Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra-Chapter 687: A lecture

The battlefield no longer resembled an arena.

It looked like a war had ended—and maybe, in a way, one had.

Lucavion stood at the epicenter of ruin, surrounded by smoldering stone, melted glyphs, and a crater wide enough to swallow the dreams of anyone who had once believed themselves peerless. The air still vibrated with leftover force, mana threads snapping like overstretched cords in the aftermath of his final technique.

[Balance of Destruction] had not just ended the duel—it had rewritten the terrain.

Char-blackened stone stretched in every direction, the mana clash between Lucavion's nullfire spiral and Seran's radiant dominion leaving behind a ravaged scar through the center of the arena. Cracks veined outward like shattered glass beneath divine pressure, still smoking faintly. The spire in the distance, once untouched, now stood lopsided, leaning under the weight of its proximity to that impossible clash.

Lucavion lowered his estoc, the black flame fading from its blade at last. His coat hung in tatters, one sleeve entirely gone, revealing the stained wrappings beneath. Blood matted parts of his chest and shoulder, but his stance never wavered.

He looked more like a myth than a man.

And still—his breathing was even.

Unrushed.

Unbothered.

And then—

Seran vanished.

A sharp, abrupt shimmer cracked across the space surrounding his collapsed form—like glass catching light at the wrong angle. A pulse, then a bend in air, and in the next breath—

He was gone.

No flash of light.

No triumphant declaration from the system.

Just absence.

The artifact embedded in his chestplate finally flickered once—its purpose fulfilled, its secrets spent—and dissolved into dust. Not scattered by wind. Disintegrated by the weight of failure.

Lucavion didn't react.

He simply stood there at the center of the battlefield, the faint steam from charred stone curling around him like smoke from a long-dead fire.

On the distant observation tier, silence reigned.

Then—

"…What just happened?"

The question came from a tall man in a deep crimson coat, voice low and raw. His eyes were still fixed on the place where Seran—no, Reynald Vale—had vanished, hands clenched white around the railing.

No one answered.

Because no one knew. freёwebnoѵel.com

A woman beside him—bronze armor, crescent scar across her cheek—opened her mouth, closed it again, and then managed, "That… that wasn't mid-tier power. That wasn't even peak 4-star, was it?"

"Reynald was peak 4-star," murmured another.

A silence followed. But not the kind born of awe.

The kind that settled when too many truths started to unravel all at once.

The man in crimson slowly turned from the railing. "Then why didn't he ever show it?"

No one answered.

Because that question had too many answers.

And none of them were clean.

The woman in bronze armor—Ceryn, once a borderland vanguard—shook her head slowly. "He always fought just hard enough. Never more. Never less. Remember the Thorn Maw pack?"

"The ones outside we faced on second day?" one of the others muttered.

"Yeah. They should've overwhelmed us. Hell, even I was bracing for death. And he just… handled them. Not cleanly. Not spectacularly. Like it cost him something." Her brow furrowed. "But now? I'm wondering if he was just pretending it did."

"I thought he was holding back so we wouldn't feel useless," a younger mage added, voice brittle. "You know—like a leader trying to keep morale high. Like… he didn't want us to know how far behind we really were."

"He let me strike him," someone else whispered. "I remember. Back when we met near the Kirel Ridge ruins. I challenged him. He disarmed me and told me my technique was promising. Said I needed refinement." A pause. "But I felt it. He could've broken my sword if he wanted to."

One of the swordsmen from a guild named Valean guild stepped forward, jaw tight. "We all met him like that. Alone. Bleeding. Scattered. And he picked us up." His voice shook. "Said he wasn't here to win. Said he just wanted to keep people safe."

"Pffft…"

The sound cut clean through the silence, light and dry like the scrape of steel along satin.

A few heads turned slowly.

And then—Lucavion laughed.

Not loud.

Not mocking.

Just… genuinely amused.

A breath of laughter, rising smooth from his chest as he stood amid the ruin like a man who had just remembered the punchline to a joke only he understood.

He raised a hand, ran it lazily through his blood-matted hair, and exhaled with that same smirk pulling at his lips—sharp, unbothered, and maddening.

The conversation on the platform broke instantly.

"The hell is he laughing at?"

"Did something—"

"Is he mocking us right now?"

The tension in the air thickened fast—coiling, brittle, coarsened by frustration and helplessness. Dozens of eyes turned toward Lucavion, and though none dared step forward, their glares landed sharp.

Even Ceryn—the woman in bronze—narrowed her gaze, voice clipped. "Why are you laughing?"

Lucavion tilted his head slightly, gaze drifting lazily across them like they were paintings on a wall.

And then he answered.

Still smiling. Still calm.

"Why am I laughing?"

He echoed the question softly.

Then shrugged.

"Because it's funny."

That was it.

That was all he said.

And it was infuriating.

Because he wasn't wrong—and he wasn't explaining either.

Some of them bristled, visibly. The younger mage from earlier clenched his fists, lips parting—but no words came out.

Because what could he say?

Lucavion had just erased the strongest among them. He hadn't just won the duel—he had humiliated the man they all had trusted. Revered. Followed.

And now… now he was laughing.

Because it was funny.

Because they were funny.

No one spoke after that.

Not directly.

They just looked at him.

And behind every look—resentment, fear, and something deeper.

Acknowledgment.

Lucavion let the laughter taper off, the last breath of it vanishing into the scorched silence like smoke curling from a dying flame. His eyes scanned them again—cold and amused. Measured.

Then his voice, still light, still edged with quiet mischief:

"Let me ask you all one thing."

He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. Every word landed like a stone dropped into still water.

"Why are you here?"

The question hung in the air.

His smirk—the one that always rode the edge of arrogance and certainty—lingered like an insult. And his tone—soft, half-laughing—irked them more than any blade could.

One of the Valean guild swordsmen blinked. "What?"

Lucavion stepped down from the fractured rise of stone he'd been standing on, moving with that same unhurried grace, his estoc now resting loosely at his side.

"I asked," he said again, voice silk-smooth, "why are you here?"

A beat.

Then Ceryn, brow still tight with suspicion, echoed slowly, "Why… are we here?"

Lucavion gave a half-shrug. "Yes."

The younger mage shifted awkwardly, then mumbled under his breath, "We're here for the entrance exam."

Another voice added, more certain this time, "To get into the Academy."

Lucavion's smirk deepened.

And then he tilted his head—not in confusion.

In disappointment.

"Exactly," he said, tone sharpening by degrees. "You're here for the entrance exam. To prove yourselves. To show what you're worth."

His boots crunched over loose shards of charred stone as he walked forward slowly, not toward anyone in particular—just through them, like the battlefield was still his and they were just echoes in it.

"So tell me…" He turned, eyes narrowed now. "What did hiding behind Reynald Vale prove? What did following a stronger man into every fight say about your talent?"

Silence.

He continued.

"You weren't recruited. This isn't a noble-sponsored gala or some royal placement test. This is the Academy's last gate. Its filter." His gaze flicked from face to face, tone now lower, steadier. "They want the sharp. The strong. The ones who carve their own path."

Another step.

Another pulse of presence—quiet, yet undeniable.

"And you thought they'd pass through those gates just because you followed someone competent enough to not kill you?"

No one answered.

Not because they didn't want to.

Because they couldn't.

Lucavion's smirk returned, thinner now. Not amused.

Just cruel.

"Do you really think," he said softly, "that the Headmaster—hell, that anyone worth a damn—is going to look at your record and say: 'Ah yes, this one survived because someone stronger pitied them. Give them a seat.'?"