Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 816: Thoughts

No one remembered it anyway.

But the victim….

And the academy?

It devoured her.

Her standing in the royal family had always been brittle—ornate, but hollow. She was the princess, but only on paper. A courtesy title. A political piece left behind by a marriage the court never acknowledged and blood they never truly claimed.

At the academy, she was disposable.

And when the rumors started festering, no one lifted a finger to defend her.

Not her professors, who once praised her discipline but now hesitated to place her name near distinction.

And certainly not the crown, which had no intention of shielding a girl it had always considered…filthy….

The combination was suffocating.

Her daily life became a silent siege—no open confrontation, no duels or punishments. Just the kind of exile that clings to silence. Students would walk by her without looking. Conversations would stop when she entered the room. Partners for projects? Suddenly hard to find. Even her meals became isolated—always a seat too far from everyone else, as though some unspoken line had been drawn.

The academy had turned into a crucible, and no one bothered to temper the flame.

She bore it longer than most would have.

Longer than she should have.

But there’s only so much isolation a person can endure before silence starts whispering back.

They called her The Tragic Princess—mockingly at first, then out of habit, and finally as if it had always been her name. A noblewoman who had everything… until she didn’t. A tale they would retell over wine. How promising she once was. How sad it all became.

And eventually, she broke.

Not with a scream. Not with a dramatic outburst.

She broke like glass under silk—quiet, but absolute.

The moment it happened wasn’t public. It didn’t need to be. But those closest to her felt it. Her laughter dulled. Her voice lost the measured grace it once wielded so carefully. The light in her gaze—that keen awareness that had once made even the professors nervous—dimmed into something colder. Detached.

And when she came back from the break?

She no longer cared to play their game.

She no longer bowed. No longer smiled politely at venom disguised as courtesy. No longer bothered to correct the lies.

And now, the scene that Lucavion seen when he looked into Priscilla…..

Lucavion didn’t need to hear the words.

He didn’t need to. He’d seen too many people weaponize silence.

From across the ballroom, his gaze remained fixed—not on Thalor, who moved with his usual lacquered grace—but on Priscilla.

She was standing. Still. Unmoving. But something was wrong.

Her posture was impeccable, yes. Her chin lifted, shoulders squared. The perfect court-trained silhouette.

And yet—

The tension in her hands.

The slight bend in her knees.

The flicker, brief and almost imperceptible, where her fingers twitched like she’d just dropped something and didn’t realize it.

’That’s not poise,’ Lucavion thought. ’That’s restraint. That’s bracing.’

Then came the breath.

She inhaled—sharply, like she hadn’t in a while.

Lucavion’s eyes narrowed.

The conversation wasn’t public. The noise of the ballroom smothered all but the most dramatic outbursts. There were no drawn blades, no visible spells, no glass shattering.

But something had just shifted.

[That young man,] Vitaliara’s voice purred into his thoughts, low and alert. [He’s doing something strange.]

Lucavion didn’t move. His voice, when it came, was barely audible beneath his breath. “Strange how?”

[His mana. It isn’t flaring, not externally. But it’s pressed somewhere. Tightly focused. It feels… surgical.]

Lucavion’s jaw ticked.

“I can’t sense it.”

[You wouldn’t. Not unless you were inside the radius. It’s folded. Bent inward.]

“On her?”

[Yes.]

Lucavion’s hand brushed along the hilt of his estoc—not to draw, but to ground himself.

There were many forms of cruelty.

Some were loud. The kind that rattled chandeliers and left scorch marks on ballroom floors.

But this?

This was quieter.

This was precision.

How did he know?

Because this—this wasn’t new.

He had read it before.

Thalor Draycott, the Mage Tower’s golden prodigy. The clever one. The witty one. The male lead who never raised his voice but always made sure you heard him. And when he cast magic—he didn’t just cast.

He composed.

Thalor was the kind of mage who didn’t favor brute force. He didn’t need pillars of fire or storms that tore cities apart. His magic was quiet, elegant, insidious. He folded spells the way others folded paper—layered, intricate, and devastating once they unfolded at precisely the right time.

Even early on in Shattered Innocence, the Tower Masters whispered about it—how his control bordered on unnatural. How he could bend mana inwards instead of out, turning pressure into a blade that only his target could feel. No witnesses. No residue. Just discomfort that felt like a headache—or a confession.

He didn’t stun you.

He suffocated you.

And that was how he’d passed the Archmage’s Trials.

He was clever.

And worse—he was creative.

That was how he’d managed to decode the legacies of Arlen Morrowind in the broken ruins. Where other mages failed to make sense of the glyphs—treating them as a language long lost—Thalor had realized they were not just inscriptions. They were following a certain order and decoded it accordingly. ((N1))

Spellwork bound to harmonic mana signatures—singing through structure, not syllables. He didn’t read the legacy.

He heard it.

And that was what made him dangerous.

Not just strength.

Not just genius.

But imagination.

That was why you couldn’t treat Thalor Draycott like any ordinary mage.

Because he didn’t challenge magic as a scholar or a soldier.

He challenged it like an artist.

Where others hurled spells like spears or shaped them like shields, Thalor painted with mana—layered it, disguised it, let it whisper into the bones of his target until they crumbled without knowing why. If you didn’t understand the shape of your own mind, you wouldn’t even know he was there. That was how he won.

And right now—watching Priscilla—Lucavion could tell.

Something was wrong again.

Her spine was too still. Her eyes weren’t focused. Not on Thalor. Not on anything. Like her body remained, but her attention had been siphoned somewhere just beyond reach.

It was subtle.

Delicate.

Dangerous.

[Can’t you feel the energy in the air around her? Especially around her head?]

Vitaliara’s voice brushed his mind, sharper now, edged with something more serious than before.

“Energy?” Lucavion murmured, still watching. “No… it’s too thin. He’s not flaring.”

[Not outwardly. But it’s there. The spell’s compression leaves an imprint—it swirls tighter the longer he holds it. Look around her scalp, behind the ears, crown of the head. The pressure’s pooling there.]

Lucavion’s gaze narrowed, the instinct to see rising with his focus, but still—he felt nothing.

“I can’t detect it.”

[Then don’t detect it.] Her voice grew firmer, pulling him inward. [Use your own property. Your Flame of Vitality—it’s not just fuel. It’s perception. Mana that comes from you interacts with the world as you are. It reads, it breathes, it interprets.]

“I’m not trained in that kind of analysis,” he muttered. “It’s unstable, at best.”

[And? That’s not an excuse.] Her tone flicked with a biting warmth. [Stop trying to match his approach. Burn with yours.]

He closed his eyes.

Let the ambient noise fall away. The music, the gossip, the scent of wine and blooming crystalroot.

He reached inward, toward the coals of that strange, volatile force curled in his chest.

He harnessed his [Flame of Equinox], but rather embracing the [Flames of Vitality]. The white color flared brightly in his chest.

It stirred—not warmly, not gently—but like an eye opening beneath his ribs.

He didn’t try to force it. Didn’t mold it like elementalists were taught.

He just let it see.

And in that moment—he did.

He sensed a ripple.

———-A/N——–

N1: To refer to the vault, it was in Chapters 151-156.

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