"Marquis Xirgo was a pivotal force in shaping Jeanne's evolution into a true antagonist," Amon reasoned silently, his mind spinning through complex narrative variables in a fraction of a second. "His fanatical hatred for cults eventually sets him on an inevitable collision course with her in a high-stakes, decisive battle—one that Jeanne barely wins through sheer desperation. In the original storyline, Xavier was built up with such immense presence that readers genuinely believed he was the ultimate final boss, right up until Jeanne brutally extinguished him."
Amon's blindfolded gaze remained subtly locked on the noble across the table, suppressing the surging, suffocating urge to tear the man's throat out right then and there.
"This man is insidiously double-faced and calculating, a strategist sharp enough to corner even Jeanne at her peak. Because he served as such an essential catalyst for her growth, I originally intended to leave him on the board untouched. But I made a critical miscalculation. I overlooked the sheer scale of the butterfly effect my interventions have caused. The cascade of paradoxes and the butterfly effect have warped character trajectories far beyond their intended parameters. And because of those structural shifts... Xavier developed feelings for Seraphina the moment he laid eyes on her."
A dark, twisted feeling expanded in Amon's chest, a possessive, predatory malice that threatened to destroy the Marquis. Yet on the surface, his expression didn't twitch; his lips held their faint, polite smile, and his hands rested casually against the table.
"I am going to tear him apart," Amon resolved, his internal voice dropping into a chilling promise. "How dare a pathetic piece of trash like him harbour even the slightest inclination toward MY Seraphina? She belongs to me—and me alone."
"Is something the matter, Mr Crown?" Xavier asked smoothly, noticing Amon's lingering silence and tilting his head slightly, the purple light catching his golden frames. "You've gone rather quiet."
"Not at all, Marquis," Amon replied smoothly, his tone pleasant and free of any hint of hostility. "I was simply reflecting on how remarkably efficient your territory management must be. To handle Crestline, Valen, and now Altresh simultaneously... it must take an incredible toll on your health."
Amon offered a small, almost comforting tilt of his head.
"Do take care of yourself, Marquis. Accidents can happen so suddenly when one spreads themselves too thin."
Jeanne's eyes flickered toward Amon for a fraction of a second, her sharp instincts picking up on the microscopic, razor-thin edge buried deep beneath his pleasant words. Beside him, Seraphina simply smiled, oblivious to the monstrous intent radiating off the boy beside her.
"Ah, I appreciate the concern, Mr Crown," Xavier chuckled politely, adjusting his necktie, completely unaware that his name had just been crossed off the world's living list. "I assure you, I am quite resilient."
"Enjoy the remainder of your brief existence," Amon thought behind his blindfold, taking a calm sip of the water placed before him. "Because I am going to erase you from history very soon."
. . .
Jeanne, Seraphina, and Amon were heading back to the Academy after finishing their meal at the café. Jeanne and Seraphina walked side-by-side, chatting casually, while Amon trailed silently a few paces behind them.
"What do you think happened to Amon?" Seraphina asked quietly, casting a quick, covert glance over her shoulder at Amon before turning her attention back to Jeanne. "He hasn't said a single word since we met that nice Marquis at the café..."
Jeanne remained silent for a beat, her sharp eyes fixed on the path ahead. She had picked up on a remarkably subtle shift in Amon's demeanour the precise moment she made that offhand joke regarding Xavier's subtle admiration for Seraphina.
Under normal circumstances, Amon was the definition of detached composure—aloof, rational, and carrying an almost arrogant air of nonchalance.
Yet, after that singular remark, the carefree lightness in his posture had entirely evaporated. In its place, buried beneath his usual calm exterior, lay a faint, almost imperceptible shadow of pure malice.
Truth be told, Jeanne had thrown out that jab as a deliberate test to gauge his reaction. She had fully expected him to brush it off with his usual passive indifference. Instead, the sudden spike of underlying venom—however expertly concealed—had been an eye-opening revelation.
