Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra-Chapter 665: Mirellia Dane

Aurelian's grin faded into something sharper—less mirthful, more alert. "They weren't joking this time."

Selphine nodded slowly, her eyes narrowed as she scanned the updated projection. "No. This isn't drama anymore. This is war by design."

The illusion field zoomed in with an almost predatory focus. What had once been carefully curated biomes now churned into each other—acid lakes draining into collapsing forest paths, frozen peaks crumbling into molten fissures. The borders between trial zones buckled like stressed glass, fragments of sky itself shattering and raining down as flaming meteors.

And then—

The monsters came.

Not as scattered skirmishes.

But as waves.

Creatures poured out from the edges of the convergence zones—misshapen beasts of mana and tooth, spell-fused amalgamations that moved with purpose. Some crawled, others flew. A few phased in and out of existence entirely, flickering like strobe-lit ghosts. The sheer volume was staggering.

Candidates across the trial field broke formation—no more posturing, no more petty duels. This was about survival. Defensive wards flared. Screams echoed. Spells lit the landscape like festival fireworks, but the expressions of those casting them were anything but celebratory.

Selphine's lips pressed into a thin line. "They're being herded."

"Trapped," Aurelian muttered, leaning forward with both elbows on the table now. "Monsters at their backs, collapsing space in front. If they don't move, they're pincered. If they do, they might run straight into another death zone."

"And the convergence," Selphine said, pointing to the growing boundary ring on the illusion map, "is speeding up."

Selphine's eyes narrowed as another set of glyphs pulsed across the illusion display—names flickering out, one by one, followed by the same harsh stamp:

[ELIMINATED – Convergence Violation]

"That's the seventh name in two minutes," she said quietly.

Aurelian let out a slow breath. "They're dropping fast now."

From the start of Phase Two, the convergence field had been slow—deliberate. A steady narrowing of space that eliminated stragglers, mostly those already too injured to continue. Candidates who had fought too hard in the early days—bled out in monster skirmishes or worn down by rival clashes—had been left behind when the terrain turned against them. Those who couldn't cross the threshold in time had vanished in a searing pulse of evacuation magic.

And most had managed.

Until now.

Because now the convergence was no longer steady.

It was accelerating.

On the illusion map, the convergence edge pulsed visibly—no longer inching, but sweeping. A crimson dome slowly tightening from all sides, symmetrical to the constructed space, collapsing inward toward the very center of the trial field. Not a flat line. A dome of compression. A cage of slow, inevitable closure.

"Look at the radius pulses," Aurelian said, pointing to the illusion's overlay as a ripple of red scanned across the terrain. "It's not uniform anymore."

"Oh, so they did it like that…" Aurelian muttered, eyes flicking from one rune to the next on the projection's edge. "Now that I look at it, it makes sense."

Selphine arched a brow. "Layered radius compression paired with trigger pulses. They're not just collapsing space—they're listening to it."

"You mean reactive convergence?" Aurelian leaned in, a little too eagerly. "Of course. They must be feeding ambient mana density back into the dome's movement. The more stagnant the energy, the faster it collapses that section."

Selphine gave a small nod, something between professional approval and genuine intrigue. "I'd wager they're using a mirrored feedback array tied to the candidate population clusters. It's a controlled vacuum."

Aurelian gave a low whistle. "That's high-tier spatial design. No wonder they brought in the Arch-Magisters to stabilize the lattice."

It was the kind of thing only mages like them would notice—how artful the violence had become. Every collapse, every forced movement, every monster wave wasn't just chaos. It was crafted. A puzzle designed not just to test strength or endurance—but response to shifting control.

And then—

The projection changed.

The air around the plaza shifted with it, like a collective inhalation.

The camera panned to a forest trail half-drowned in mist and crimson bloom. A group of candidates huddled at the base of a shattered rock shelf, bloodied, exhausted. The monsters came like tides now—slavering beasts with mana-ripped limbs and jagged bodies stitched from elemental residue.

