Yuliana drew a deliberate breath, stepped forward, and slid herself between Jared and the tutor. Her voice remained calm, yet ripples of unease twitched beneath eyes.
“Mr. Chance, our student was indeed at fault first, yet severing an arm in public is… Extreme… Lord Gale holds considerable influence in Celestia. If this gets magnified, you will gain nothing…”
“Allow the academy physicians to treat the student now. I shall report the matter to the king and see it handled properly, will that suffice?” asked.
Gone was any notion of seeing Jared as a pawn. An Earthly Immortal Realm Level One cultivator who crushed an Earthly Immortal Realm Level Seven opponent while debating philosophy was clearly no one’s expendable piece. Even if served a faction, himself was surely a centerpiece.
Such a man must not be provoked, not until discovered what, exactly, wanted there. Jared spared Yuliana a brief glance, then fixed on Westley, who was clutching his mangled arm. “You called me worthless… Looking at you now, I see the true waste of talent. You were never worth my full strength.”
“Y-You!” Westley trembled from skull to heel, yet couldn’t step forward. Teeth grinding, hissed, “My father will never forgive this. You’ll regret it! Just wait!”
“I’ll wait,” Jared replied, voice flat as winter stone. “But the next time you flaunt empty bravado, I won’t stop at one arm.”
With nothing more to say, turned and walked toward the academy gates, dismissing the crowd as if they were autumn leaves on an already-swept path.
His back remained straight, almost regal. Though everyone knew stood at Earthly Immortal Realm Level One in terms of cultivation, every celestial cultivator present felt, with sudden certainty, that the heavens themselves would part rather than block his stride.
Yuliana’s gaze followed Jared’s retreating silhouette until the crowd swallowed him.
A tangle of emotions, frustration, admiration, grudging awe, churned in chest like storm clouds circling a single, stubborn ray of sun.
She had planned to use their casual tour of Celestia City as cover, hoping to trace whatever hidden power propped up.
At that moment, however, possessed nothing but blank pages where clues should have been.
First, crushed their scholars with effortless erudition, then cowed their warriors with one stroke of his blade, and finally, almost lazily, ripped the gilded mask off Celestia’s so-called noble etiquette.
“Why are you standing there? Move! Get Westley to the infirmary, now!” Yuliana spun, eyes hard as flint, and hissed at the wide-eyed tutors and students crowding the courtyard. “Not one word of this leaves the academy. If King Aurelius learns what happened here, none of you will escape the fallout!”
Startled into motion, they stumbled over one another, hoisting the moaning Westley and rushing toward the healers’ wing.
“Jared, wait!” Yuliana quickened steps until matched his stride. Her earlier hauteur had drained away, replaced by a sobering concern. “Wasn’t your strike a little too severe? Lord Gale serves beside the king and commands Celestia City’s defenses. If presses charges, even me may not be able to shield you.”
“Shield me?” Jared angled his head, offering a faint, almost playful smile. “Ms. Fiala, do you truly believe I need someone to stand between me and danger?”
The answer lodged in throat. No syllable felt adequate, or believable, after the killing aura had sensed moments earlier.
She could still feel that aura clinging to the memory of his sword, a chill forged in countless life-and-death battles, nothing like the tame energy cultivated by Celestia’s greenhouse-raised cultivators. His lethality was a storm front compared with their spring breeze.
They walked side by side through the streets of Celestia City.
Every passing cultivator felt that hint of storm about Jared and instinctively gave way, bowing their heads as though fearful of meeting the tempest’s eye.
“Tell me, Ms. Fiala, does the academy of Celestia always produce such ‘well-rounded’ students, arrogant when winning, and when beaten, hiding behind family crests and bloodlines? Is that the ‘nobility’ you boast of?” Jared said at last, voice calm yet edged.
“An individual lapse does not stain the entire Celestia,” Yuliana answered, color rising in cheeks. “For millennia, Celestia has honored courtesy, wisdom, loyalty, and faith. Some youngsters simply grow proud too soon.”