"I think he's simply concerned about the Marquis," Jeanne remarked smoothly after a few moments of deliberate silence. "Marquis Xirgo certainly seemed like a busy man. It was quite generous of him to personally treat us to the signature delicacies from his café."
"Now that you mention it..." Seraphina murmured, her brow furrowing slightly as a thoughtful look settled over her face. "Jeanne, I don't know if this sounds strange to you, but... the Marquis didn't really feel like a good person to me."
Jeanne raised a brow, genuinely intrigued. "Oh? How so?"
"Well..." Seraphina reached up, lightly touching her neck in a gesture of lingering anxiety. "He... he gave off a very similar presence to you and Amon. Except... his vibe felt insidious."
She paused, taking a breath before continuing in a gentle, albeit slightly anxious tone. "You and Amon carry this mysterious, enigmatic aura, but I know deep down that you're both good people. Even if either of you ever did something terrible, I know you would have an undeniably valid reason behind it. But the Marquis didn't feel like that at all. He felt like the kind of person who would perform a good deed entirely for the wrong intentions..."
Jeanne's breath hitched slightly, though she masked it almost instantaneously. She looked at Seraphina with a mix of genuine surprise and subtle intrigue.
"Her intuition is terrifyingly sharp…"Jeanne thought, keeping her expression calm. "To perceive Xavier's true nature through his pleasant, aristocratic facade—and to group Amon, Xavier, and me in the same category of presence—is remarkable."
"Is that so?" Jeanne murmured, glancing back over her shoulder for a fraction of a second.
Amon was still trailing behind them, his hands tucked loosely into his pockets, his blindfolded gaze cast slightly toward the pavement. To an ordinary observer, he looked like a bored, aloof student lost in his thoughts. But to someone who was very observant, the relaxed posture was a facade overlaying a coiled, deadly malice.
"You have keen instincts, Sera," Jeanne continued smoothly, turning her attention back to the path ahead. "A man who rises to power by completely eradicating a rival noble family like Altresh is never purely 'nice.' It takes a certain kind of ruthless pragmatism to navigate those high-society waters."
"Right?" Seraphina sighed, a faint wave of relief washing over her face now that Jeanne hadn't dismissed her concerns. "When he was talking about taking down Marchioness Altresh, he smiled so casually... It gave me goosebumps. But I didn't want to sound rude while we were accepting his hospitality."
She slowed her pace slightly, letting her shoulders drop back until she was walking side-by-side with Amon instead of ahead of him. She reached out, her fingers gently brushing against his sleeve.
"Amon?" Seraphina called softly, tilting her head up toward his blindfolded face. "Are you alright? You've been so quiet."
Amon's subtle, suffocating malice evaporated in an instant, replaced by the effortless, serene aura he always wore around her. The rigid line of his shoulders relaxed, and a faint, warm smile curved his lips as he turned his head toward her touch.
"I'm perfectly fine, Sera," Amon replied, his voice rich and soothing, completely free of the dark intent that had been brewing inside him moments prior. "Just contemplating how best to optimise my time for the afternoon practicals."
"And how best to orchestrate a Marquis's tragic, untraceable demise," He added silently.
Jeanne watched the shift happen out of the corner of her eye, a dark, amused smirk tugging at the edge of her lips. The transition from pure, unadulterated hostility toward Xavier to such gentleness toward Seraphina had occurred in less than a heartbeat.
"So my instincts to drop that little jab were dead on," Jeanne thought, a chuckle echoing through her mind. "Working alongside you is going to be a pleasure, Amon~"
. . .
"What is this, Lucy?" Amon asked, his grip on her thesis paper tightening until the parchment crumpled under his fingers. "There is no mention of a universe's structural classification anywhere in this draft."
Even though his voice remained unsettlingly calm and his face betrayed no obvious emotion, the tight, white-knuckled grip on her paper told a drastically different story. He was thoroughly annoyed.
