"So," Liora said. She was smiling, but the smile did not quite reach her eyes. "You grabbed her waist."
Liam took a sip from his water bottle. The training room was quiet now. Silas had escorted Vespera to the locker rooms so she could change out of her ruined combat suit, leaving Liam and Liora alone on the observation deck.
"It was a tactical necessity," Liam said evenly. He swallowed the water and capped the bottle. "Her Frost Aegis is powered by a central mana valve located above her left hip. If I didn’t disrupt it, she would have frozen my arm off."
Liora tilted her head, her silver hair spilling over her shoulder. "A tactical necessity. To grab her waist. And pin her to the floor."
"Yes."
"While staring deeply into her eyes."
Liam frowned. "I was monitoring her pupil dilation to ensure she wasn’t casting a silent spell. It’s basic threat assessment."
The golden System window popped into the air right between them, practically vibrating with digital smugness.
[Bullshit Detected.]
[You enjoyed it. I saw your heart rate spike, Sovereign. Don’t lie to the cute healer.]
Liam casually waved his hand right through the holographic screen, dismissing it before Liora could wonder why he was glaring at thin air.
"Liam," Liora sighed, the fake smile dropping into an expression of genuine exhaustion. She pulled the oversized jacket tighter around her shoulders. "You have been weird since this morning. You went from ignoring me for three years to kissing me on a stage, killing a monster, and then physically dominating the heir of the Hunter Association."
She leaned back in her chair and looked up at the ceiling. "I’m just trying to figure out if you’re actually a secret psycho, or if you just have zero idea how normal people act."
Liam thought about it for a second. In his past life, he had literally lived in dungeons for months at a time. He had eaten roasted goblin meat. He had spoken to exactly no one unless it was to threaten them.
"Probably the second one," Liam admitted.
Liora let out a sudden, bright laugh.
It was a genuine sound that instantly made the room feel a lot warmer. The residual tension in her shoulders melted away.
"Okay. At least you’re honest. But next time you need to ’disrupt a mana valve,’ maybe warn a girl first. Vespera looked like she was going to kill you for it...or almost flustered."
"I highly doubt the latter," Liam said, though his hand subconsciously flexed. He could still remember the terrifyingly soft warmth of the Ice Queen’s waist.
The heavy doors to the observation deck slid open, saving Liam from having to dig himself any deeper.
Vespera walked in, dressed in a casual black turtleneck and tailored jeans.
The casual clothes made her look entirely normal, but the absolute zero glare she shot at Liam reminded him that she was still a walking natural disaster.
"Silas ordered food," Vespera said tightly, aggressively avoiding looking at his face. "Follow me to the penthouse. We have to go over the Gauntlet rules before Friday."
The safehouse penthouse was ridiculously lavish.
It looked less like a bunker and more like a billionaire’s vacation home, complete with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the glittering city skyline.
The security runes embedded in the glass glowed faintly, a quiet reminder that four major guilds were probably looking for them right now.
Silas had set out several boxes of pizza on the massive marble kitchen island. Not cheap takeout pizza, either.
This was artisan, wood-fired stuff with ingredients Liam couldn’t even pronounce.
"Eat," Vespera ordered, grabbing a slice of something involving truffles and taking a delicate bite.
Liam didn’t need to be told twice. His new body was burning calories at an insane rate, especially after siphoning Liora’s starlight and fighting a Category Five monster.
He grabbed two slices and leaned against the counter, practically inhaling the food. It tasted like heaven.
Dungeon rations tasted like salted cardboard. He had completely forgotten what real food was like.
Liora walked up next to him and picked up a slice with far more grace.
She bumped her shoulder against his lightly. "Pace yourself. You look like a stray dog that just found a butcher shop."
"I haven’t eaten properly in ten years," Liam mumbled around a mouthful of crust, instantly realizing his mistake.
Vespera raised an eyebrow from across the island. "You are twenty years old. Did your parents stop feeding you when you were ten?"
Liam swallowed dryly. "Metaphor speaking. My metabolism is aggressive."
The System chimed.
[Nice save. Truly, a master of deception. +1 to Charisma for not sounding like a total weirdo for once.]
"Right," Vespera said, clearly not buying a single word. She wiped her fingers on a napkin and tapped a button on the central console.
A holographic projection of the Novice Gauntlet arena sprang to life above the pizza boxes.
"The Novice Gauntlet starts in exactly forty-eight hours," Vespera explained, shifting completely back into her element. "It’s a survival tournament. Three hundred newly awakened rookies are dropped into a simulated C-Rank dungeon. The goal is to collect tokens from defeated monsters, or from other competitors. The top ten advance to the finals."
"Julian Vance will have a team," Liam observed, staring at the map. "The Silver Vanguard wouldn’t let their golden boy walk in without a pack of meat shields to gather tokens for him."
"Exactly," Vespera nodded, looking impressed. "He will have at least twenty Vanguard trainees funneling tokens to him. He won’t even have to fight the monsters. He just has to wait in the center of the map while his lackeys do the work."
Liora frowned, looking down at her half-eaten pizza. "That’s basically cheating."
"It’s politics," Vespera corrected smoothly. "But it gives us an opening. Julian is arrogant. He relies entirely on his heavy armor and his fire magic. Liam, your entire combat style is built on stealth and overwhelming single-point strikes."
"You want me to assassinate his team in the simulation," Liam said. It wasn’t a question.
Vespera smiled, a sharp, incredibly dangerous look that sent a weird jolt straight to Liam’s chest.
"I want you to become a ghost. I want you to steal every single token from his lackeys before they can reach him. I want Julian Vance to spend the entire tournament wandering around an empty forest, wondering why none of his friends are answering their comms. And then, when he is completely isolated..."
"I break his face on national television," Liam finished casually, picking up his third slice of pizza.
Vespera’s smile widened. "Precisely."
Liora looked back and forth between the two of them. She let out a small sigh, shaking her head.
"You two are terrifying when you agree on something. It’s off putting."
Liam looked at Vespera. Vespera looked at Liam.
For a split second, there was a shared spark of mutual respect. An understanding between two people who lived for the fight.
Vespera broke eye contact first, clearing her throat and crossing her arms.
"Get some rest tonight. Both of you. Silas has prepared the guest rooms down the hall. Tomorrow, we focus entirely on your mana capacity, Liam. If you run out of energy mid-tournament, Julian will fry you."
As the Ice Queen turned and walked briskly out of the kitchen, Liam felt a tug on his sleeve.
Liora was looking up at him, her blue eyes soft and entirely serious. "You don’t have to do this just to protect me, Liam. You could just run. Hide somewhere safe."
Liam looked down at her thinking about the loneliness of his past life and how he died in the dirt with no one to care that he did.
He reached out and gently flicked her forehead.
"Ouch!" Liora yelped, rubbing her head and pouting.
"I’m not running," Liam said simply. "Besides, I owe Julian a beating anyway. He scuffed my shoes at the Awakening Center."