Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 825: Son of the Commander

The atrium had been cleared with swift efficiency.

Lanterns now floated in elegant alignment, casting soft gold across the polished stone floor. The hedges lining the perimeter gave the space a coliseum-like intimacy, and while the entire court couldn’t spill outside, enough had gathered along the open arches and upper terraces to form an eager, whispering audience. Velvet-robed nobles leaned forward beside wine-bearing courtiers. Even a few of the imperial guards had subtly turned their gaze, just enough to watch without breaking protocol.

A stage had been built—not with marble and curtains, but by silence, by tension, by the slow pulse of something real.

Thalor stepped just near the edge of the gathering, hands folded lightly before him. His gaze passed over the lanternlit floor, then lifted toward the stars above.

A clean field. Open air. Framed in decorum.

Fitting, he mused. No more shadows. No more subtext. Just action. That’s what they wanted, isn’t it?

His eyes drifted—inevitably—back to Lucavion.

Still standing by the ballroom’s stone edge, framed in silverlight and distance, Lucavion hadn’t moved much. No pacing. No stretching. No show.

Just quiet poise.

A lesser man would have mistaken it for stillness. But Thalor saw the edges—the way Lucavion’s weight shifted subtly into one foot, the way his gaze had already calculated the perimeter, the way his hand had brushed once—not nervously, but deliberately—along the cuff of his coat.

’What are you going to do now?’ Thalor wondered.

You’re the enigma they can’t measure. The one who skipped the steps. The one no one saw coming.

Rowen stood in the center of the courtyard now, his sword still sheathed but his posture unmistakably that of readiness. His presence alone bent the air toward gravity.

And yet Lucavion still hadn’t drawn a weapon.

Thalor tilted his head slightly.

You’re not stalling. You’re not afraid. So what is it?

A game? A test? A distraction?

Is he really that confident in his strength?

Thalor studied the man across the stone court, the way Lucavion stood just slightly off-center, still half-immersed in the social glow of the ballroom. That calm wasn’t the stillness of arrogance—Thalor had seen that plenty, and it always cracked.

This was something else.

Not bluster. Not even certainty.

Stillness like a held breath… or a fuse.

He couldn’t be sure.

But he would see.

Thalor raised his hand.

“Contestants,” he said, voice smooth, effortless, echoing with natural command, “please come forward.”

The attention of the gathered nobles, the foreign envoys, and the cloaked guards turned instantly as the words settled. Even the air seemed to pause.

“Lucavion Vale. Rowen Drayke.”

A stir swept the courtyard—anticipation, curiosity, quiet hunger.

“You will be the first.”

He didn’t need to explain why. Everyone here knew. From the moment Rowen stepped into the light and Lucavion refused to blink, this pairing had already been sealed.

“A simple contest,” Thalor continued, his tone now laced with the grace of authority. “No mana. No enchantments. No augments. This is a contest of pure swordsmanship.”

He gave it a breath, letting the weight of that rule settle in the air like a drawn curtain.

Thalor let his eyes pass over the two figures now facing one another.

Rowen Drayke stood like the sculpted embodiment of tradition—feet planted, back straight, hand resting on the hilt of a blade that had likely seen more polishing than use this month, but no less lethal for it. His uniform wasn’t ostentatious, but it bore its heraldry with pride. He was the Empire’s sword, through and through.

Lucavion Vale, by contrast, looked like someone who had wandered into a story mid-Chapter and decided to write his own lines. No armor. No formal combat garb. Just his coat, his gloves, and a look in his eye that could cut glass before steel ever had to.

And no sword.

Yet.

Thalor’s lips curved—just slightly.

“Of course,” he said, his voice like silk being folded into parchment. “It’s a sword duel.”

He made no effort to over-explain, no lengthy sermon. He didn’t need to.

“Everyone,” he said, “knows the rules.”

His gaze lingered on both combatants, giving the sentence a finality that resonated deeper than mere instruction.

The gathered crowd drew tighter in their silence.

A murmur of cloth shifting. The soft clink of goblets lowered to marble banisters. The rustle of expectation in the cool evening air.

Thalor raised one hand.

Then brought it down.

“Begin.”

****

—The signal fell like a gavel.

Steel whispered.

Rowen’s sword flashed into the air in one smooth, elegant arc, the tip catching the lanternlight like a promise.

Lucavion mirrored him—almost. The sound of his coat shifting was the only warning before the estoc, black as voidglass, sang into the open.

No ceremony. No theatrics.

Just that subtle, gleaming menace.

Rowen’s eyes narrowed, and beneath his breath, like a sentence handed down by bloodline and duty, he muttered:

“Your insolence… it shall be repaid here now.”

Lucavion tilted his head slightly, as if savoring the weight of those words. Then he smiled. A quiet, almost tired smile—wry, amused, and maddening.

“You guys really love the same script. Someone needs to freshen the repertoire.”

With a single flick, he raised his estoc—not as a challenge, but as an answer.

Rowen, prideful heir of a legacy that had never known true desperation, did what many of his kind would: he waited.

Letting Lucavion have the first move.

A gift.

A courtesy.

A mistake.

Lucavion clicked his tongue, low and sharp, shaking his head once as he stepped forward, boots brushing the edge of the dueling circle.

“This,” he said, voice quiet and cutting through the hushed crowd like a blade through silk, “is the behavior of someone who’s never stood at the line between life and death.”

He didn’t pace.

He didn’t posture.

He simply walked.

Each step forward was deliberate, as if memory itself weighed down his boots. As if some ghost still watched from the edge of this court—blood-soaked, forgotten, waiting.

“Looking down at soldiers from your horse doesn’t make you a warrior,” he continued, his tone deceptively gentle. “It makes you the one who never got off to bleed with the rest of others.”

Lucavion’s eyes locked onto Rowen’s.

Not his sword.

Not his stance.

Just his eyes.

There was no hatred there—no envy, no fury.

Just something sharper.

Pity.

“Only those who’ve felt the true edge of death,” he said, low and unwavering, “would understand the stupidity behind what you’re doing.”

He tilted his head slightly, gaze unwavering.

“And this alone… shows me everything I need to know.”

His smirk was faint. Almost kind. The way a wolf might look at a hound still wagging its tail, unaware that the world had teeth sharper than its own.

He shifted his weight, drawing his blade to the side—not as a flourish, but a breath, a gathering of motion yet to be seen. His right arm lifted slowly, angled, as if aligning the very air to his will.

“Let me show you why.”

And then—

He moved.

The duel had started.

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