The fight had ended.
Not with thunder.
Not with glory.
But with clarity.
Lucavion stood, surrounded by curling remnants of black fla, the battlefield warped beneath his boots—testant to a technique that should not have existed.
And Seran—Reynald Vale—was no longer a hero.
Not in their eyes.
Back in the inn, Valeria said nothing.
The tavern had gone quiet again, but not with reverence. The voices around her were hushed, uncertain, watchful. The projection crackled slightly above the hearth, flickering between broken images of Seran's defeat and Lucavion's final, damning words.
"This is a technique the likes of you can never dream of using."
"You should've submitted."
The mask was gone.
Whatever careful persona Seran had worn—the kind swordsman, the noble soul who rose from nothing—had fractured under black fla and swordpoint.
And worse than his defeat…
…was the truth of what he'd hidden.
"Did you see those runes? That's not common access."
"He was acting humble the whole ti, wasn't he?"
"Playing weak… just to look like a savior."
Even now, the doubts were whispered—but they spread like smoke. Not from hatred.
From disappointnt.
The projection crackled again—distorted, streaked with static and faint arcane interference. The final clash, once seared into mory with perfect clarity, now replayed in fragnts. The visuals remained—blades crossing, fire blooming, the sigil of the cracked crown burning into the battlefield like a brand upon fate itself.
But the voices?
Gone.
From a certain mont onward, the sound had vanished.
Muted.
No one had heard what was said when Lucavion's blade was at Reynald's throat. No one had caught the quiet malice, the asured revelations, or the promise he left behind. Only motion remained—Lucavion's lips moving in silence. Reynald's eyes widening. The silent tremor that followed.
And the mark that seared into flesh and perception both.
In the inn, the tension turned brittle.
"They cut the audio," soone muttered. "Or… sothing did."
"Must've been the spell pressure. You saw what happened to the broadcast—the runes flickered."
"Yeah, well, that didn't look like a system fault. That looked deliberate."
"They muted them."
"I don't like it," another voice said. "They didn't want us hearing what was said."
Valeria didn't move.
But she listened.
And she wasn't the only one.
Because now, another question began to rise. A question with no easy answer. The doubt about Reynald—yes, it lingered. People now saw him not as the humble hope of the people, but as soone constructed. A performance, backed by resources and secrets.
But that was only one half of the equation.
The other half?
"…Who was that guy?"
A man near the bar asked it aloud.
A hush followed.
Another added, uncertainly, "Lucavion, right? They said his na earlier. But… who is he?"
"He beat Reynald."
"No. He humiliated him."
"And Reynald was strong. Like, properly strong."
"Stronger than he pretended to be. And still lost."
"Then what does that make Lucavion?"
Soone laughed, bitter and nervous. "Makes him scary, that's what."
But others weren't laughing.
"He's not noble-born, right?"
"No crest. No sigil. No sponsor house."
"So where the hell did he learn that? Those techniques—they weren't even style-based. It was like watching entropy choose a form."
"Is he from so hidden sect?"
"Or a dungeon survivor?"
"No way he's self-taught. No way."
Valeria's grip on the edge of her seat tightened.
'But he is,' she thought.
They didn't know what they were looking at. Not truly. They saw chaos. She saw discipline—older than form, deeper than blood.
And still, the question echoed:
"Who is Lucavion?"
The murmurs were starting to swell again, louder now—less awe, more uncertainty. The na Lucavion rolled across the inn like a storm gathering shape. Still, no one had answers.
Until—
"I know him!"
The voice cut through the crowd like a blade.
Heads turned. Every eye snapped toward the doorway, where a newcor stood just inside the threshold, the flickering projection glow painting one side of his weathered face.
He looked like he'd ridden through a war and decided to punch it on his way out. Rough cloak. Travel-worn boots. A scar across his jaw. Leather armor scuffed, patched, and patched again. An adventurer, unmistakably.
A local leaned forward from the bar, skeptical. "You know him?"
The man stepped forward, voice firm. "Yes. I saw him. In Andelheim. About a year ago."
A pause. Then:
"He won the Vendor Martial Arts Competition."
Another voice, younger, echoed in confusion. "Wait—Vendor what?"
"Tournant," the man corrected, waving his hand. "Or whatever they called it. The one hosted by House Vendor. Full-contact duels. Invite-only. No enchantnts, no arcanists. Just blades and fists."
Another man near the hearth squinted. "That's an underground arena, isn't it? Not public broadcast."
"Not exactly underground," the adventurer said, "just unadvertised. But the nobles go. Always. It's a proving ground. You don't win unless you're… different."