Following the end of their afternoon classes, Seraphina, Lucy, Calisto, Percy, and Amon had gathered in the Academy Library to tackle their mandatory Astronomy thesis—a hefty, eight-thousand-word assignment assigned by Professor Luthor and due by the end of the week.
The scope of the paper focused on the intricate hierarchy between the Higher and Lower Domains. The group had filed into the quiet study hall at five-thirty in the evening; it was now eight in the evening. Everyone had finally wrapped up their respective drafts—with Amon having casually finished his entire eight-thousand-word thesis in an hour and a half before volunteering to review the rest of their papers for fatal errors.
Having methodically combed through Seraphina, Calisto, and Percy's work, fixing their mistakes along the way, it was lastly Lucy's turn under his cold scrutiny.
The rest of the group watched the exchange with visibly mixed expressions. Seraphina and Calisto wore looks of mounting concern, while Percy sat back with a wide grin plastered across his face, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle.
"Why is the classification of a universe even that important?" Lucy asked, carelessly shrugging off his critique. "I'm sure the Professor will get the point and overlook a minor detail."
"And hand you a C-minus grade for your laziness," Amon countered, his blindfolded gaze fixed firmly on her.
"Why on earth would she give me a C-minus?" Lucy raised a brow, completely failing to grasp the weight of her oversight.
"Let's go back to the absolute basics," Amon said, his tone dropping an octave. "What is the most fundamental foundation of a multiverse?"
"A set of infinite universes," Lucy answered smoothly, leaning back in her chair.
"And how do you define a universe?" Amon questioned again.
"A universe is an infinite-sized cosmic body encompassing all of space, time, and their contents—including planets, stars, galaxies, and every form of matter and energy," Lucy recited with clarity. "A universe also possesses its own isolated space-time continuum and fundamental physical laws necessary for its operation. Without a space-time continuum and functioning laws, a universe is nothing more than a lifeless cosmic shell."
A vein visibly throbbed on Amon's forehead.
"When Professor Luthor opens your paper and realises you failed to write down the very foundation you just uttered out loud," Amon said, his voice dropping into a dangerously smooth register, "she won't just give you a C-minus—she will straight up call you a retard."
"Another critical detail you completely glossed over," Amon added, shoving Lucy's thesis paper back across the polished wooden table to her. "The foundational structure of every world across both the Lower and Higher Domains—in other words, the individual universes existing within those domains—is dynamically active. In simpler terms, every single one of those universes operates under its own distinct space-time continuum and set of fundamental physical laws."
"Geez!" Lucy huffed loudly, snatching up her paper with an annoyed huff and aggressively smoothing out the crumpled sections with her palms. "You know, you could actually try being nice about it for once!"
"When your brain capacity is entirely consumed by thoughts of Calisto and Percy, I can't help but speak to you like a child," Amon deadpanned, his expression utterly unbothered. "You have until 8:30 to rewrite those sections and fix your blunders."
"Haha, yer always teasin' her about Calisto and me," Percy chimed in, leaning back in his chair with an amused grin as he watched Lucy aggressively pull out her sleek black ballpoint pen and start editing her manuscript with a heavy pout. "What, do ya secretly wanna see both of us end up married to her or somethin'?"
"I genuinely would not wish the agony of being married to a klutz like her upon either of you," Amon replied smoothly, pulling his sleek smartphone from his coat pocket and tapping open his social media messages. "I bring it up solely because attacking her crush is the most effective method for penetrating that remarkably dense skull of hers."
"Well... I wouldn't actually mind marrying Lucy if it ever came down to it..." Calisto admitted softly, a faint, lingering flush spreading across his cheeks as he rubbed the back of his neck. "She's... a genuinely sweet and caring girl, after all..."
The entire table fell into a suffocating, dead silence.
Amon's hand froze mid-scroll, nearly dropping his smartphone onto the table. Seraphina stared at Calisto with wide, stunned eyes, her mouth slightly agape. Percy sat frozen in his seat, his habitual smirk completely wiped from his face in pure, unadulterated shock. Lucy, meanwhile, turned so aggressively red that her face rivalled the shade of a ripe tomato.
