Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 948: Recognition and flow (2)

“You didn’t know what it was, did you?” she asked quietly, the words threading between the space of their paused clash.

Lucavion blinked once. His guard didn’t drop. But his voice came steady.

“…That’s right.”

He straightened slightly—not in surrender, but in honesty. His blade remained at his side, not lowered, but no longer striking.

“I just remembered the smell,” he said. “From my memory. That’s it. I don’t know what the tea is called at all.”

Elara’s feet stopped moving.

Her hand lowered—just an inch.

The frost still pulsed beneath them both, but now it felt like it held its breath with her.

She stared at him.

And for that one suspended second, her chest tightened—not with rage, but something stranger. Less certain. Something that hollowed her out before it could solidify into emotion.

But then—

That hollow, sharp ache at the center of her chest—

Vanished.

Like breath exhaled into winter air. Gone before she could decide what to call it.

She blinked once, slow.

Her fingers twitched.

And the frost beneath her feet started to move again.

“Is that so?” she said, voice calm—maybe too calm.

Lucavion’s brow twitched.

“…?”

Elara tilted her head. A breath slipped past her lips, and something else—lighter, more familiar—slid back into her posture.

“Well,” she said. “I guess.”

And without warning—

She moved.

[Frost Pulse. Rank 1-star]

The burst came low, fast—this time not wide, but tight, like a blade of wind. Lucavion jumped instinctively, cloak flaring behind him.

She was already beneath him.

[Ice Needle. Rank 1-star]

She launched three—not at him, but at the stone near his feet as he landed.

They cracked—flaring upward in staggered bursts, forcing his footwork crooked.

He landed off-balance.

And she lunged.

[Glacier Vein. Rank 2-star]

The frost surged behind her like a tailwind, snapping her forward at impossible speed.

Lucavion brought his blade up—just in time to block.

CRASH—!

Her palm slammed against the flat of his estoc with more force than before. Not clean. Not elegant.

But enough.

He skidded half a step.

His eyes narrowed again—but now they were lit.

She met his gaze.

And didn’t blink.

Lucavion’s estoc spun in a downward arc, deflecting a shallow sweep of frost she cast with her foot—no spell this time, just raw elemental control guiding her movement.

He stepped in again, blade slicing at an angle—measured, fast.

She ducked. Rolled. Pivoted on her knee.

And just as she surged upward with another [Iceprint. Rank 1-star] forming in her palm, his voice cut in—calm, almost casual.

“…Do you know the name?”

Elara blinked mid-motion. The spell flared, but she hesitated to release it. Her breath caught just briefly.

“I do,” she replied.

Lucavion’s blade halted, hovering in the space just off her shoulder—close, but not touching. His eyes flicked to hers.

“Then… what is it called?”

Elara’s expression didn’t change.

“I won’t tell you.”

Lucavion paused. “What?”

“I said I won’t tell you.”

The estoc didn’t lower. His brow lifted.

“…Why?”

She smiled—just faintly. The kind that never quite touched the eyes.

“I just feel like it.”

And with that, her palm connected—

[Iceprint. Rank 1-star]

Again.

A second one bloomed on his shoulder this time—cold and bright.

She slipped away before he could react, skidding back through a curling trail of frost.

Lucavion stood there for a moment, two glowing prints of ice now shining faintly on his coat.

He exhaled. Slowly.

And smirked.

“…Tch…. Petty little girl.”

“That I am.”

*****

“Haaah…”

Frost curled in lazy, broken spirals around the battlefield—frayed remnants of once-sharp spells, now melted and half-forgotten on the stones.

“Haaah….”

The morning air had warmed slightly, but the chill still hung thick from everything Elara had poured into it.

“Huff…”

Her breath came in short, ragged bursts.

Sweat clung to her back, beading down her spine beneath the weight of her cloak. Her shoulders heaved as she stood half-crouched, palms trembling faintly from the burn of overused channels. Her legs ached. Her arms throbbed.

And her mana…

Gone.

She could feel the emptiness now, deeper than exhaustion—like a well run dry. Every flicker of magic she’d pushed beyond its form, every twist of technique and instinct—it had bled her faster than expected.

’It’s not the spells themselves,’ she thought.

’It’s what I made them do.’

Casting Glacier Vein as a spiral. Firing Iceprint back-to-back. Repurposing that lash. Altering aim, shaping flow mid-release. It all drained her twice as fast. No time to calculate. Just movement. Reaction. Rhythm.

And now…

Her knees nearly gave when she straightened again, jaw clenched as another wave of dizziness threatened to drop her.

Lucavion stood a short distance away—still, composed, his estoc loosely at his side. He wasn’t attacking anymore. Hadn’t been for the past minute.

He was watching her.

Not smug. Not amused.

Just… waiting.

Elara didn’t speak.

Couldn’t, not yet.

She pressed one palm against her thigh, anchoring herself, chest rising and falling in shallow, rapid draws. Her skin buzzed—not from adrenaline, but from the faint recoil of spell-channels that had been strained too long.

She was done.

No more spells left to cast. No more strength to dodge, to pivot, to strike.

And yet—

’I don’t regret it.’

The thought came sharp. Steady.

She was drained. Worn raw. Humiliated more than once.

And still—

’No regrets.’

This was the first time she’d fought like that. Without calculation. Without too much noise in her head.

Following how things felt.

Trusting her own flow instead of fearing it.

And even if it burned her clean through—

It had made something clear.

Something she hadn’t felt in a long time.

That little surge of want.

Not revenge. Not cold survival.

Just… the want to be better.

To push. To land one more hit.

To move again.

Even now, as her legs buckled and she dropped to one knee, her breath shuddering out—

She smiled.

Not for him.

For herself.

Because this, right here—this empty, used-up, breathless place—

It didn’t feel like defeat.

It felt like a beginning.

Then Elara steadied her breath, fingers flexing against her thigh as if to remind herself she still owned her body, even when it ached.

Lucavion hadn’t moved. His estoc hung loosely at his side, his coat still marked with the faint crystalline shimmer of her [Iceprints]. He looked at her not as a victor, not as a taunter—but as if something in the silence mattered more than the clash had.

But just as it was—

“Elowyn?”

The sound pierced like a bell.

Her head snapped up.

A voice. Familiar. Uttered with hesitation, and worse—recognition.

At the edge of the square, framed by the pale light, stood Selphine and Aurelian. The two of them side by side, sharp eyes fixed squarely on the scene before them.

Selphine’s gaze cut across the frost-laced ground, lingering on Elara’s crouched frame, on Lucavion standing unmarked just a step away. Her arms were folded tight, lips pressed into a line that was neither judgment nor approval—something narrower, more dangerous.

Aurelian, beside her, was harder to read. His head tilted just slightly, as though piecing together an equation. His eyes moved from the gleam of frost etched into the stone to the faint glow still clinging to Lucavion’s coat, and then back to Elara’s face.

The silence stretched, brittle as ice.

Selphine’s voice came first, low and measured.

“…What were you two doing?”