Arianna froze completely, standing there as if her feet had been nailed to the ground. Her red eyes watched with a mixture of disbelief and sothing deeper, sothing she herself probably could not understand.
Inside her heart there must have been a storm of emotion. She should have been angry, she should have exploded and attacked with her flas, but strangely she could not move. Her body refused to obey the rage she believed she felt. Instead, an unfamiliar tremor spread from the spot where I touched her and slowly traveled through her entire body.
While watching her remain frozen like a beautiful statue shocked into silence, my thoughts drifted toward a larger plan.
Ophelia Blazinger—Arianna’s mother, the Blazewalker, the head of Nine Stars Academy. If I could conquer her, then this entire academy would fall neatly into my grasp. My revenge against everyone who ever humiliated would beco far easier. No one would be able to stand in my way.
But conquering soone like Ophelia would never be simple. She was an SS-rank hunter, one of the strongest of her generation. And from what I had learned from dealing with my stepmother and stepsister, reaching one hundred percent domination was never accomplished rely by humiliating and violating them repeatedly.
There needed to be sothing more, sothing that broke them fully. Sothing that made them surrender completely, accepting their fate as mine without the slightest hint of resistance. Sothing that severed the last threads of pride and the desire to fight back.
And to achieve that with Ophelia, I needed Arianna.
That thought reminded of sothing.
"Arianna," I called out, pulling her out of her chaotic thoughts. "You told before that you challenged Yukie to a fight, didn’t you?"
Arianna flinched, as if waking from a trance. She nodded quietly.
"How did it go?" I asked, though I could already guess the answer.
Arianna lowered her gaze, her hands curling into tight fists at her sides.
She rembered the fight with Yukie vividly. It happened a week ago in the training arena. She could feel how Yukie underestimated her.
Taking advantage of that arrogance, Arianna waited for the perfect mont. When Yukie launched a simple attack with her right hand, Arianna swiftly grabbed her wrist. Flas burst from her palm, burning fiercely and ready to devour Yukie’s skin and flesh.
But what happened next left her stunned.
Before the fire could spread, Yukie calmly froze her own arm. An incredibly dense and frigid ice engulfed it, forming a thick protective layer. When fla and ice clashed at that level, the reaction was violent.
CRAAAK.
A sharp cracking sound filled the air, followed by a small explosion. Yukie’s ice-covered arm shattered into pieces. Yet what truly shocked Arianna was how Yukie’s expression did not change at all. Her face remained emotionless and her pale eyes stayed cold, as if the hand that had just broken apart did not belong to her.
Before Arianna could even process what had happened, Yukie moved. With her remaining hand she grabbed Arianna by the throat and slamd her onto the ground with ease. From that distance, Arianna could clearly see Yukie’s eyes. Those pale eyes seed to contain no trace of humanity, like living shards of ice.
Rembering that mont now made Arianna’s body tremble slightly.
"I lost," she said, frustration in her voice, yet tinged with fear. "Yukie... that woman is not human. How could her expression stay exactly the sa even when her hand shattered?"
I nodded as I listened. "Then why challenge her? She already reached Rank S. You are still Rank A. You had no chance of beating her."
Arianna exhaled sharply, her fists tightening again.
"I know that," she admitted honestly. "But I challenged her because of the inter-academy Hunter tournant next week. I want to be one of this academy’s representatives."
I paused. The inter-academy Hunter tournant next week? I had no idea the event was that close.
If I recalled correctly, the tournant was held every year for third-year students from all Hunter academies around the world. The purpose was to showcase the best talents who would soon graduate and enter the true Hunter world.
Nine Stars Academy had dominated the tournant for years, making it a tradition they were proud of.
The tournant was a massive event eagerly anticipated by everyone, ordinary citizens and Awakeners alike. But what mattered even more than the victory was the attention from countless large and small guilds. They all aid to recruit the strongest rising talents they saw in the tournant.
For the participants, this was a golden opportunity to make their nas known, receive offers from elite guilds, or even get recruited imdiately after graduating.
Once the tournant ended, many internship letters usually arrived. The timing was arranged specifically a few weeks before the internship programs started, giving the winners ti to choose which guild they wanted to join.
"But that’s only for third-year students," I pointed out. "You’re still in the second year."
Arianna nodded, but her eyes glead. "I asked my mother for permission. She said if I can defeat one of the third-year representatives ranked fifth or above, I can participate."
She took a slow breath.
"I could have chosen soone easier," she said softly. "But..." her eyes shone with fierce ambition, "I was curious. I wanted to fight the strongest student in this academy seriously. When will I ever get the chance to fight Yukie again?"
And Arianna had another reason she did not tell . Back then she was looking for because she had a plan: she wanted to subdue —who she saw as Yukie’s dog—and then order to give Yukie a stomachache poison before the duel. That way, her chances of winning would increase dramatically. But who would have expected things to turn out like this instead.
anwhile, my own thoughts began to spin. What if I joined the tournant as well? What if I beca one of Nine Stars Academy’s representatives? With my current power, I was confident I could beco a representative.
Just imagine—, Adam Socheron, who just weeks ago was being trampled and humiliated, now standing in the tournant arena representing Nine Stars Academy.
I would be fighting, and perhaps even cooperating, with the very people who once tortured and looked at with contempt. The irony was absolutely delicious.
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