The Duke was too slow in lifting his gauntlets to block my sword's strike. The razor-sharp steel sliced into the tender flesh of his neck before he had a chance to respond, forcing him to recoil with surprise and attempt to create space between us.

The thing about those accustomed to being the most powerful in the room is that they often mistake their limited strength as invulnerability. The Duke, in his arrogance, hadn’t thought to cast a protective shield in advance.

A mistake that was going to cost him his life.

Even with my sword poised to strike his throat, the Duke moved with a maddening calmness, as though the small beads of blood slipping under his white collar were a mere inconvenience. His irritation showed, but not a hint of panic crossed his face.

That composure shattered when I blurred forward again, my decades of finely honed combat experience weaving a deadly orchestra of motion. My sword carved through the air, seamlessly synchronized with my precise footwork, closing in on the Duke’s retreat without yielding a fraction of space. His eyes widened, panic finally breaking through as the trajectory of my blade curved unpredictably, slipping past his raised gauntlets with liquid grace.

My blade pressed into his flesh once more, carving a shallow crimson path from beneath his ear to the nape of his neck, where I let the tip linger with no small amount of pressure.

“You’ve made a grave mistake, Duke Granger,” I snarled, my voice cutting through the tense air, somehow amplified as if the room itself carried my words. My gaze flicked to the half-conscious Nasq, who managed a faint smirk despite his state. “This is not the North.”

I moved to bury the tip of my sword into the back of his brain when a young male voice boomed from the highest section of seating. My gaze remained locked on the northern Duke, but my senses immediately reported a half dozen energy and mana cores converging, surrounding someone whose presence demanded my attention.

The individual felt young, yet his energy radiated an unblemished purity—possibly even rivaling my own. This pristine energy flowed around his core, dipping and blending seamlessly with the most radiant mana I’d ever encountered.

He has dual cores of insane purity, I thought, resisting the urge to glance his way.

My focus stayed on Duke Granger as I debated just skewering him where he stood. I could end him swiftly—drive my blade through his brain before he could utter even a fragment of an arcane syllable.

But no. I had hesitated far too long. I'd lost my justification the moment I'd paused with my sword on his neck, even before the dual-core child's approach. Nasq was already safe and the duke had been soundly beaten, with far more ease than I'd expected. If he'd fought back even a little faster, I might have been able to end his life in a showing of great struggle.

Reluctantly, I took a step back, widening the distance between myself and the Duke. My enchanted blade remained raised until the child’s soldiers moved into formation, positioning themselves between me and the duke. Only then did I lower the weapon and look away from the duke, sheathing it with a deliberate motion. I watched as two silver-realm heart core Awakeners descended, a teenage boy who couldn’t have been older than sixteen carried between them.

He stood slightly taller than me, his chubby frame hinting at a life of ease and wealth. His blond hair was cropped short and coiffed to perfection, complementing a luxurious uniform crafted with golden threads and gemstones that refracted sunlight into dazzling rainbows. His skin was flawlessly pale, its uniformity accentuating the striking mismatch of his blue and brown heterochromia eyes.

There was something vaguely familiar about him—not his appearance, but his movements. The thoughtful tap of his chin, the cocky swagger as he approached despite being clearly weaker, and most notably, the devious half-smile curling his lips all triggered a sense of recognition.

“Ah, Lady Lilliana. Duke Granger. I am delighted to see that the two of you have become acquainted so swiftly!” The boy’s tone was jovial enough, but the stiff smile on his face never reached the cold calculation in his eyes.

Duke Granger, without so much as glancing my way, dropped to his knees before the young boy. “I beg forgiveness for my outburst, Your Highness.”

I, however, did not kneel. Part of it was sheer defiance, but mostly, I had no clue who the boy was beyond being of royal blood from some nation.

The princeling coughed awkwardly. After a moment of silence, he summoned a small golden circlet from thin air and placed it upon his perfectly combed hair. Energy surged from the golden band in powerful waves the moment it settled atop his finely combed hair. The air around me thickened, dense with a profound aura that pressed down on me. I gritted my teeth and stood against the weight bearing down on me, refusing to kneel for as long as I could. Eventually, it brought me down to a knee despite my best efforts.

“You truly are strong to resist an ancient artifact, Lady Lilliana,” he said, the pressure slowly lifting. I eyed the circlet with a frown.

That was the pressure of a high-realm Awakener’s Authority. How is an artifact producing this?

“I believe it would be best for both of you to return to your seats,” he suggested. When I didn’t respond, he snapped his fingers, as if recalling something. “Ah, yes. I didn’t introduce myself. I am Prince Acker, third in line to the Kingdom of Tenebris, and fiancé to Princess Isla, whom I believe you know.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I glanced toward where he pointed and saw the striking princess staring back, her long blonde hair billowing in the wind from the city. Even from this distance, I could see her viridian green eyes widen, likely as she realized who I was—undoubtedly struggling to reconcile how old I looked.

Shit. I wasn’t ready for that to come to light. Lilliana had lived most of her life in obscurity, so few had any concept of her age or appearance. My first real introduction to society had been in Cael, far from the Lysorian people and nobility.

A few lesser noble daughters might have seen me at Silverwater parties or celebrations, but I doubted they remembered me well.

Princess Isla, however, I suspected, remembered me quite clearly.

I sighed and rose to my feet, rotating my neck and massaging the muscles. The golden circlet’s Authority activated the moment my feet touched the ground, but this time, I was ready. I released a wave of my own Authority.

