Chapter 246: What The Hell Are You

She looked across the room, her mana sense scanning wildly, expanding to cover the entire Spire.

Sitting comfortably in the center of her office, with one leg crossed casually over the other, with his hands resting on the armrests like a king, was Lynx Azarion.

He wasn’t on the floor. He was sitting right in her high-backed leather desk chair, the very seat of the Tyrant Empress, where no student had ever been permitted to even stand, let alone lounge around.

The chair was huge, made for her tall frame, and he looked almost too comfortable in it, like it was made for him.

And even more baffling... every single trace of dust, torn clothing, and the blood trickling from his nose had completely vanished.

His uniform was pristine again, as if freshly pressed by magic. His face was clean, perfect, no bruise. His Primordial Healing had reset his physical vessel to absolute peak perfection the exact microsecond he teleported, cleaning him completely.

Lynx rested his chin on his knuckles, flashing her a devastating, blindingly charming smile powered by his Eternal Charm, his eyes sparkling with victory.

"You know, Headmistress," Lynx drawled, his voice smooth as silk, echoing in the ruined office, "if you wanted to give me a lap dance or drag me into a wrestling match on my first visit, you really didn’t have to break your own furniture to do it. You could’ve just asked. I’m very open-minded. And I’m free on Thursdays."

Amelia stood frozen by the shattered wall. Her hand was still outstretched, still holding the shape of his neck. Her coat was dusty.

Her brain? honed by centuries of tactical warfare, political domination, and supreme rule, stalled completely. She had fought and killed different kinds of Blessed and Normal Beings, but she had never seen this. Never.

’He broke out of my Eternal-rank chokehold using a localized gravity micro-shift and blood-surface tension? And then he instantly healed his entire body, bypassed my spatial perception wards that even peak transcendent Blessed can’t see, and teleported... right into my personal chair?.’

For a full three seconds, the fierce, terrifying Tyrant Empress of the Aether Empire stood blinking at an eighteen-year-old boy sitting comfortably behind her desk, looking like he owned the place, looking like the Headmaster.

Then, a slow, furious twitch appeared at the corner of her eye. Her red lips pressed into a thin line. Her hands clenched into fists.

She lifted her right hand, the one that had just grabbed him, and shook it slightly as if trying to reset her own nerves, as if her own hand had betrayed her, as if it was contaminated by his weird gravity trick.

With a silent, swirling burst of dark smoke, she vanished from the rubble.

Swish.

She reappeared directly behind her desk. But instead of throwing another punch, instead of grabbing him again, she simply stared down at Lynx, her chest heaving heavily beneath her black-and-red coat, her voluptuous curves rising and falling with her rapid breath.

Her white eyes were wide, confused, furious, and fascinated all at once.

The silence in the room stretched thick and heavy. Dust settled slowly in the purple light. The crater in the floor smoked faintly.

And then, unexpectedly, Amelia let out a short, breathy huff of air that quickly dissolved into a rich, genuine laugh.

It wasn’t a cold, mocking sound. It was real, startled, and thoroughly amused. A sound that had not been heard in this office for decades, except with Celestial or Rose.

"You..." Amelia murmured, shaking her head as she leaned her hips back against the edge of the black marble desk, crossing her arms beneath her massive chest, which pushed it up even more. "You are genuinely out of your mind. Do you know that? Clinically. You are insane."

"I call it adaptive problem-solving," Lynx grinned, not moving an inch from her chair, looking up at her with a cheeky smile, his legs crossed. "You call it insane, I call it Tuesday."

Amelia crossed her arms tighter, her white eyes sweeping over him with a mixture of intense wariness and deep, undeniable fascination. She had never met anyone like him. And she had met everyone.

"You broke out of my grip. You manipulated gravity and surface blood within a microsecond. You healed a crushed windpipe and a broken jaw instantly without a single chant or mana circle. And then you had the sheer, unmitigated gall to teleport straight into my seat and flirt with me while bleeding. And make a joke about lap dances."

She paused, her bloody-red lips curving into a slow, dangerous, yet incredibly soft smile. A smile that was almost fond. Almost proud.

"You are only eighteen years old, Lynx Azarion. Eighteen. And yet... your underlying power scale, your instincts, and your sheer, terrifying resilience put you right up there among the strongest combatants in this entire empire. Do you even understand what you did?."

"Only among the strongest?" Lynx teased smoothly, raising an eyebrow, leaning forward in her chair, putting his elbows on her desk.

"Give me a week and I’ll be number one. Then you can call me Headmaster and I can sit here properly. This chair is actually pretty comfy. Needs a cup holder though."

Amelia let out a low snort, though there was zero heat behind it now. She was still breathing hard, but she was smiling despite herself.

