LRAB Chapter 974: It was quite fun
Chapter 974: It was quite fun
The silence in the ring wasn’t new.He’d felt it before—after battles, after burials, after victories that didn’t feel like victories.
But this?
This was something else.
Arcten remained in place, the dull weight of the training sword still gripped in his hand, though his fingers no longer felt the texture of its leather wrap. The feedback dome had long since dissipated, its fading runes leaving the air cold and still. Lucavion’s footsteps had vanished minutes ago, swallowed by the stone and dust of the academy corridor.
Yet Arcten hadn’t moved.
He stared ahead at the space where the boy had stood, blade pointed at his chest, calm as a frozen lake. Not trembling. Not exhausted. Just... certain.
Too certain.
’The barrier broke. That much is simple.’
His eyes drifted to the floor where the mana imprint still faintly shimmered—cracked lines where the runes had overloaded.
’But it didn’t just break. It shattered after taking too much damage. After being struck cleanly. Repeatedly.’
That wasn’t a failure.
That was an execution.
He let the blade drop from his hand. It struck the ground with a soft clink, harmless now. Arcten brought a hand to his face and rubbed his jaw, slow and thoughtful. The bone still ached from where his teeth had clenched too hard somewhere in the third exchange. A ghost of tension still lingered in his wrist, the memory of deflection after deflection.
’No one’s broken my barrier in ten years. And that kid... That first-year... He didn’t just break it.’
A humorless breath pushed from his lungs.
’He could’ve done it five times over.’
The strikes had all been clean. Deliberate. Measured like a veteran’s, not a student’s. And worse—Lucavion hadn’t fought with instinct or panic. He’d fought with intention. No wasted movement. No reckless gaps.
’Even with that off-balance blade, he moved like it was a part of him. No estoc. No real edge. Just flow. Adaptation.’
Arcten exhaled again, this time slower.
’I wasn’t sent here for a real fight.’
No—he’d been pulled into this by the quiet machinery of noble favors. Crown business, veiled as school politics. A request made in the language of old debts: humiliate the boy, break his record, remind him where power flows.
And Arcten hadn’t questioned it. Not deeply.
He didn’t want to destroy Lucavion. But he also didn’t plan to lose.
’So what the hell am I supposed to do now?’
This wasn’t a mistake that could be erased with phrasing. This wasn’t a student who had merely exceeded expectations.
Lucavion had dissected him in front of the dome’s watching eye.
And it wasn’t just defeat that lingered—it was confusion. Arcten had experience. Better weaponry. Twice the mana control. But still...
’Why the hell did he feel faster than me? With less mana? With a body that shouldn’t have held that kind of form?’
He didn’t want to admit it. But it crawled at the back of his mind anyway:
’His body’s built different.’
Arcten closed his eyes for a long moment.he soft tufts of her fur catching the dim morning light like strands of moonlight laced in smoke.
He dropped his coat over the chair without ceremony and gave her a languid smile.
"It’s not often I get to hear your yawn like that. From peeping cat to sleepy cat. Quite the evolution."
[Shut up,] she muttered, eyes only half-lidded.
"Sleepy cat," he added, voice feather-light with mischief as he passed by her.
[...]
She glared at him. No sharp teeth, no claws—just that narrow, silent judgment she delivered with such grace.
Lucavion only chuckled, already halfway to his bedside.
Behind him, her voice trailed after him—calm but pointed.
[How did it go?]
He paused, tossing his gloves onto the desk. "The exam?"
[What else?]
A breath. Half a smirk. He didn’t turn around yet.
"Heh..."
Then, softly—like sharing the punchline of a joke only he had heard:
"It was quite fun."