"Y-You...!" Lucy broke the suffocating quiet, her voice squeaking as she found herself entirely at a loss for words. "You idiot...!"
Unable to take the intense spotlight, she slammed her hands over her face, burying her head against the desk in a desperate attempt to die of sheer embarrassment.
"I wholeheartedly approve!" Seraphina declared, breaking into a bright, overjoyed beam as she clapped her hands together in delight.
"Uh..." Percy scratched his messy hair, his jaw working as he tried—and failed—to process the sudden plot twist. "Well... that was... completely out of nowhere..."
Amon lowered his phone, his blindfolded gaze locking onto Calisto as he silently analysed his posture and micro-expressions to determine if the boy was pulling an elaborate prank. But the raw, unscripted earnestness radiating from Calisto made it unmistakably clear: he wasn't joking in the slightest.
"What in the world..." Amon muttered under his breath, genuinely thrown off by the sheer randomness of the confession.
At that moment, Amon's phone began to vibrate, the loud ringtone shattering the awkwardness at the table. Glancing down at the screen, he saw Sophia's name flashing on the display. Suppressing the overwhelming urge to decline the call, he slid his thumb across the screen and brought the phone to his ear, well aware that she would relentlessly spam his line until he answered.
"Yes, what is it, Sophia?" Amon spoke, his tone smooth, composed, and utterly unbothered.
"Meet me at the Duelling Hall in five minutes," Sophia's voice rang out from the speaker.
Amon's brow twitched slightly. He immediately picked up on a subtle shift in her vocal cadence—she sounded noticeably more mature, her timbre carrying a deeper, richer resonance than before.
"O...kay?" Amon replied, a rare flicker of genuine confusion crossing his face.
He didn't need a map to read her intent; she was clearly calling him out for a match. Yet, to him, the conclusion was already written in stone. At this stage of the original narrative, Sophia stood zero chance against him. Granted, given the sheer cascade of paradoxes and butterfly effects reshaping the world, she had undoubtedly grown vastly stronger—likely reaching the absolute peak of S-Rank Magium Refinement and Capacity. But even with such an absurd leap in power, it was nowhere near enough to bridge the chasm between them.
"Good. Don't keep me waiting, my beloved~" Sophia purred softly from the other end, her voice dipping into a sultry, lingering murmur.
The instant those words left her lips, Amon ended the call without a second thought.
"Who was that?" Seraphina asked, tilting her head as she noticed the sudden shift in his mood.
"Just a minor inconvenience requiring my immediate disposal," Amon murmured, sliding his phone back into his academy robe's pocket.
He turned his blindfolded gaze back toward the table, specifically landing on Lucy, who was still burying her flushed face in her hands. "Lucy, you have precisely twenty-five minutes left to fix your thesis. If it isn't flawless by the time I return, I will personally rewrite it and put Calisto's name as co-author."
"Amon!" Lucy squeaked from behind her hands, her face somehow flushing an even deeper shade of red.
"I'm heading out for a brief moment," Amon said calmly, rising from his seat with his usual effortless grace. "Don't start a wedding ceremony while I am gone."
. . .
When Amon stepped into the expansive interior of the Duelling Hall, a rare flicker of genuine surprise rippled beneath his flawless composure.
The usual bustling noise of students was absent; the hall had been completely cordoned off. The only spectators present were the members of the Student Council, posted around the elevated gallery in tense, watchful silence. Standing dead centre in the middle of the duelling hall was Sophia.
Amon expertly masked his inner shock, but the sheer weight of the aura rolling off her was impossible to ignore.
"Her pressure... it is unfathomably more concentrated and dense than before," Amon calculated silently, analysing the invisible waves of raw magium rippling through the air. "Judging purely by this atmospheric weight, her Magium Refinement and Capacity have broken into SS-Rank."