The inn fell into a hush again as the adventurer finished, a slow grin pulling at the edge of his mouth.
"He was called the Sword Demon. That's what they nad him after the final match."
Valeria blinked, slowly.
'Finally.'
"The Sword Demon…"
The na spread like wildfire once spoken—passing from lips to lips, table to table, like an old legend suddenly reborn in real ti.
And now that they had sothing to grasp, sothing to anchor their awe and confusion to, the tone in the inn shifted again.
No longer fearful.
No longer speculative.
Now—
Reverent.
"That was him?"
"I heard about the final match in Andelheim. They said his opponent didn't walk again for weeks."
"Wasn't there a count's son who challenged him for fun and got humiliated?"
"They said he fought like a phantom. Like a man who bled shadows."
"He didn't even use an artifact weapon tonight. That was just him."
"I thought the Sword Demon was a myth…"
Valeria watched the tide of perception turn, as it always did, once the crowd had a na to assign to the fear. Humans didn't understand the unknown—but they respected a na. And Lucavion, now that he'd been nad, no longer stood as a question.
He stood as a myth confird.
She exhaled softly, a sound barely audible under the mounting voices.
A tired, amused breath. Not of surprise.
But inevitability.
"Once again…" she murmured, almost to herself, "you shook the world."
He had dismantled Reynald's image.
And now?
He had crowned himself in the public eye—not as noble, not as prodigy, but as sothing far more dangerous.
Unplaceable.
He didn't belong to a house.
He didn't carry a sigil.
He wasn't backed by sponsors, prophets, or empires.
He walked alone.
And yet, tonight, he had stolen the entire stage of Arcanis.
'A performance no one could expect,' Valeria thought. 'No one… but .'
Because she had seen it before.
That calm.
That grin.
That awful, elegant precision wrapped in quiet madness.
The world was only now seeing Lucavion for what he could do.
They still had no idea who he really was.
And maybe… that was exactly how he wanted it.
****
In the silence of his study, the glow of the arcane projector lit Anthony Thaddeus' face in sharp relief—lines of candlelight warping against the flicker of recorded combat. The footage looped again, crackling at the edges. A mont suspended in ti.
Lucavion, shrouded in black fla, stood atop scorched ground, eyes calm, voice sharp.
Then the image wavered. Distorted. The sound cut. And all that remained was a battlefield carved with aning. A throne of consequence shaped by violence, not titles.
Thaddeus leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking faintly beneath him as he exhaled. Slowly. asured. Yet beneath the calm exterior, his thoughts were anything but still.
"This kid…" he murmured.
The projection flickered again. Reynald Vale—Seran—on his knees. Exposed. Not just defeated in blade, but unraveled in spirit. The world had seen him crack. And then it had seen Lucavion.
Not boast.
Not claim.
Not celebrate.
But leave.
No banners. No emblem raised. No speech delivered to win the hearts of the masses. Just that sa signature silence—and the blade that spoke louder than any noble's na.
Thaddeus shook his head, golden eyes narrowing slightly.
"He really shook the world."
Not with politics. Not with an army. But with a single sword.
And it struck Thaddeus, again, just how rare that was.
Because Lucavion had no family to uphold him. No territory to defend. No title demanding reverence. And yet, he had just carved his na into the consciousness of the continent with nothing but unyielding force and a smile that was half-madness, half-mastery.
Most swordsn aid to impress the world.
Lucavion had unmade soone the world adored—then left the crowd with no answers.
Thaddeus exhaled again, slower this ti, his fingers tapping against his desk as he let the implications root themselves. His advisors would talk. The Royal Court would whisper. The Archducal Watch would start probing.
And yet—none of them would know what to do with soone like him.
You could ignore a vagabond.
You could silence a rising commoner.
But what did you do with a man who could crush your myths with one swing and didn't even want the power that ca afterward?
'He didn't take Reynald's position,' Thaddeus thought. 'He dismantled it. Then walked away.'
That's what frightened them most.
He doesn't want the crown.
Which made it all the more likely that people would try to place one on his head regardless.
Thaddeus leaned forward, arms braced against the desk, eyes steady on the now-static image of Lucavion at the mont of victory. That posture—relaxed, arrogant, and utterly detached from the gravity of what he'd just done.
A man like that didn't just shake the world.
He redefined it.
And with a tired, half-wry smirk curling at the corner of his mouth, Thaddeus whispered to the empty study—
"…You really ant every word, didn't you?"
Then his voice turned quieter.
"You really are the Sword Demon."
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