Chapter 244: Shadows, Interrogations, and Dangerous Flirts

Amelia blinked. Once. Twice.

For the first hundred and fifty years of her life, no one, not kings of empires, not high Blessed generals, not even arrogant Eternal Blessed who thought themselves gods, not even King Allister himself, had ever spoken to her with such breezy, unfiltered cheekiness.

Let alone openly flirted with her while standing in the middle of her private execution aura. People bowed. People knelt. People begged for mercy. People stuttered. No one flirted.

A dangerous, dark heat flushed across her pale cheeks, a faint pink that was almost invisible against her porcelain skin but was definitely there. Her white eyes flickered.

"You have a remarkably loose tongue for a student standing inside the most secure office in the Aether Empire," Amelia said, her voice dropping an octave as a lethal, crackling aura of dark red mana began to wrap around her fingertips.

The red mana sparked like tiny lightning bolts, sizzling. "A tongue that could get cut out."

"It’s not loose, it’s just honest," Lynx chuckled, flashing a brilliant, charming smile that only he seemed to find hilarious in this deadly situation. He took a half step closer, hands still in pockets.

"Come on, admit it. You appreciate a guy who isn’t shaking in his boots when you stare at him with those cool white contacts. Most guys would be crying by now. I saw some professors cry once when you looked at them, and it was not even physically."

Contacts?!

Amelia’s eye twitched violently. A vein almost popped on her forehead. Did this brat just call my natural, divine Eternal-rank eyes, eyes that were blessed by the Goddess Shiva themselves... contacts?.

Those eyes that saints feared, that had seen the birth and death of empires, that children had nightmares about?

"You are testing my patience, boy," Amelia whispered, her voice tightening, her fingers curling into a fist, the dark red mana crackling louder.

"Testing?" Lynx stepped a fraction closer, his Eternal Charm washing over the space between them like an intoxicating wave, making the thick air feel strangely sweet, like summer fruit.

"I’m just getting started, Headmistress. If we’re gonna be spending a lot of time together this semester, and I have a feeling we will, fate keeps throwing us together, we should be honest with each other. You think I’m hot, I think you’re hot. Let’s work with that."

Amelia’s jaw actually dropped a millimeter. Then she snapped it shut.

"Quiet," Amelia commanded, her white eyes narrowing into cold slits as she moved around her desk to shorten the distance between them, her coat swaying, her scent of ozone and coffee getting stronger.

She needed to understand what made this boy tick. The flirting was distracting her, which annoyed her even more, because no one had ever distracted her.

"Let us skip the pleasantries, Lynx. Enough games. I have read your records. I have watched your tournament matches frame by frame. I have read every report from Rose, Selene, Brutus, Jace. I have your blood samples from the infirmary after the ascension trial that mysteriously evaporated."

She looked at him deeply. "I know you are far above the standard A-rank baseline you displayed when you first arrived at this academy. But explain something to me, how does an eighteen-year-old boy rise from the dead with a mysterious silver sigil on his forehead, comprehend multiple high-tier affinities that take masters many years to learn, and treat veteran instructors like children in sparring?"

Lynx met her intense gaze without a shred of hesitation. He leaned casually against the corner of her black marble desk, invading her personal space just enough to test her boundaries, his elbow almost touching her arm, his shoulder almost brushing hers.

"Hard work, good genes, and a very active social life," Lynx replied smoothly, his eyes never leaving hers, his grin never fading.

Amelia let out a dry, incredulous huff, a sound that was half laugh, half scoff, half growl. "Good genes do not grant you immunity to soul scans, nor do they let you shatter standard power scales that have existed for a thousand years. Good genes don’t make your blood evaporate under a microscope.

Are you working with an ancient faction? Are you a reincarnated Blessed from another Continent? Are you a weapon sent by the King to spy on me? Answer me honestly, Azarion, before I decide you are a threat."

"If I told you I was just naturally built different, would you believe me?" Lynx grinned, tilting his head, his silver-blue eyes sparkling with pure mischief. "Like, top-tier genetics, protein shakes, and positive thinking?"

"Protein shakes," Amelia repeated flatly, staring at him like he was insane.

"Yeah, extra protein," Lynx nodded seriously.

Amelia stared at him for a long, long second. Then she pinched the bridge of her nose with her gloved fingers.

"You are an absolute enigma, Lynx Azarion," Amelia murmured, her voice softening just a fraction as she studied the sharp, flawless lines of his face, his jawline, his lips, the way his hair fell.

"A walking catastrophe that my academy somehow managed to harbor. You should not exist. By all known laws of mana, biology, and soul theory, you should be dead or in a test tube."

"Consider it your lucky day then," Lynx laughed softly. "Most academies get a mascot. You got me. Though I have to ask... how does the great Tyrant Empress spend her nights when she’s not buried under stacks of academy paperwork and bitter coffee? You look like you need a hobby. Or a vacation. Or a drink. With me."

Amelia blinked again, genuinely taken aback by his relentless pivot back to personal banter. Her interrogation was being derailed by flirting and she was letting it happen. "My private life is none of your concern, boy. I don’t have nights. I have eternal paperwork."

"Ouch. ’Boy,’ again," Lynx teased, placing a hand dramatically over his chest as if wounded, as if she shot him. "After all the emotional bonding we just did through your aura? I thought we were on a first-name basis. Can I call you Amelia? It suits you. Amelia. It’s pretty. Soft. Unlike your office."

Amelia.

The name rolled off his tongue with casual, intimate familiarity, as if he had called her that a hundred times before, as if they were lovers.

Amelia’s internal composure, guarded for centuries behind walls of pure absolute authority, shattered completely. Her white eyes widened and her lips parted.

"How dare you—" she started.

"Amelia, Amelia, Amelia," Lynx said, enjoying the way her eye twitched each time. "See? Rolls off the tongue. You should let people call you that more often. It’s less scary than Headmistress or ’Tyrant Empress who will crush your skull’."

That was the absolute breaking point.