The silence that followed the severing of the flame was sepulchral—but it lasted only a second. Julius, his face twisted by blind fury, roared. He couldn't accept that a "useless" man had dispelled his spell with a piece of wood.
"Luck! That was pure damn luck!" Julius shouted, losing control. "Die, trash!"
His fifth-circle mana erupted chaotically. The ground beneath his feet cracked as a column of fire surged upward, wrapping his body in an incandescent vortex. He thrust forward with pure fire—a Sterling advanced technique meant to incinerate everything within a three-meter radius.
I moved.
To the untrained eye, it looked as if I had simply stumbled forward. My body tilted at an odd angle, narrowly avoiding the tongue of flame by mere millimeters, allowing the heat to lightly scorch the edge of my uniform.
"There you go! He almost had him!" Julius's followers shouted from the stands. "He's only surviving by a miracle!"
But before Julius could retract his arm, the tip of my wooden sword struck his wrist with a sharp crack. The blow was so precise it disrupted the flow of his mana, causing the flames to vanish instantly. Julius staggered, eyes wide—and in that moment of imbalance, I simply placed my foot in his path as I "fell" to the side.
The "great genius" of the Sterlings was sent flying, crashing face-first into the sand and rolling pathetically until he landed at my feet—unconscious and covered in dust.
"Well… what a slip," I remarked, brushing the dust off my clothes with complete indifference.
The amphitheater exploded into chaos.
"That was cheating!" a Valois noble shouted from the stands. "The Varkas brat just flailed around like a lunatic and young Sterling tripped on his own! It's a dishonorable victory!"
"That's right! Pure luck! Julius got careless and this clown took advantage of his fall!" Boos rained down upon the arena.
However, in the VIP box, the atmosphere was entirely different.
Valeria Astaford stood frozen, her knuckles white from gripping the stone railing. Her expert gaze had missed nothing: the control of axis, the economy of motion, the surgical strike at the mana pressure point.
"Luck?" Valeria whispered, her voice low—but sharp enough to cut through the murmurs around her. "You idiots know nothing about the sword. That 'slip' was a perfect displacement technique. That 'stumble' was a death trap. What we just witnessed… was not luck. It was pure mastery."
In the corner, Princess Elara let out a trembling breath. She knew the truth. It wasn't luck—it was the same monster who had taken her to heaven the night before, playing with an ant before crushing it.
I turned toward the judges' box, ignoring the crowd's shouting.
"I suppose this counts as a victory," I said, looking directly at Cassane. She said nothing, but her blue eyes gleamed with something that wasn't ice—it was curiosity.
As I stepped down from the arena platform, the noise of the crowd—a mix of jeers at my "luck" and outraged shouts from the Sterlings' supporters—faded into a distant buzz. The only thing that mattered was the small group waiting for me at the foot of the stairs.
"Cassian!" Margery's shout tore through the air.
My sister ran toward me and, before I could react, wrapped me in a tight embrace—so tight I could almost feel her fourth-circle mana trembling with pure relief. She was shaking. When she pulled back, her violet eyes were misty, her cheeks flushed with restrained anguish.
"You idiot! An absolute idiot!" she scolded, though her hands were already checking my uniform for burns. "That fire blast almost killed you. If Julius hadn't tripped at the end… I… I don't know what I would've done."
"But he didn't, Margery," I replied with a lazy smile, flicking her forehead lightly. "I told you—I have good luck."
Behind her, Klaus Traff let out a sigh that seemed to empty his lungs. The muscular aura warrior ran a hand through his brown hair, shaking his head as a disbelieving smile formed on his face.
"Damn it, Cass. I've seen duels in the Astaford household, but that was the biggest miracle of the century," Klaus said, clapping me on the shoulder hard enough to knock over a normal noble. "That last move… it looked like you were falling, but you ended up winning."
Seraphine Sterling, on the other hand, stood slightly apart. Her crimson eyes drifted over the unconscious body of her brother Julius, who was being carried away on a stretcher, before returning to me. There was a spark of suspicion in her gaze—an intelligence Klaus and Margery, blinded by affection, weren't using.
"That was… convenient," Sera murmured, stepping closer. "Julius is an expert, Cass. He doesn't just 'trip' for no reason. But whatever happened, I don't think my family will be pleased with this outcome."
"Sometimes the ground is more treacherous than a fire spell, Sera," I replied with a lazy smile. "Your brother was so busy shouting he forgot to watch his footing. I got lucky, I suppose. The world has funny ways of balancing things when someone gets too loud."
Sera looked at me with disbelief, searching for any sign that I was joking—but my expression remained as relaxed as ever. To her, my answer made no sense; to the rest of the Academy, it was proof that the Varkas "useless" heir survived purely by chance.
As we walked away from the amphitheater, escorted by my friends' relief and my sister's constant scolding, I felt a heavy gaze fixed on the back of my neck.
From the heights of the VIP box, Valeria Astaford remained motionless.
She hadn't joined the other nobles in leaving. She stayed there, one hand resting on the pommel of her ceremonial sword, watching my every step with predatory intensity. To the rest of the world, I was just lucky—but to the heir of the sword's path, I had just become the most dangerous mystery in the Academy.
We'll meet again, "genius," her eyes seemed to say before I turned the corner of the corridor.