As he closed the distance between them, stepping onto the outer edge of the hall's centre, his surprise deepened. Sophia's physical appearance had undergone an absolute metamorphosis.
Her face possessed a mesmerising, almost hypnotic beauty, framed by pale white hair that cascaded down her back like silk threads spun from moonlight. Her physique was dramatically more pronounced and sensual, exuding an effortless, dangerous allure. But it was her eyes that held the most striking change—radiating a vibrant, crystal-cyan hue, filled with intricate, snowflake-like starburst patterns and sparkling highlights that granted them an icy, gem-like luminosity.
"Good to see you, my beloved brother~" Sophia purred, her updated voice smooth, soothing, and laced with a sultry resonance that echoed softly across the quiet hall. "How do you like my new look?~"
"Mad Mind, what in the hell is going on here?" Amon demanded internally, calling upon his skill.
<< "The individual, Sophia Von Crown, has undergone an evolution," >> Mad Mind's mechanical, authoritative voice chimed instantly within his mind. << "She has consumed the heart of the SS-Rank Disaster Frost Dragon, Glaive, triggering a drastic metamorphosis. Her overall power output has escalated exponentially, elevating her Magium Refinement and Capacity to true SS-Rank status." >>
Amon kept his blindfolded face impassive, taking a slow step forward as he digested the skill's revelation.
"A Disaster Dragon heart..." Amon thought, a cold, dark smirk quietly forming behind his neutral expression. "Interesting…"
"You certainly know how to make an impression, Sophia," Amon replied smoothly, his tone cool, unbothered, and entirely unfazed by the suffocating SS-Rank aura flooding the room. He tucked one hand lazily into his pocket. "Though I doubt you called me all the way here just to show off your new looks."
"Of course not~" She chuckled softly, the sound rich, melodic, and echoing across the vast hall as she sauntered over to Amon with slow, deliberate strides. "I brought you here because I want to challenge you to a duel~"
She came to a stop directly in front of him, her height and voluptuous frame towering over him as she looked down with eyes burning with a madly affectionate, possessive intensity.
"Do you truly enjoy losing to me that much, Sophia?" Amon asked calmly, his blindfolded gaze tilted up toward her without a single trace of intimidation.
"I simply adore your strength, my beloved~" Sophia replied, leaning forward until her breath brushed against his cheek, her voice dropping into a sultry, dangerous whisper. "Every time, your showcase of strength only serves to ignite my determination anew. The glorious determination to break you... and make you mine for eternity~"
"And all for the sake of that perverted determination, you deliberately violated the delicate terms of the peace treaty with the Elyrian Empire just to purchase Glaive's heart off the black market using your personal fortune," Amon remarked in a low, measured tone, completely unfazed by her physical proximity or her suffocating pressure. "Mother and Father are hardly going to be pleased when they learn of your recklessness."
"Mother is already fully aware of it," Sophia chimed in, a triumphant, predatory grin spreading across her striking features. "She was admittedly furious at first, but she ultimately decided to let it slide—on the strict condition that I use this newfound power to protect my beloved little brother~"
"THIS WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN?!" Amon screamed internally, his mental composure utterly shattering for a split second behind his stoic mask. "MOTHER, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE THE VOICE OF REASON AND STOP THIS PSYCHOPATH! WHY ARE YOU ENCOURAGING HER?!"
"Is that so?" Amon murmured aloud, forcing his voice into an impossibly smooth, composed register despite the silent existential crisis raging within his mind. He took a single, deliberate step back to establish some breathing room, his blindfolded gaze fixed firmly on her. "It seems Mother's judgment has grown surprisingly lenient."
"Or perhaps she simply recognises who is best suited to keep you safe from the world's dangers," Sophia purred, raising her hand as atmospheric frost began to rapidly coalesce around her fingers in shimmering, intricate geometric patterns. "Now... shall we see if that pride of yours can withstand my new strength?"