Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra-Chapter 642: A weird monster ? (2)

RUMBLE!

Just as Vitaliara's tail settled back into its idle sway and the heat-dome flickered in quiet rhythm, something shifted.

Lucavion felt it first.

Not heard. Felt.

A tremor beneath his palm, subtle, too precise to be coincidence—like the land itself had inhaled.

Then came the sound.

A roar.

Not the guttural bellow of a man, not the sharpened cry of war or challenge—no. This was something else entirely.

It cracked through the sky like a falling star, layered with unnatural distortion, and rolled across the terrain in waves, echoing between the shattered hills.

Lucavion didn't move. Not yet.

He just smiled, slow and low. "Oh…"

Vitaliara tensed, her claws pressing lightly against the fabric of his shoulder. [That's not a contestant.]

"No," he said, rising to his feet in one smooth motion, his coat catching the light of the fire as it swept behind him. "It wouldn't be."

The Academy's crafted space wasn't just for pitting humans against one another. That would be too clean. Too predictable.

This world was designed to test everything—reflex, decision, survival instinct. And nothing tested that like an apex predator unleashed into the middle of chaos.

Lucavion turned his gaze east, toward the shadowed treeline that stood beyond a half-collapsed ruin. The wind had stilled. The zone held its breath.

Then—

Swoosh.

A blast of compressed air shot across the ridge, carrying with it the stench of ozone and churned stone.

And through the clearing mist—

It emerged.

Massive. Lithe in a way that only predators born of mana could be. Its body shimmered with layered carapace, sleek and silver-blue, pulsing slightly as veins of aether glowed beneath its skin. Six legs moved like liquid, claws crackling with heat and frost in equal measure. Two eyes, lidless and alien, locked onto Lucavion.

The beast's breath hissed, its maw opening to reveal a split jaw lined with jagged, shifting teeth—like bone reimagined by madness.

"Now that," Lucavion murmured, drawing his sword with a deliberate slowness, "is a fine escalation."

And yet—Lucavion's smile thinned.

He couldn't feel it.

No flicker of killing intent. No weight in the air, no whisper of aura brushing against his skin. It was as if the creature wasn't even there.

"…Oh?" he muttered, his sword slack in his hand, loose, almost casual.

[Vitaliara's tail flicked once.] [That's not normal.]

"No," he agreed quietly. "It isn't."

The mana around the space was shifting—not wild, but curated. Managed.

'So this is how they intend to thin the herd…'

The Academy's doing. An artificial field suppressing presence. Perhaps even cloaking the monster's own existence from lesser candidates.

"Heh…"

He didn't get time to elaborate.

The beast moved—fast.

With a deafening CRACK of displaced air, it lunged. A blur of motion and heat.

Lucavion's eyes snapped into focus, the edge of his blade lifting just in time.

CLANG!

Claw met steel in a blinding spray of sparks. The sheer force of it sent Lucavion sliding back, boots digging twin trenches through the ash-coated ground.

One heartbeat.

Then two.

And he stopped, one foot grinding into the dirt, body low, arm steady despite the impact still vibrating through his bones.

'Tch… Early 4-star. At the very least.'

The beast paced, clicking mandibles shifting with wet, grating sounds. Its alien gaze never left him.

"To cull the lower ranks…" he muttered, voice soft, "this is what they release on nights, huh?"

It charged again—without sound.

Lucavion pivoted, slipping to the side with just enough twist to avoid a direct strike. The edge of the monster's claw scraped his coat, cleaving through fabric like paper. He responded in kind—his blade flicked out in a sudden upward arc.

CLANG! CLINK! SHLICK!

It was like cutting through layered steel.

Lucavion spun with the rebound, his body fluid as water, shifting weight from heel to ball, dodging the snapping jaws that lunged where his head had been a moment ago.

'It's reading my moves now. Adaptive. Lovely.'

The sword dipped again. His posture closed—tight, compact. Footwork precise.

Another feint. Another strike. He twisted his hips, letting the beast overextend, and raked his blade across one of the glowing veins running under its carapace.

The result?

A burst of cold blue ichor hissed onto the ground, the mana inside it writhing in defiance.

[Be careful,] Vitaliara whispered into his thoughts, claws tensing along his back. [That substance… it's volatile.]

"Noted," he murmured.

But even as he spoke, his eyes flicked upward, catching the rippling distortion at the edge of the treeline. More shapes. Watching.

Contestants?

Observers?

Or other predators?

He couldn't tell.

'Which begs the question…'

"Should I wait," he said aloud, adjusting his stance, "and act as a dark horse in front of everyone?"

The beast snarled low, steam hissing from vents along its spine.

"Or should I gather attention now?"

He weighed the thought a second longer, then exhaled through his nose.

And smiled.

"Let's not give them too much time."

Lucavion's smirk deepened, the glint in his eyes sharpening with purpose.

'If I drag this out, they'll see me anyway. Every strike would draw more eyes, more whispers.'

So be it.

If mystery was his weapon, then he'd forge it into a blade sharp enough to carve silence into awe.

His hand shifted along the hilt of his sword, and with a flick of his wrist, the [Flame of Equinox] bloomed—quietly, beautifully, like twilight bleeding into dawn.

No flare, no roar—just a smooth, spiraling arc of heat and frost coiling together around the blade, threads of pale gold and ghost-blue weaving in tandem. Life and death, flame and frost—each pulsing with an opposite rhythm, and yet, in his grip, they danced in balance.

[Flame of Equinox. Ashen Twilight.]

The name slipped from his lips like a vow.

"Severance Form."

The ground beneath his feet cracked gently, the pressure of his gathered mana warping the terrain in a soft radius. Yet even then, it didn't scream power. It whispered it.

The monster responded—its limbs flexing with a burst of primal instinct, steam whistling out like a kettle under pressure. It lunged, all six legs pistoning forward with terrifying force.

But Lucavion didn't retreat.

He stepped into the charge.

One breath.

Then another.

And just as the beast reared to strike—

Lucavion vanished.

No flash. No explosion. Just a blur—a ripple in the air where a man once stood.

CLANG—CLINK—SHRIIIIIP—

Three steps. One rotation. A blade drawn like a crescent moon.

By the time the monster's claws slashed down through empty space, Lucavion was already behind it, sword lowered, the embers of his technique still hissing softly against the cold air.

Tick.

The creature froze mid-lunge, its body twitching as fissures of gold and silver light etched themselves into its carapace.

Tick.

A low, broken hiss escaped its throat. Then—

CRACK.

Its body split.

Not in halves—but in segments—dozens of them, sliced so precisely the wounds hadn't even begun to bleed until gravity caught up.

The pieces slipped apart with haunting quiet, cold ichor trailing through the air in glistening arcs, vaporizing wherever it touched the lingering trail of Lucavion's flame.

He exhaled, slow and clean, sheathing his blade with a quiet shffft.

"…Too slow," he murmured.

[Ashen Twilight: Severance Form] was not built for flash. It was a technique rooted in stillness—where motion became suggestion, and flame became intent. It fed on the smallest openings, the tiniest misstep in the enemy's form, and delivered judgment in three parts:

Weightlessness. Silence. Collapse.

The Flame of Equinox threaded through each strike like a scalpel of entropy—unraveling mana constructs, destabilizing core flow, and searing through the natural resistance of living beings not with heat, but with balance.

The monster had never stood a chance.

Vitaliara blinked, her tail coiling tightly.

[You really used that.]