Sylvie replied. "At the rate that boy is going, he is putting his hands on daughters, heirs, queens maybe, and treasured won of every single powerhouse. Not just this floating land but potentially beyond it."
She let that sit for a second.
"I have seen it with my own eyes, Claude. How girls around him get attracted without even realizing it. And the worst part? He isn’t even trying. It just happens."
She turned to him.
"So let ask you. Do you really think you are the only father having the exact sa conversation about making that boy belong solely to your daughter?"
Claude smiled which wasn’t warm. The kind of smile that had preceded the downfall of rival houses and the ruin of entire trade empires throughout his career.
"I knew he was trouble. But once I set my hands on sothing, it becos mine. It has always been the case."
His voice didn’t carry a single trace of doubt.
"And in this case, I simply have to remove them. Every single one. As you know, money buys silence. And what money can’t buy directly, it can buy indirectly. Fear. And execution."
Sylvie smiled wider than him. Then ca the laugh. Not a polite one. She was dramatically holding her guts, bending over as if the two words "remove" and "execute" had physically ruptured sothing inside her.
"Remove them?" She wiped an actual tear from her eye and looked at Claude who was again caught off guard by her reaction. "Execute them? Oh gods."
Then the laughter stopped. And what replaced it had no humor left.
"Dear Claude. The mont you raise a blade against even one of those won, you won’t be fighting a person. You’ll be fighting a throne. Maybe two. Maybe three. And I wouldn’t be surprised if you find yourself staring down the combined military force of multiple kingdoms who all happen to share one thing in common."
Claude was baffled but his face showed nothing. His cold voice ca out asured. "And what is that? I am not having a clearer picture."
Sylvie’s playfulness was still there but underneath it ran sothing honest that even Claude couldn’t brush off. "That their precious girl chose him. Not the other way around. You can’t execute desires, Claude. You can’t assassinate feelings. And buying them off? Forget it."
Claude looked down at Jax standing in the arena below with his arms folded. "How are you so certain? You speak as if you know the full extent."
"I know enough to tell you this much." Then her voice dropped just a fraction. "And don’t be shocked if one day you see standing on the opposite side of your battlefield. Or precisely, at the site of your ruination."
Claude looked at her and this ti the shock broke through. He couldn’t hold it. "Are you telling you are in love with—"
Sylvie put a hand over her heart like an actress milking a death scene. "Love? Oh poor . I was never afforded such luxuries."
But then the act was gone. What ca next was just resolve.
"But soone I know may be on that path. And for her sake, I would stand on any battlefield. Against any empire. Including yours."
She leaned back against the glass wall of the box and crossed her arms.
"And trust , Claude. The great empire you spent your entire life building could be undone within a single day. All because of the greed you carry for your daughter."
She tilted her head.
"And I am hundred percent certain your daughter already knows this. Otherwise how can soone stay quiet who was the reason behind a civil war years ago? Just because she didn’t like a girl from a rival rchant house? Making you the instrunt of their family’s doom."
Claude’s jaw tightened.
"She either knows what might happen in brutish way. Or she is going through a phase where she is discovering what love is. Or maybe both."
She sighed. "So just relax. Let the young ones handle it. And I am fairly sure your girl is even on his list right now. Which ans your daughter is in safe hands. That professor shows a resolve at his age to burn heaven itself if soone harms what he considers precious."
The others in the VIP box had been listening in silence. Lysandra. Zharina. The Vampire King. The Elf King. Several professors who hadn’t spoken for a while. All of them processing what they had just heard.
One such person was Zharina. Her perspective on that most disgusting pervert she had sworn to destroy was changing. Just by a bit. But changing nonetheless. She had seen it all with her own eyes. First at the ball where he stood for Lilith.
Then at the tournant, the battleground she had designed specifically for her revenge, where he went to lengths that broke every assumption she had ever made about him. Most of her takes on him were proving to be off track and that realization was refusing to leave her alone.
Claude leaned on the glass watching the arena where the match was about to start. But his eyes found Jax standing at the edge.
"He is either the reason this world falls to ruins. Or the one who ushers it into an era of peace it has never known."
He looked at the sky. "I pray to god that my daughter wins. Not just this match. But..."
—x—X—x—
Down on the battlefield, Astrid was grinning.
Karina stood across from her looking unstable. The composure she had walked in with was gone. Replaced by a fury that was already ssing with her judgnt before the match had even started.
Astrid had already beaten her. Through words alone. And the bell hadn’t even rung yet.
She thought to herself. ’Good. All the groundwork is done. I’ve won half the battle. Just like Professor said.’
Her mind pulled her back to a few days ago.
Jax had been training his students when he threw them a question. "What do you do when you face an opponent who is mightier than you? Soone who seems impossible to beat?"
Seraphina answered first. "Find their weakness and—"
Jax cut her off. "Wrong. By the ti you spot it you’d already be on the back foot. Maybe you wouldn’t even have the strength left to exploit it. And don’t forget, the person who made you feel lesser in front of them wasn’t gifted by gods or touched by luck. They climbed the hellish ladder through pain, victories and defeats. They stand where they stand because of all that experience."
He had paused then said. "But a fight is sothing entirely different from what you all might think. In a fight it doesn’t matter who you are. Rookie or veteran. The only thing that matters is the mindset."
His voice had gotten sharper.
"A fight isn’t a contest of power. It never was. Power is just the skin. Underneath every fight is a war between two minds. And the mind that breaks first drags the body down with it."
He had looked at each of them in turn.
"So when you face soone stronger, faster, more talented, more experienced, don’t try to match them. Instead play with them. Make them hollow."
Astrid recalled how confused she had been. "Hollow?"
"Hollow their minds. Strip the power from their heads. Every great fighter thinks they are above you. And that’s not arrogance, that’s just how the mind works when it has never been genuinely shaken."
He had raised a finger.
"So you shake it. Through words and actions. You provoke. You mock. You find that weakness, and by weakness I don’t an what Seraphina was talking about. I an the nerve that cracks their composure. Because the mont they stop fighting the battle and start fighting you personally, their vision narrows. And narrowed eyes don’t see openings or possibilities. They only see revenge."
He turned to Astrid specifically. "Now tell . What happens next?"
She had answered. "We don’t need to find a single weakness to win. Because we’ll have a vulnerable opponent whose body starts working on instinct, creating weaknesses all by itself."
Jax had nodded with a satisfaction she still felt warm thinking about. Then added one final thing.
"To win battles like these, play with the two heads, manipulate and write into them as you wish. One head in the field, the head of your opponent, it should be repeating ’I will end you, you will pay.’ And the other head, the one behind that rage of their opponent, should be quietly whispering ’I will win, I will win.’ And when it happens rember you are way ahead in lead and you can play not just with their mind then but them as well. Enjoy the fight which seed impossible.
Recalling those mories with Jax lightened sothing in her chest that had been sitting heavy for days. She smiled looking directly at Karina across the arena. At the girl whose mind was already manipulated just as she wanted just exactly as planned.
And at that mont, the bell rang.
-x-X-x-
[A/N: Thanks Lord_Draganta33 and Milk_Man_4767 for the golden tickets
(づ*ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)づ♡]
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