After a while, I finally stopped using Ti Manipulation on her.
The world, which had felt thick and heavy like it was trapped inside glass around her, snapped back into motion once more.
Even though I could manipulate ti, it wasn’t so godlike ability I could throw around carelessly. It only worked on a smaller scale. I had to focus. And I an, really focus to use it. The kind of focus where the rest of the world fades into a blur and you forget to breathe for a second. And while I was using it, I couldn’t move freely. I was basically a statue with power. If soone managed to bypass the effect or catch off guard, I’d be done for. Well, not really. But it was basically pointless to use Ti Manipulation if I couldn’t also move.
That vulnerability was exactly why I don’t really use it.
In a real fight, standing still for even half a second could an losing your head.
So no, I didn’t use it for convenience. I didn’t use it to toy with people.
I used it now for one reason only.
To show the difference.
Veronica wasn’t just so random knight. She was known as the second-in-command of the entire Magic Knight military—the strongest military force in the Milham Kingdom. People whispered her na with respect. So with fear. She was the kind of person you pointed at and said, That’s what strength looks like.
And yet...
When ti resud, she fell like a discarded doll.
She had been frozen mid-air when I released the technique. For a split second, she just hung there, like the world hadn’t caught up yet. Then gravity pulled her down rcilessly. She slamd into the platform face-first. The impact echoed across the arena, and it was a sharp and ugly thud.
A collective gasp rippled through the audience.
She tried to push herself up. Her fingers twitched against the stone with her nails scraping lightly. For a mont, I thought she might actually stand.
But then her eyes rolled back.
And she went still.
She just went unconscious.
Silence followed. Not the peaceful kind. The tense, suffocating kind where everyone’s waiting for sothing else to happen.
The umpire looked at .
Really looked at .
His expression wasn’t just shock. It was the kind of stare you give sothing you don’t quite understand. Like he’d just watched sothing that shouldn’t exist. Sothing that bent the rules too casually.
He didn’t step closer than necessary.
"Winner!" he announced, voice loud, but stiff, like he had to force it out.
Round two was over.
I had won. Again.
That ant Veronica had lost to twice now.
There would be a third round.
Best of five.
One more win for , and it would be over.
Not exactly ideal odds for her.
I rolled my shoulders slightly, feeling the lingering hum of mana settle back into place.
I intended to win this tournant.
Not barely.
Not narrowly as well.
Win literally.
***
Lilia’s POV
They granted Veronica an additional hour of rest.
Normally, there were only two hours between matches. And that was the standard procedure. But what happened out there wasn’t standard. The strain on her body as well as the sheer force she endured in those two rounds, it would’ve been reckless to send her back out without proper recovery.
If they hadn’t extended the break, she might not have been able to stand in the third round.
And this was the third round.
He already had two wins.
If he secured this one, it would all be over.
Which ant... Princess Myrcella’s plan would fully begin. Or perhaps it already had. Everything had been prepared. Every piece placed carefully on the board.
And now the final moves were playing out in plain sight.
As if that weren’t enough, he just revealed himself to be the owner of the Leonamon Company, which was the corporation responsible for pushing the world toward modernization with relentless innovation. Modern-engineered transportation, and even communication devices. Infrastructure that made old systems look prehistoric.
The kind of company that didn’t just follow trends.
It created them.
Why would soone like that enroll as a cadet in the academy?
It didn’t make sense.
Unless this was never about becoming a knight.
At this point, calling him a threat felt like an understatent.
I couldn’t use my Authority on him. I had tried. It simply... didn’t work. As if sothing repelled it naturally.
Even Veronica couldn’t touch him.
And Veronica could touch almost anyone.
He wasn’t soone you controlled.
If anything, it felt like control bent around him instead.
I doubt even the Princess has him on a leash.
In fact, I get the unsettling feeling that it’s the other way around.
Who is that man, really?
I hate not having answers.
I opened the door quietly.
Veronica was already awake.
She stood near the window on the far side of the room with her posture straight as well as her shoulders squared. Sunlight spilled across her figure, casting sharp lines of gold along her silhouette.
She looked... perfectly fine.
Which was absurd.
After being thrown around like that—like a ragdoll caught in a storm—I expected her to be lying down, grimacing, and even barely able to move.
But there she was.
She was calm and still.
Looking out the window as if nothing had happened.
To be honest... I’m worried.
"Are you okay?" I asked carefully.
She turned toward .
Her eyes t mine, but there was distance in them. Like she was looking through —or at sothing beyond the walls of this room.
"I’m fine," she said.
She sounded fine.
Her voice wasn’t strained. She had no bitterness nor frustration on it.
You wouldn’t think she had just been completely outclassed. You wouldn’t think she had been tossed around earlier in front of the entire kingdom.
I walked over and sat at the edge of the bed.
The mattress dipped slightly beneath my weight.
"Do you want to give up?" I asked.
I was direct. Maybe blunt. But we didn’t have ti for polite dances.
She shook her head slowly.
"At this point, giving up isn’t even sothing I’m considering," she replied. "If this is the last round... then I’ll finish it properly."
Her tone was steady.
She didn’t sound prideful. And not angry.
Just... resolved, I guess...
Which unsettled more than if she had been furious.
She felt different.
Subdued, maybe. Quieter, in fact. Like sothing inside her had shifted.
This is the first ti I’ve ever seen her like this.
"Tell , sister," she said after a pause.
Her voice softened slightly.
"Do you believe in prophecy?"
I blinked. "Prophecy?"
"Yes. The prophecy that Lilith will return. Have you heard of it?"
The na stirred sothing faint in my mory.
I rember a bard singing about it recently in the lower districts. Sothing dramatic, as bards tend to do.
The lady in black who set the world ablaze and reforged it.
One of the Great Ones.
She would be reborn from the ashes of her own fire.
The lyrics weren’t subtle. They practically shouted the identity at you. Even with most historical records about Lilith erased or buried, enough fragnts remained. Historians had begun piecing together scraps as well as old texts, faded carvings, and even contradictory myths.
The more they uncovered, the more unsettling the picture beca.
"And what about it?" I asked.
Veronica lifted a hand and placed it over her chest.
Right over her heart.
Her fingers curled slightly into the fabric of her uniform.
"I think..." she began.
Her voice faltered for a fraction of a second.
And then I noticed it.
A faint blush spreading across her cheeks.
Veronica. She was blushing.
That alone was enough to throw off balance.
"I think," she continued more firmly, "that prophecy is going to co true."
There was sothing in her expression I couldn’t quite decipher.
It wasn’t fear.
It wasn’t devotion.
It wasn’t even doubt.
It was sothing deeper. Like it was sothing that was personal.
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