And holding the line between them—

Was him.

Reynald Vale.

"That guy," Aurelian said, sitting up straighter. "He's still going."

Selphine's expression didn't change, but her tone softened. "Of course he is."

The screen showed him mid-motion—a clean, downward arc of his blade as it bisected a lunging creature, before pivoting into a backward thrust to catch another. Every movement was deliberate, economical. Not showy. Not theatrical.

But measured.

Reynald's stance wasn't perfect, not like a royal tutor's demonstration—but it was the kind of posture that had been tempered by necessity, not drills. Each attack kept distance between the monsters and the wounded candidates behind him. His eyes flicked constantly—assessing, shielding, adjusting.

"He's got battlefield sense," Selphine said quietly. "That's rare in someone his age."

"And look at his footwork," Aurelian added, eyes tracking every shift. "Not trained like court knights. But not sloppy either. That's real-world form."

They watched as he slammed the pommel of his sword into a creature's jaw and turned with barely a pause, sword tip dragging a quick warding rune across the air before stepping back into guard.

"Back home," Selphine murmured, "my family's knights trained against constructs and stage duels. This guy isn't even lacking compared to them."

Aurelian nodded, his voice low, but sure. "He's not just fighting well. He's fighting smart. Every movement, every angle—he's conserving energy, protecting the others, adapting."

Selphine tilted her head slightly, studying Reynald's posture as he adjusted his stance again, positioning his body between a collapsed girl and a new wave of encroaching beasts. "No wasted effort. He knows exactly how much force to use to kill, and where to stand to take the hit instead of them."

Around them, more voices joined in—onlookers drawn to the same projection, expressions rapt with an emotion that wasn't just awe.

Respect.

A merchant with soot-smudged gloves murmured, "That boy's not just fighting to win. He's guarding them."

An elderly mage, cane resting against her knee, squinted up at the illusion and said, "He moves like someone who's already lost people. That's not courage. That's resolve."

A young boy sitting cross-legged on the cobblestone whispered, "He's like the old stories..."

From somewhere in the crowd, a nickname emerged—soft at first, then picked up by others.

| "The Bastion."

Aurelian heard it and let the word roll on his tongue. "Huh… The Bastion. That suits him."

Selphine nodded slowly. "Not a hero. Not a commander. Just the wall between ruin and the rest."

The projection flared again—Reynald launching into another engagement, sword flashing in a short arc, clean and brutal. One of the younger candidates behind him scrambled to her feet, clearly scared, but Reynald just shouted something over his shoulder and jerked his chin toward a safer path.

And she ran.

Alive.

Because of him.

"The Bastion," Aurelian repeated, quieter now.

And as the next wave hit and the convergence ring crept closer, the title didn't feel like fanfare.

It felt earned.

The projection pulsed again—marking a shift, a shimmer in the mana-weave. Reynald's quadrant receded into one side of the illusion sphere, and a new image swelled into view.

This time, it wasn't desperation the viewers saw.

It was momentum.

A group of candidates—six, maybe seven—were cutting a clean, deliberate path through the chaos. Unlike the scattered clusters elsewhere, this group moved as one. Fast. Cohesive. Efficient. Their spells weren't thrown in panic but woven with purpose—defensive barriers layered seamlessly, attack patterns overlapping without wasting a breath of mana.

And at their center—

A young woman.

She wasn't towering or armored, but the entire group shaped itself around her presence. The ground trembled as she stepped forward—vines, thick and thorned, bursting from the soil at her heels and surging outward like summoned serpents.

One wrapped around a construct's leg and yanked it backward, snapping its balance. Another group of vines coiled into a spiral shield, catching a mana spear mid-flight before dissolving into blooming petals.

Her control was not just strong—it was elegant.

Selphine's eyes narrowed slightly, then flicked to Aurelian. "You recognize her?"

"Of course I do," he said, already leaning forward. "She was in the southern bracket, early rounds. That's—I think her name was—"

[Mirellia Dane]