lunging—drifting.

Like a shadow bleeding into motion, his blade trailing behind him, tip angled downward, the estoc drawn up in a spiral path—

And when she vanished again to strike—

He was already there.

CLANG!

Their weapons met mid-air, above his shoulder. Her downward strike, clean and perfectly aimed.

Blocked.

“I can feel your heartbeat,” Lucavion whispered, eyes locking onto hers in that fleeting clash. “Your illusions don’t hide that.”

Her eyes widened.

Just a fraction.

But enough.

The pressure between them snapped the moment she disengaged—but Lucavion didn’t pause.

He moved.

A single, smooth dash.

Not propelled by flame, not even reinforced by mana—just his own body, newly sharpened, newly tempered.

His foot struck the moss-covered ground, and he surged forward like a drawn blade let loose. The earth cracked slightly beneath his step, his boots sinking just a hair deeper into the softened forest floor. Not from weight—but from density. His muscles sang—not with strain, but precision. As though his very flesh had been rewritten to obey faster, cleaner, stronger.

‘Faster than before,’ he noted, his eyes gleaming with intent. ‘Stronger too. Even without amplification… this body is evolving.’

He reached her in an instant.

Her cloak flared as she twisted to parry, but she was late—by a fraction. Lucavion’s estoc dipped in from the right, feinted low, then twisted in a reverse flick to catch the underside of her left dagger.

CLANK!

She barely adjusted, her body arching back to avoid the riposte that kissed the edge of her shoulder. Lucavion didn’t let the blade linger—he followed it through, pressure building as he flowed into a pivot-step, sword trailing behind his back before whipping forward again in a half-circle slash aimed at her ribs.

TINK—KSHHH!

She parried again, both daggers now crossed to form a shield—but he could feel it.

The shudder in her arms.

The sudden hitch in her rhythm.

Her stance was collapsing.

And yet—he held back.

He could have snapped through that guard.

Could have ended it with a single drive of the estoc through the line her daggers had opened.

But he didn’t.

Lucavion exhaled, the force of his next step deliberately softened, dialed down to avoid crushing her under raw advantage.

‘Let’s not end it in one breath. Let’s see how far she runs when she realizes she’s already outmatched.’

And then—just as his estoc grazed the edge of her cloak—

She vanished.

No illusion.

No afterimage.

Just gone.

His blade passed through empty air, the taste of her vitality vanishing like a flame snuffed by wind.

Lucavion straightened, blinking once. His body didn’t twitch, but the corners of his eyes flicked in the direction he felt it—

A blur retreating through the forest, slipping past the edge of the relic zone’s mana signature.

‘She’s… fleeing?’

His brow lifted, not in surprise—but interest.

“Ah,” he murmured, voice low, thoughtful. “So she knows when she’s outmatched. Smart girl.”

Vitaliara landed lightly beside him, her paws silent, eyes narrowing as she tracked the direction of the fading presence.

[She’s moving toward to another zone.]

“Well, she was quite talented,” Lucavion said, brushing a speck of bark from his coat as he turned toward the deeper forest, “so she should choose another zone.”

[Or she’s hoping you’ll chase.]

He didn’t answer that—not with words. His eyes lifted instead, gaze slipping between the towering trees and the soft tremble in the air that only he seemed to feel.

And then his smirk deepened.

“Quite a lot of people are coming now.”

He could sense them.

Not their mana signatures—that was too noisy, too crude. But the brush of vitality through the treeline. The faint ripples of tension where life displaced life. Contestants, drawn by the beacon of fading light. By the dead Warden Beast. By the mana-rich relic that now sat like a throne beneath the ancient tree.

Lucavion turned his back to the woods, facing the relic once more. His hand settled lazily on the hilt of his estoc, not in defense—just… readiness.

“Bring it on.”

He was itching for a battle once again.