"Don’t get ahead of yourself, boy," she warned playfully, though she made no move to kick him out of her chair. She actually seemed to like seeing him there.

"You’re a walking catastrophe wrapped in a pretty face. The moment you stepped foot into this academy, you turned the entire faculty upside down, rattled the tournament board, stole the hearts of half my female students and half my male instructors, and now you’re sitting in my office acting like you own the Central Spire. You even made Selene miss her meditation."

"Well," Lynx smiled, his heterochromatic eyes locking onto her white ones with magnetic warmth, his voice dropping to a soft, intimate murmur,

"if I’m going to conquer the continent, I might as well start at the top, right in the Headmistress’s office. Right here. With you. We could co-rule. You do paperwork, I do... morale."

Amelia stared at him for a long, quiet moment. Then her expression shifted back to serious, but with a playful edge.

"You still haven’t answered my question,"

Amelia said, tapping a black-gloved finger on her desk, leaning down closer to him, so close her coat brushed his knee. "How? How are you this strong at eighteen? I have seen prodigies. I was a prodigy. I was killing Transcendents at fourty."

She raised an eyebrow, "But you? You took a direct punch from me to the jaw and your jaw didn’t even shatter. It should have shattered. So tell me, what are you? What is that silver sigil? What is that healing? Because I swear, Lynx, I am one step away from just grabbing you, throwing you over my shoulder, dragging you down to the sealed lab under the Spire, and turning you into a lab rat. I have equipment down there that can peel apart souls."

Lynx leaned back in her chair, completely unfazed by the threat of being turned into a lab rat.

"Whoa, kinky," Lynx said with a wide grin. "Lab rat play? Is that what you do to all the cute boys who sit in your chair? First you choke them, then you dissect them? You’re moving fast, Headmistress. At least take me to dinner first before you peel my soul apart."

Amelia’s cheeks flushed pink again, darker this time.

"I’m being serious, you little menace!" Amelia snapped, but she was fighting a smile. "Do you have any idea how many anomalies you have? Your blood evaporates, your mana can’t be scanned, your healing leaves no trace, your teleport ignores my wards. So answer me. How?"

Lynx looked up at her, his smile softening just a little, becoming more sincere.

"Amelia," he said quietly, using her name again deliberately, making her white eyes flutter, "if I told you all my secrets right now, what would we talk about next time? Gotta keep some mystery, right? Keep you interested."

Amelia stared at him, then let out a frustrated growl that was almost a purr.

"You are infuriating," she muttered.

"You love it," Lynx shot back instantly.

"I do not—" Amelia started, then stopped herself, realizing she was arguing like a teenage girl. She took a deep breath. "You are lucky you are talented, Azarion. Any other student who sat in my chair would be ash by now. Literal ash."

"So I’m special?" Lynx grinned, standing up slowly from the chair, finally, stretching his tall frame. He was inches away from her now, standing in front of her desk. "Admit it. I’m your favorite problem student now."

Amelia looked up at him, her white eyes narrowing, but her lips were curved up.

"You are my biggest headache," she corrected. "And my most interesting anomaly. Don’t make me regret not actually snapping your neck when I had the chance."

"You didn’t have the chance," Lynx whispered teasingly, leaning in just enough that his breath brushed her cheek. "You had my neck, but you never had me."

Amelia’s breath hitched again. Her gloved hand twitched as if she wanted to grab him again, but she held back.

"Get out of my chair, you little menace," Amelia said finally, though her voice lacked any real bite. It was almost affectionate, almost breathless. "And get out of my office before I really do chain you to that lab table."

Lynx laughed, smoothly stepping back toward the center of the room, bowing with exaggerated flair like a prince. He left a faint warmth on her leather chair that she could feel.

"As you wish, Headmistress Amelia," Lynx said, winking. "But I’ll definitely be back for a rematch. And next time, I’ll bring coffee. The good kind, not that bitter poison you drink that tastes like burnt despair. And maybe I’ll let you win the wrestling match. Maybe."

"In your dreams, Azarion," Amelia smirked, watching him turn toward the obsidian door with a gaze she had never reserved for anyone else in her long, immortal life.

A gaze that was curious, fascinated, and slightly dangerous. "Don’t be late for the ceremony, and if you tell anyone you sat in my chair, I will actually dissect you."

Lynx opened the door, looked back over his shoulder with that devastating grin, and said, "Your chair, your lab, your heart... I’m coming for all of them."

Then he slipped out, leaving Amelia alone in her ruined, dusty office, with a shattered floor, a broken partition, a dusty coat, and a slow, uncontrollable smile spreading across her bloody-red lips.

She sat back down in her still-warm chair, touched the armrest where he had been sitting, and whispered to the empty room, "What the hell are you, Lynx Azarion?"