Chapter 44: Pure Garnet
The Harem System's silence was that of an executioner who had already dropped the blade.
Lianza blinked behind her glasses. She tried to materialize ice for a third time. Her garnet Empero trembled, unstable, but nothing froze.
The cold did not answer her call.
Durannor advanced.
He charged Empero into his fists and struck the air. Was it physical type?
A cutting wind blast crossed the circle at the speed of a whip crack.
Without time to concentrate Empero to defend herself, Lianza tried to dodge. Her reflexes were good, but Durannor's wind was faster. The blast hit her left side. It made her stagger two steps backward. Her hand went to her ribs.
My fists clenched so hard that the bandages on my right hand stained red. My nails dug into my palms. I wanted to scream. I wanted to manifest my Empero in my fists and smash Durannor's face. But I was outside the circle. And Duralianne was there, watching the match attentively, her pink Empero pulsing, ready to stop any interference.
Durannor smiled. He was the typical noble, not as arrogant as Ardwyn, but enough to refuse being beaten by a girl, for any reason.
He charged both fists. His grayish-blue Empero thickened around his hands. He released six consecutive blasts.
Lianza couldn't dodge them all. The third grazed her shoulder. The fifth hit her squarely in the ribs.
The sound of the wind tearing her dress and her side reached my ears. The air abandoned her lungs. She fell to her knees on the sand.
"Lianza!"
The voice escaped me before I could stop it. Half the class turned toward me.
Ardwyn looked calm. How was it possible that imbecile didn't care about his fiancée?
Layda, on the other hand, couldn't stop smiling. She was surely having the time of her life, watching the villainess of her story suffer.
Lianza raised her head. Her hair had come loose from the ponytail she usually wore in Professor Duralianne's classes.
She looked at me.
Her garnet eyes were moist.
Perhaps many thought that moisture was from pain. But my Lianza didn't cry over such things. The tears harbored in her eyes were from humiliation. She couldn't allow House D'Tariel to be defeated by a simple noble from a simple house with a simple Empero ability that was far from knowing how to use.
'Don't intervene,' her eyes said. 'Don't you dare, Dariel Elcronne.'
Durannor approached. He raised his fist. The gray Empero concentrated on his knuckles. If that blow reached her face, it would break her nose... or her jaw.
Lianza closed her eyes. A situation like this wouldn't make her yield. Not her.
She concentrated.
And then she did something I hadn't seen from her in all the times I read The Throne of Ashes and Thorns.
Her garnet Empero stopped trembling. It stabilized, and the red aura surrounding her compressed until it became a solid layer of pure density. It was pure Empero pushed to the limit for the best possible defense.
Durannor's fist struck the garnet barrier.
The sound of the impact expanded around. A bronze bell struck with a hammer. Durannor screamed. His hand bounced back. The bones in his fingers crunched.
He recoiled, shaking his hand in the air.
Lianza stood up. Her Empero rippled around her like a moonless night tide. Calm. Although she couldn't produce ice, she had the second largest Empero reserve in all of Mayorka. And unlike our crown prince, she did have a high level of control.
Now it was her turn to advance.
Durannor struck the air rapidly, retreating before Lianza's advance: since he didn't fully concentrate his Empero, the blasts were weaker. He chose quantity over quality.
A decision only someone who had already lost the mental battle could make. After all, how was he supposed to pierce Lianza's thick defense with such weak blasts?
Lianza walked through those blasts; they dissipated against her condensed aura like waves against a rock.
Lianza raised her hand, concentrating Empero in her palm.
And struck with the open palm.
Durannor crossed his arms, but the difference was too much.
The impact lifted him off the ground. He flew two meters backward and fell flat on his back outside the arena.
He didn't move.
Silence.
Duralianne raised a hand.
"Match over!" Although she said it with her typical soft but firm voice, there was a spark of surprise in her pink eyes. "Winner: Princess Lianza D'Tariel."
Lianza remained standing. Her Empero retracted. Her right hand went to her left side, which wouldn't stop bleeding.
If the match had lasted a few more seconds... she would have undoubtedly lost, or could have even been seriously injured if she lost consciousness mid-fight.
She pressed her lips and, without bowing, greeting, or uttering a single word, turned around and walked toward the circle's exit.
Her steps were like those of a wounded animal: they wobbled, and you could see, even feel, the pain that each of those steps cost her.
Each of her breaths was ragged, almost a gasp. Her hand pressed against her ribs.
Duralianne stopped her with a gesture.
"Look at yourself, sweetness. Those blasts were undoubtedly strong. I wonder why you didn't use your ice. Were you trying to prove a point?" Duralianne sighed, shaking her head. "Oh, darling. You nobles, with your ego and status and reputation and all those things that only limit your Empero growth."
"As expected of my fiancée," Ardwyn said, approaching Lianza. "She can even endure those wounds for h—"
"Silence, Ardwyn V of Jahke," Duralianne ordered, her Empero waving aggressively. "Lianza, you need to go to the infirmary."
"I'm fine, Professor."
"That wasn't a suggestion. I just ordered you to go to the infirmary."
Lianza didn't reply. She nodded once and walked toward the exit. Her steps grew slower by the second.
Turning toward Ardwyn, I found him conversing with a group of students. As always, as long as he was the center of attention, he cared little about what happened around him.
Did no one else notice?
If they let Lianza go alone, she would end up...
I went after her.
"The Empero Council is in Mayorka's central tower, Elcronne," Professor Duralianne told me upon noticing I was going after Lianza, who was heading to the east infirmary.
"I need to go change my bandages," I said, pointing at my wounded hand, which had just bled from the rage of seeing my Lianza be hurt.
And, as her faithful bodyguard, as the only person going after that girl who couldn't afford to lose even a training match due to the weight of her reputation, I followed her.
As I had always done, and as I always would.