Chapter 347: 347 Duke Evermoon

Chapter 347: Chapter 347 Duke Evermoon

Silence.

The entire coliseum stilled.

No commentary. No cheers. Just… stillness.

Confusion.

Shock.

Even the commentator had gone completely quiet.

On the space between both teams.

Nothing moved.

Except the hundreds of bone spears floating in the air.

They were as thick as javelins.

All of them glowed faintly with dark energy, swirling in concentric layers above the heads of the Group D team.

The temperature across the entire coliseum had dropped several degrees.

The commoners shivered.

The nobles sat rigid.

Then came the sound.

Not of battle.

But a single voice.

Calm.

Unrushed.

Michael.

He stood alone at the front of his team, eyes half-lidded as he looked toward the frozen nobles across from him.

“Should we continue?” he asked softly.

No one answered.

His voice wasn’t loud.

But it echoed across the arena like a hammer blow. Because every bone spear above the stage trembled at his words—like they were just waiting for a command to fall.

Rago, behind him, had one foot shifted backward, sweat breaking down his temple.

Tyran stared wide-eyed at the sky, gauntlets trembling.

Frell had nearly dropped his weapon.

And across from them, the noble team?

Still frozen.

Finally—finally—the commentator cleared his throat.

“Well,” the commentator said dryly, “I was going to say something like ‘Let the battle begin!’ But… apparently, the battle ended before I could even open my mouth.”

A burst of laughter broke through the tension from the crowd, scattered but growing.

Still, the tension hadn’t fully faded.

Because while the spears began to dissolve into drifting bone dust, the image of them—hundreds, formed instantly—lingered in everyone’s minds.

All of this was thanks to Michael’s understanding of magic.

If you cast a spell well enough—repeatedly, instinctively—even without fully grasping the theory, your subconscious begins to internalize it.

Eventually, you reach a point where a magic circle can form instantly, without gestures or incantations which Michael never even used.

Though Michael often relied on his spear and undead in combat, he never abandoned his identity as a mage.

He simply didn’t use it often—brute force had been more convenient.

“Victory… to Group B.”

A pause. Then, louder, with cheer, “And we’ll be taking a short break before the next match! Don’t go anywhere, folks—just a few, uh… logistics to sort out!”

A wave of disappointment rippled through the crowd. A break? Now? After that?

Boos followed—light at first, then swelling as spectators from the commoner stands expressed their frustration.

“Let them fight!”

But even as the cries grew louder, the buzz didn’t die. It intensified.

The air was electric.

People talked over one another, speculating, repeating what they’d just seen, describing the terrifying elegance of it.

Because Michael hadn’t just ended a fight.

He’d performed.

The beauty of it—the sheer, awful beauty of magic made visible, made deadly—had left them craving more.

It was the first real taste of spellwork the arena had seen today.

Back in the waiting rooms below the arena, the mood was wildly different.

“Wait… what?” one youth from Group A breathed, his face pale. “He’s a mage?”

“I’ve seen him fight before—he doesn’t cast spells!”

“He did now.”

From one of the corners, Dela—who had treated her injuries—stared at the illusion screen.

“…I thought he was just a physical-type,” she muttered.

“Knights can’t cast like that,” said Lionel, bandages wrapped tight around his arm. “Even most battle mages can’t. That was… something else.”

To avoid drawn out battles, the duke didn’t provide healers for the participants.

As long as they were not close to dying, only after the competition would they be healed or after forfeiting.

Even the elite nobles from the Earth Dragon Kingdom, who had looked down on the rest since the start, were unusually quiet.

Michael stepped back into the waiting room. He didn’t speak. Neither did anyone else.

Rago kept glancing at him sideways, jaw twitching, while Tyran hadn’t quite stopped looking at the entrance they’d walked through—as if expecting the bone spears to come back at any second. Frell just looked shaken.

No one congratulated Michael.

No one dared.

He sat down calmly, resting his spear against the wall like nothing had happened. And yet, even the silence that followed his arrival felt heavy.

