Chương 32: The Sun-Blessed Saint Makes Her Entrance

The roar of a hundred thousand spectators packed into the stands of the Royal Solaris Arena exploded like thunder, shaking the solid marble slabs beneath the dais. Banners of hundreds of great houses and vassal kingdoms streamed through the air under the brilliant morning sun. Down the red-carpeted honor path, First Princess Eleanor Sophia de Solaris stepped out into the center of the dais.

She wore radiant gold-plated holy knight's armor set with rubies, her pristine white cape trimmed in gold rippling with each step. Her golden hair fell loose over her slender shoulders, and her exquisite face carried the flawless, standardized smile of a royal icon, perfected from the cradle. Every tilt of her head, every wave to the crowd, every calculated pause of her footsteps was timed to the centimeter to catch the finest angle of morning light. A flawless entrance, executed by a master of public image.

While the whole arena roared the princess's name in a frenzy, up in the third-tier VIP box on the western side — shaded and shielded from the wind by heavy velvet curtains — Lucian sat with one leg propped up on a leather footstool, a porcelain plate of dragon-cream pastries balanced in his hand. He had no interest in the cheering.

His only goal this morning was to sit, eat pastries, crack sunflower seeds, and wait for the organizers to finish the bracket draw so he could see whether his first-round opponent would be an easy bet to profit off. Lucian's eyes drifted to the radiant figure center-stage. The System v2. 0 display instantly scanned and pulled up her data.

[Target: First Princess Eleanor Sophia de Solaris] Level: 35 Rank: C — Monster (Approaching National-Tier) Physical Strength: 2, 110, 440 Speed: 3, 440, 115 Endurance: 2, 890, 000 Mana: 8, 900, 000 (Holy Light Bloodline) Spell Power: 6, 200, 000 Spell Control: 4, 100, 000 Combat Power: 24, 890, 110 (24. 8 Million) Twenty-four million, eight hundred ninety thousand. Lucian chewed his pastry and nodded, weighing it up.

Sixteen years old, combat power approaching National-tier, commanding the crown's most elite Holy Knight Order. Definitely his stiffest competition for the five-hundred-thousand-gold clean prize. At the center of the dais, Eleanor drew a deep breath. She slowly drew the royal Holy Sword from its sheath. The gold blade let out a pure, ringing chime, pointed straight up at the cloudless sky. She began the traditional opening ritual: the Purification of the Heavens.

A blinding surge of light-mana erupted from the blade, forming a massive golden pillar that pierced the clouds, radiant streams of light washing across the entire arena. The sky itself blazed as if a god had descended to grant a blessing. A hundred thousand spectators held their breath, ready to erupt into applause for this perfect, sacred moment. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. At that exact moment, in the western VIP box.

Lucian raised the last piece of dragon-cream pastry to his mouth, but the buttery cream made it too slippery to grip, and it slipped from his fingertips, tumbling toward the edge of the balcony railing. Two silver a pastry! Drop it, and that's two silver gone! The frugal instincts of a lifelong pragmatist fired instantly. Without a moment's thought, Lucian activated 'Silent Blink.' Blink.

The boy's form vanished from his chair and reappeared right at the railing's edge, snatching the falling pastry out of midair in exactly a tenth of a second, before stepping back to his seat. The entire motion happened faster than an invisible flash of lightning. Silent Blink left behind no sound, air pressure, or mana leakage. It still had to fold space.

For less than a hundredth of a second after Lucian reappeared, a razor-thin spatial gradient remained at the exit point — perfectly shaped by his absurd Spell Control, but normally too brief to matter. Eleanor's golden pillar of light crossed that exact point before the fold had fully relaxed. Snap! The light refracted.

The entire beam of holy light in the sky was suddenly bent forty-five degrees by Lucian's spatial lens, gathering into a blinding, seven-colored halo, breathtaking and sacred beyond words, pouring down and enveloping... exactly the spot where Lucian's armchair sat. Seven colors of light radiated off the ten-year-old, transforming the shaded corner of House Vance's balcony into the epicenter of a divine phenomenon, as if a god had just descended.

Eleanor's center-stage moment went dark instantly, its main light source stolen away. A hundred thousand spectators froze as one, then, as if by pure reflex, every single head turned away from Eleanor on the dais, all eyes locking, stunned, onto the seven-colored, radiant balcony belonging to House Vance. Gasps of astonishment rippled through the crowd.

"Look! The Seven-Colored Halo of Holy Light!"

"Not the princess... the divine light is bowing before that boy in the VIP box!"

"Who is that? Is that the legendary Great Sage?!" At the center of the dais, Eleanor still stood frozen, sword raised to the sky. The flawless smile on her lips froze solid. She stood alone in the shadow of a dais that had just been stripped of every last ray of light, her blue eyes wide, fixed on the third-floor balcony.

"???" Beneath the brilliant seven-colored halo, Lucian sat calmly in his chair, blowing an invisible speck of dust off his pastry before taking another satisfied bite. He glanced down and saw a hundred thousand people — Eleanor included — all staring at him like he was some kind of monster. Lucian swallowed the bite, a flicker of worry crossing his mind. Damn it... if I bent the princess's light and ruined the ceremony, does that mean I owe them for event costs?

On the dais, Eleanor's grip tightened on her Holy Sword's hilt. She was a military prodigy. She wasn't blindly swept up like the crowd around her. She could feel it clearly: her pillar of light hadn't shifted on its own. Something with an unbelievably dense spatial compression had forcibly bent it off course. The princess's blue eyes locked onto the flat, indifferent face of the ten-year-old boy sitting far off, calmly finishing his pastry. Her chest heaved.

Bending holy light at the molecular level without a single sound... Did he do that on purpose, to send me some kind of secret signal? This technique — bending light itself — could it be connected to the Nameless Knight's spatial refraction art from the book?! Their eyes met across the arena — one full of doubt, battle-hunger, and burning curiosity; the other full of wariness and quiet calculation about how to dodge a damage bill. Ting! A magical chime cut through the strange tension.

The High Priest's deep voice boomed across the arena's arcane sound system. [THE OPENING CEREMONY HAS CONCLUDED!] [ALL COMPETITORS, PLEASE PROCEED TO THE ARENA FLOOR FOR THE POWER ASSESSMENT AND SEEDING ROUND!] Eleanor slowly lowered her sword and turned to descend the dais steps, but her eyes never left House Vance's balcony, not for a single second. Lucian brushed the crumbs off his hands, set the silver plate down on the table, and stood with a sigh.

"Time to get to work. Hope the appraisal machine doesn't short-circuit."