The power from the circlet was greater than mine, but it mattered little. It wasn’t strong enough to break through my sphere of influence—only to limit its expansion.

The fact that the circlet wielded Authority instead of establishing a Domain suggested the creator was likely high Gold realm at most. Any Platinum realm Awakener could establish a Domain with their Authority, without bothering with something as basic as this.

“Hmmm,” the princeling mused, raising an eyebrow at my refusal to kneel and his inability to force me.

“It seems a bit out of place for me to kneel to you,” I observed, “seeing as you’re not the prince of my nation.”

“But I am still a prince, and one engaged to your princess.”

I shrugged. “I have no desire to show reverence—or…” I glanced at the northern duke with scorn, “submission to a foreign royal.”

The duke scowled but kept his gaze lowered.

That’s odd. Why is a Lysorian duke acting so submissive to a mere prince from another country?

As I silently judged the princeling, the air around him shimmered, rippling like a distortion in the fabric of reality. Just for a fraction of a second, his skin turned blue. Blue. His eyes flickered yellow, and his face briefly twisted into a younger, smoother version of the High Pandorians I had killed.

But then the distortions vanished, and Prince Acker stood before me again, smiling and chuckling pleasantly as he motioned for Duke Granger to rise.

“It’s no issue. No insult taken, Lady Lilliana. Your point is valid.” He swept his arms in a grand gesture, his voice booming across the Colosseum. It was then I realized that our voices had stopped echoing when Prince Acker—or whoever he truly was—halted me from killing the Duke. “I’ve spoken with the officials, and they’ve ruled this a forfeiture by Lady Bellatrix Granger due to interference from her father. Nasq, the self-proclaimed Sorcerer Supreme, would have faced a penalty had this been an earlier match, but seeing as Lady Granger is alive and well, no harm, no foul. The winner of the Advanced Tier is Nasq, the Sorcerer Supreme!”

The crowd, still confused, took a moment to react. It began with Nida shouting his title from our section. Her triumphant cheers were soon joined by thousands of voices—some jubilant over his win, others lamenting the money they lost from Lady Bellatrix’s defeat.

He never consulted any judges, I thought, biting the inside of my cheek as I made my way to the stadium’s outer walls, leaning against them since there was no point in returning to my seat since only fights in the expert tier remained. There wasn't enough time to confer with anyone.

“Alright folks, with the judge’s ruling, we now know who the strongest Advanced Tier fighter in the Alistar Territory is! Let’s give another round of applause for Nasq, the Sorcerer Supreme!” The crowd cheered again, but the earlier enthusiasm had dwindled, as many were either leaving for food or waiting impatiently for the Expert Tier to begin. “Our next division is the Expert Tier, for those with Silver realm energy cores and second-realm mana cores. Unlike the previous tiers, we have a very limited amount of participants! Expert tier fighters are extraordinarily difficult to find, but we've found a whopping twenty-four of them! The first round will have all twenty four of them split up into 3 groups, with eight in each group. The winners of each group will face off in a three-way battle royal for the ultimate victory."

I snorted. There were definitely more than that in Elyndor. There were more than that in the armed forces Duke Alistar had brought to Sealrite. I estimated there were likely close to fifty or so silver and second-realm soldiers under the Alistar banner, not including those who had gone to Sealrite. Silver or second-realm fighters were rare, but around so much high nobility they were proving to be more common than usual. At least in Elyndor, for the duration of the tournament.

But, I supposed, higher-ranked soldiers like generals and royal guards had better things to do than fight in a tournament for the masses.

As the other silver and second-realm fighters trickled into the stadium, my confidence grew. Most of them had just broken through, not having formed even a single heart or mana ring. A few were middling, but to match the strength my core gained from the purity of my heart energy, they would need to be at least on the verge of the Gold realm.

Which, thankfully, they were not.

There were less than a half dozen that threatened me, and only half of those anywhere near the gold realm.

Jarold began listing names and directing the fighters to their assigned stages. Twenty-one of them milled about, wandering toward their spots.

Only three remained, unmoving, even as their names and places of combat were called.

One of them was me. I was still staring at the departing Prince Acker, watching as his escorts flanked him, gently floating him back to his seat. The two escorts wore similarly luxurious golden threads, but lacked the gems or jewelry of their sire's own. I tried to sense their core levels, but there was an odd obscurity surrounding them.

That obscurity felt… nostalgic.

Nasq groaned, and I tore my gaze away from the familiar prince and his escorts. Two healers had knelt beside him, their hands emanating a myriad of green and gold magic that seemed to melt into his wounds.

Most of which hadn’t been caused by Lady Bellatrix Granger.

The second was Duke Granger, who had immediately turned to his daughter, leading a small group of emergency healers to attend to her. She hadn’t yet been escorted out, but they were being overly cautious, likely not wanting to move her until she was fully healed lest they incur the wrath of the Northern Duke.

How terrifying, I thought, resisting the urge to roll my eyes as Hannah had.

The third presence I noticed only when a slight burning sensation prickled the back of my neck. When I shifted my gaze, I spotted a woman I knew to be a handful of years older than Lilliana. She glared at me with a deep, nearly tangible hatred that hung in the space between us. Bloodlust oozed from her green eyes as if she was trying to pierce through me.

But what stood out most were the tight brown curls that bobbed with each movement.

Lilliana’s soul seethed at the sight of her—burning with a pit of rage and hate equal to the woman’s own.

Morgana Silverwater.

It seemed I’d be able to kill two birds with one stone after all.