Across the arena, far above the noise and crowds, two figures hovered unseen to mortal eyes. One of them wore long dark-red robes edged with silvery runes. His arms were crossed, but the corner of his lips twitched every few seconds—Mage Lian, trying very hard not to laugh.

Beside him stood a man in layered crimson and navy robes, embroidered with a subtle, glowing crest on his chest—the same sigil worn by the red and blue officials overseeing the tournament.

Duke Evermoon.

The Duke’s arms were behind his back, expression unreadable as he watched the arena below. His silver hair billowed softly in the wind.

Duke Evermoon.

To most in the capital, the name carried a weight that went far beyond his title.

In power, he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the other three dukes who formed the backbone of the Lionheart Kingdom’s nobility. But in influence and ambition, Evermoon surpassed them all.

He was no figurehead.

Not just a political schemer hidden behind papers and handshakes—he was a Grand Tier Mage in his own right, just like Mage Lian.

All agreed on one thing: the Duke of House Evermoon was dangerous.

In noble circles, he was called many things—”The Crimson Strategist,” “The Quiet Wolf,” “The Duke With No Chains.” Ambitious. Power-hungry. Calculating. But never foolish.

And that was why he had thrived for decades without slipping, without giving the court or royal family a clear reason to suppress him.

Well… until recently.

With the old king stepping down from the throne and the battle for succession quietly erupting beneath the surface, it was the rarest kind of opportunity. In a time like this, the one who could back the right prince to victory would rise beyond measure. Wealth, favor, positions—no price would be too high for loyalty that led to the crown.

Duke Evermoon had all three pillars of power needed to influence the throne: gold, renown, and powerful subordinates. If he moved carefully, and aligned with a few other forces, any prince he supported could practically walk into the throne room.

And what’s more… if the timing was right, even the king wouldn’t be able to stop it.

But for all his ambition, the Duke wasn’t without scars from the past. His earlier… bolder moves in court had nearly sparked a coalition against him. He’d pulled back, retreated into silence and neutrality for years. But now? The moment had returned.

This time, however, subtlety would win.

And it was during this cautious planning that the idea of family ties struck him. A marriage bond. A quiet string that could turn into a chain of loyalty. He, among the four dukes, was the only one with a daughter of age.

The problem?

He couldn’t openly offer her hand.

Doing so would alert the court—and worse, the other princes. They would use his intention against him, turn it into leverage, or worse, snatch the prize for themselves.

And so the competition was born.

The competition wasn’t just a spectacle.

It was a scheme. One crafted with deliberate care to favor a very specific candidate: the 13th Prince of Lionheart, a Grand Knight of twenty-five years with peerless reputation among the middle-tier nobility and enough charisma to sway the people.

He wasn’t the strongest of the princes in raw might—but in terms of balance, image, and reliability? He was ideal.

Duke Evermoon had watched him for years.

The competition was a perfect fit for him.

The requirements? Simple—but precise.

A minimum level of power. Enough to keep out weaklings and insignificant noble heirs. And a maximum age limit of twenty-five. A cut-off that conveniently eliminated most of the older princes and war heroes from the competition, narrowing the field exactly how the Duke wanted.

It should have been easy.

The prince was in the prime of his strength. His name was respected, his bloodline clean, his martial achievements already marked in border skirmishes.

He would have dominated the event without breaking stride, gaining favor with the crowd, impressing other nobles, and further legitimizing the Duke’s hidden hand.

But… the Duke made a mistake.

Contrary to what most believed, the old king hadn’t stepped down simply to pursue a peaceful retirement or focus on breaking through the Great Knight stage. That was the rumor—one he’d allowed to spread freely.

But the truth was far more dangerous.

It began with the discovery of a ruin—within the Lionheart Kingdom’s territory.

When the kingdom’s adventurers first found it, they believed it to be the remains of a Great Mage.

It was the remnant of a Legendary Mage.

A realm above even the Great Stage. A tier so rare, so unfathomably powerful, that only a handful of names across the entire continent—and just three in the history of the Black Serpent Empire—had ever reached it.

This wasn’t a ruin.

It was a legacy.

And it just happened to be where the duke’s plan started to fall apart.