The tension flickered in the air as the Knights and students stared at one another, while the elf and l stood back, watching what would unfold.
As the Knight with the ssy hair struggled to clear the ice, the less experienced Knight sprinted toward the Heiress.
Through the Cult’s influence, he had managed to sneak into the ranks of the Royal Knights after his exile in the North.
Yet his grudge remained, clouding his judgnt as he swung at the Heiress, driven by pure irrationality.
But before the blade could reach her, the Heiress caught the sword between her fingertips.
Rosana clicked her tongue. "It’s humiliating that I’ve to waste my cleaning garbage."
Letting go of her waraxe, she wove a glove onto her hand with before driving her fist into his helt.
The helt cracked from the impact, sending the Knight airborne before he crashed onto the grasslands in a grunting heap.
"I comnd that stubbornness, at the very least."
With a tinge of disgust, Rosana eyed the Knight’s sword, still clutched in his tal gauntlets as he struggled to rise.
"Never learning from defeat is stupidity incarnate, especially when you bla everyone but yourself."
"Shut up!"
The Knight lifted his gaze, and the one crack over the visor mirrored the scar on his corrupted soul.
"You were rely gifted." As he straightened with his sword sunk to the ground, he pounded the vest of his chestplate.
"Anyone can do better with that of yours!"
Rosana tilted her head, her red eyes narrowing as if asking, ’that’s your retort?’
The anger boiled and slipped from the young Knight, as he bolted again.
Mana surged through him, coating his sword in blue light as he launched his final strike.
As an Adept ranked , this was the height of his strength that he gathered for thirty years of training.
Yet with a sigh, Rosana stepped back and raised her gloved fist to her waist.
Then she punched, shattering his sword and scattering the tal across the spring breeze.
The effortless denial of his efforts elicited a gasp from the Knight, just before Rosana’s boot crashed into his helt.
l watched as he rolled backward, his helt and armor catching on the grass before his limp form finally stilled.
"Not an improvent since we kicked you out five years ago, what a waste."
She tossed the glove aside, ashad she’d had to touch the embodint of trash from her holand.
"The exile was ant to be your wake-up call," the Heiress sneered. "If not for that, you’d have died in the Northern War five years ago."
Her gaze flicked between the unconscious Young Knight to the disheveled Senior Knight, her expression a mask.
Already free from the ice, the Senior Knight fixed Rosana and Lila with a venomous glare.
With a roar, he raised his sword into a battle-hardened stance.
A sudden gust swirled around him, his blade shimring with as he swung-
A razor-edged arc of air shot toward the ice Mage who had dared interfere, stealing his chance at redemption.
Lila gazed at the arc that neared her, indifferent.
And with a flick, the wind arc froze, literally.
l’s brows lifted as the wind arc hung frozen, a jagged, crystalline curve sculped and suspended mid-flight, right before Lila’s unimpressed erald gaze.
And with a single tap of Lila’s finger, it lted into a puddle beneath her boot.
"What..." The Knight’s jaw hung open. "No incantation... not even a circle... how?"
Lila tilted her head, extending her arm as glacial mana coalesced in her open palm.
The air itself crystallized into ice, while the icicles above her spun with frenzied intensity.
Only then did l understand - Lila’s power had already surpassed Adept rank.
Icicles lanced forward as the Knight’s wind-imbued blade flashed in desperate arcs.
His first strike shattered ice. His second cracked the steel. The third froze the blade solid, frost crawling up his armored sleeve.
"Grr..." The Knight gritted his teeth against the ice biting at his hands, before staring forward.
eting the indifferent gaze, his eyes widened in a horrific realisation.
Those erald eyes never saw him as an enemy and had never wasted a tinge of hatred upon him.
"."
With a chant, glacial wind tore through the air, freezing the grasslands as the swirling orb trudged through.
The senior Knight’s knees buckled, before springing sideways in a desperate evasion-
Only for his legs to seize mid-air, frozen solid as the orb plowed through the treeline.
Lila’s arm loosened to the side, squinting.
Her lips curled up at the iced wasteland she’d carved, reminiscent of the attack when l revealed her unto her.
Another mory to cherish, a proof that her strength neared l’s, even just a little.
The Knight gritted his teeth, the taste of failure bitter on his tongue.
His hand scrambled for his trouser pocket, where the cult’s result should have been.
The entire purpose of this experintal site. The culmination of all the cult’s research.
"Looking for this?"
As l’s voice bood across the battlefield, the Knight’s gaze snapped to her - or more precisely, to the twin lizards crawling on her shoulders.
The creatures’ teeth clamped down on glowing orange crystals, their pulsing light perfectly mirroring the molten veins of lava flowing beneath the earth.
.
"Forget that my magic controlled others, Mr Spy?"
l sent a mocking glance at the shocked Knight before the lizards released the crystals onto her palm.
With a flick of her wrist, she tossed them skyward, the glowing orbs dancing between her fingers like a small party trick.
"It was quite easy to sneak the lizards to steal the crystals off from you earlier when we walked." l grinned. "Anything more to say?"
The Knight’s lips quivered, his dazed stare still locked on l even as Rosana’s footsteps crunched closer.
And with a bump of her axe’s hilt, the Knight fell with a plop, ending the entire scuffle in an instant.
Rosana’s eyes traced the frozen wasteland before her. A sharp inhale of the glacial air turned her lungs to stone.
That creeping frost wasn’t just cold; it was lethal. One full blast would’ve flash-frozen the Knight’s organs solid, leaving him dead before he hit the ground.
Even she would barely survive; her First Life would have been snuffed out in an instant.
"l."
Lila’s whisper broke Rosana’s thoughts, as the Snow Witch turned back around.
l blinked; the smile on Lila’s face was too natural, too robotic from the cute Lila she used to recognise.
"What’s next?"
Lila clasped her hands to her chest, smile never wavering as her motion was practiced like a doll’s gesture.
"Please lead the way."
[ Envy Awakening Progression: 87% -> 91% ]
With a glance of Lila’s strangeness, l rely smiled softly.
Even as she was a little afraid of Lila’s earlier than she expected, l stretched her hand towards Lila.
The Witch of Envy’s smile crept back to a frown, her gaze lingering at l’s request to hold hand.
Then, her hand overlapped with hers again, a gesture repeated too many tis for her reassurance.
Sothing warm and sickly swelled in Lila’s chest, an affection laced with a venom she couldn’t na.
Recalling the Knights that betrayed Rosana, then back to the fruit basket the villagers gave to them, or rather l...
Lila’s grip turned vise-like around l’s fingers.
Mine.
Not gratitude. Not trust.
Hers.
Frost crept outward from her boots, matching the crystalline shimr crawling up her fingers.
[ Envy Awakening Progression: 91% -> 93% ]
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