Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 827: What then ?

Valeria stood near the edge of the banquet hall, her form composed, her breath steady—but her eyes never left the dueling floor. The nobles around her whispered, gasped, drew sharp breaths with every clash of steel, but she remained unmoving. Still. Watching.

Because this…

This was Lucavion.

Exactly as she had expected.

The instant he had drawn that blade, she’d known the tone of the room would shift. Not because of flair. Not because of status.

But because when Lucavion held a sword, something inside him changed.

No—awakened.

She had seen it before. She had faced it before. The way he moved, the way he thought, it was nothing like the swordsmanship taught in towers and courts. Nothing like the flowing patterns of the noble styles. It was too real. Too brutal. Too fast. It wasn’t elegance—it was efficiency honed to a blade’s edge.

A monstrous kind of beauty.

That’s what made him terrifying.

And now, Rowen was feeling it.

She could see the tension in his stance—his blade no longer striking with the ease of demonstration, but with the pressure of necessity. His form, trained and proud, was beginning to stutter. Not because it was weak, but because it was being cornered.

Lucavion’s footwork was messy—but deliberate.

His angles strange—but fatal.

He danced like someone who learned to survive, not impress.

And Valeria could feel it from here. That rising, suffocating weight. The kind of pressure that could bend even pride.

’They don’t understand it,’ she thought, eyes scanning the stunned faces around her. ’They never did.’

These nobles had spent years mastering forms. Practicing their arcs and parries. Reciting footwork like scripture.

But Lucavion fought like war itself.

She knew—no matter how strong they were—most of them would lose to him in pure swordsmanship. Because they hadn’t bled in the kind of silence Lucavion had. They hadn’t learned their blade in shadows. In alleys. On killing fields and burnt soil.

’He’s different.’

And then—

—WHUUUMMMMM—

The sound rang out. Low. Dense. A wave that vibrated through the floor beneath her boots.

Valeria’s eyes sharpened instantly.

’That sound…’

Sword resonance.

The vibration that hummed through the metal, through the mana-infused steel, and into the bones of everyone watching.

Rowen had drawn it out.

Her lips pressed into a thin line.

’So he’s finally stopped holding back.’

Sword Resonance.

A technique reserved for the elite few—those who didn’t just wield a blade, but synchronized with it. The signature of the Drayke lineage. It was said that the rise of the Drayke family was built on that technique. That resonance alone had shattered the defenses of the northern rebellion decades ago. It had been one of the reasons they had eclipsed the Olarion name at court.

She had never seen it in person.

The resonance vibrated in her chest, soft but undeniable, like an old memory she couldn’t place. And for a brief moment, Valeria stood completely still—not because she didn’t understand what she was witnessing, but because she did.

Sword Resonance.

It was a technique that once belonged to her bloodline as well.

A whisper of her family’s past—now long gone.

She should have seen it before. Should have grown up with it etched into her bones like heritage, trained to it like breath. But she hadn’t. Because two hundred and fifty years ago… everything changed.

When the Olarion family failed.

When a faction among her ancestors, proud and furious, had turned their blades not outward but inward—challenging the very throne they were sworn to protect.

Treason.

That word had followed her name for centuries, carved into every scroll, every hallway, every polite smile that masked suspicion. It didn’t matter that it was generations ago. It didn’t matter that her branch had not been part of it. The Empire remembered.

And the punishment?

Swift. Unforgiving.

The Olarion name, once the right hand of the Crown, was stripped of its sacred duty—relieved of their post as the Empire’s official Sword and Shield. That responsibility, that honor, passed to another house.

The Draykes.

And with it, so too did the secrets.

The teachings.

The legacy.

Sword Resonance.

Once, the Olarion family had knights who could wield it. Once, the halls of her house had sung with the hum of blades vibrating in perfect harmony with the user’s spirit. It had been more than a technique. It had been a symbol—of loyalty, of strength, of a pact bound by iron and soul.

Now?

Now it was a relic of someone else’s name.

No knight of House Olarion had awakened Sword Resonance since the day of their disgrace.

She clenched her jaw slightly.

’How could they not see it?’ she thought. ’How could they not understand what it meant to lose that? What it meant to be forgotten?’

The nobles whispered around her still—awed by the display, by Rowen’s lineage, by the technique that had now become a standard of prestige.

But to her…

To her, it was a reminder.

Not of Rowen’s strength.

But of everything her family had lost.

Her eyes flicked back to Lucavion, watching as he weathered the wave of resonance bearing down on him. His posture didn’t falter. His presence didn’t shrink. He stood in the path of a legacy forged to crush men like him, and he smiled.

And in that moment—

Despite the difference in bloodline…

Despite the centuries of shame…

—Valeria felt a strange flicker in her chest.

Not hope. Not pride.

But a question:

What makes him different?

The question surfaced unbidden—sharp, cutting through the reverberations still humming in her chest.

What made Rowen Drayke—of all people—able to awaken that?

What was it that allowed his blade to sing while hers stayed silent?

Valeria’s fingers curled lightly, not into fists, but into stillness. A quiet rigidity. She kept her face neutral, eyes composed, posture perfect—because that was what was expected. That was what the Olarion heir had to be. Flawless in form, untouchable in grace.

But inside?

Something twisted.

Rowen’s sword shone with inherited brilliance, yes. But was that all it was? Inheritance? A technique passed down like a family crest?

And if so…

Why had her family failed to carry it forward?

Why had she?

She had trained harder than most. Pushed her body past exhaustion. Fought in conditions designed to strip away nobility and pride, just to find something—anything—that might stir that resonance within her.

But there had never been a hum.

Never even a flicker.

And for years, she had told herself it was time. That she simply needed more practice. More pressure. A worthy cause.

But now, watching Rowen summon it with a breath—with a name behind him that the Empire hadn’t doubted in centuries—those old excuses began to fray.

’What am I missing?’

Was it the technique? The blood? The trust of the Empire?

Or was it something crueler?

Something inherent?

Was there simply nothing left in her bloodline worth awakening?

The thought made her chest tighten. Not with shame—but with something far worse.

Emptiness.

Because there was no answer.

None she had ever been able to find.

The records in her family’s vaults were fractured. The sword manuals weathered. The rites once sacred had turned into ceremony without soul. And even when she had tried to rediscover the old ways, she had been met with silence. With quiet apologies. With eyes that said, “It’s gone now.”

But then—why him?

Why Rowen?

Why now?

What did he have that she didn’t?

That her father didn’t?

That generations of knights with Olarion blood had lacked?

She couldn’t say.

And that was what haunted her most.

Because for all her pride, for all her strength, she still didn’t know the answer.

Still couldn’t understand what had broken so completely that not a single knight in two hundred and fifty years could do what the Draykes now did with ease.

Her eyes stayed fixed on Lucavion.

Because at least he wasn’t born with it.

At least he had no legacy, no inherited brilliance.

Only steel.

Only will.

And in that moment, she almost preferred it.

Because if you fall short with nothing, you can rise.

But if you fall short with everything—with history and name and duty behind you—

What then?