"If killing me helps you achieve your destiny, Sera..." Ethan whispered, his voice dripping with tragic sincerity. He gently wrapped his hand around her trembling wrist. "Then cast it again."
He waited for the System to explode with notifications.
He waited for the tears to well up in her amber eyes. He waited for the dramatic realization that he was, in fact, a misunderstood martyr.
[Target: Seraphina Ignis is experiencing profound confusion!]
[Target's Murderous Intent is... remaining completely stable at 850%!]
Wait, what? Ethan blinked.
Seraphina didn't cry or even emotionally gasp. Instead, her glowing amber eyes narrowed into dangerous, analytical slits.
She ripped her wrist out of his grasp and took a step back, her gaze darting up and down his body like a scientist examining a cockroach that had just survived a nuclear blast.
"You have absolutely zero mana circulation," Seraphina muttered, completely ignoring his incredibly romantic, Oscar-worthy dialogue. "That was a Tier-4 spell. 'Cerulean Cremation'. It burns at three thousand degrees. It should have instantly vaporized your pathetic, mortal-realm flesh."
She leaned in closer, her eyes locking onto his right hand.
"An artifact," she concluded, her lips curling into a sneer of absolute disdain. She spotted the blackened, smoking ruby on his index finger. "A Nullification Ring. High-tier. Probably stolen from the royal treasury, you thieving rat."
Ethan swallowed hard. The '95 Charm' stat was completely useless against a woman who valued magical theory over romance.
"Sera, listen to me—"
"Don't you dare call me that," she snapped, the air around her warping with terrifying heat. "And don't insult my intelligence with that garbage about breaking our engagement for 'my destiny'. You broke it because the Academy demanded you pass a basic magical aptitude test, and you were too much of a coward to admit your core was crippled! You humiliated me to cover up your own inadequacy!"
[WARNING! Target's Murderous Intent has increased to 900%!]
[Host is generating 30 EXP per second!]
[Ring of the Salamander's Spite is on Cooldown: 23 Hours, 58 Minutes.]
Oh, crap, Ethan realized, his heart plummeting into his stomach. 'I overplayed my hand. She's not a righteous knight like Lysandra. She's a petty, vindictive genius!'
"Let's see if you have a second ring, Nox," Seraphina hissed.
She raised her hand again. The blue fire roared to life, twice as large as before. The heat was blistering, singeing the edges of Ethan's hair.
He couldn't dodge. He had 5 Agility. He was literally a sitting duck in a stone oven.
"Wait! Wait, wait, wait!" Ethan shouted, throwing his hands up in genuine, unadulterated panic.
"Burn in hell!" Seraphina roared, thrusting her hand forward.
The blue inferno shot toward his face. Ethan squeezed his eyes shut and braced for true death.
KRA-CRACK!
The temperature in the dungeon violently plummeted from a blast furnace to an arctic blizzard in a fraction of a second.
Ethan opened his eyes.
A massive, jagged wall of thick blue ice had erupted from the stone floor, completely separating him from Seraphina.
The blue fire slammed into the ice wall, creating a massive explosion of hissing, blinding steam.
"Step away from the prisoner, Ignis," a cold, authoritative voice echoed through the dungeon.
Through the dissipating steam, Lysandra Vance strode into the cell. Her silver armor was covered in a thin layer of frost, and her massive greatsword was drawn, radiating a freezing aura that combated Seraphina's heat.
"Get out of my way, Lysandra," Seraphina snarled, her fiery aura flaring up in challenge. "He's mine. I claim the right of execution."
"The execution is suspended," Lysandra replied, stepping between the ice wall and Seraphina, shielding Ethan with her own body. "He was poisoned with Black Lotus. And before that, he made a confession regarding a conspiracy involving the Crown and my family. He is state evidence now."
Seraphina let out a harsh, mocking laugh.
"A confession? Are you seriously telling me you bought whatever garbage fell out of his mouth? He's a liar! He has been lying since the day he was born!"
"I did not say I believed him," Lysandra said rigidly, though Ethan noticed her grip on her sword shifted nervously. "But if there is even a fraction of truth to his words, killing him now destroys the evidence."
"He's playing you, you muscle-brained idiot!" Seraphina yelled, her staff sparking with embers.
Ethan slid down the stone wall, pulling his knees to his chest to make himself as small a target as possible.
He let out a long, shaky breath, letting the two overpowered prodigies argue.
Thank God for residual memories, Ethan thought, wiping a bead of cold sweat from his forehead.
Seraphina was right. Ethan was playing Lysandra. But the best lies were wrapped in truth, and Ethan had a terrifying advantage.
When he had transmigrated, it hadn't just been a physical takeover.
The original Ethan Nox's memories had been unknowingly merging with his own, locked away behind a mental fog until the sheer terror of the guillotine had violently jarred them loose.
When he had dropped that "confession" in the courtyard, he hadn't just made it up out of thin air. He had tapped into a very real, highly classified secret the original Nox had discovered before his death.
The Emperor was actually terrified of the Vance family's military power and their royal bloodline.
The Emperor had secretly planned to purge them. The original Ethan Nox, being a greedy, opportunistic scumbag, simply caught wind of the plot and volunteered to do the Emperor's dirty work in exchange for the Vance family's wealth.
Our Ethan had just taken that authentic, dark memory and completely spun the context.
He painted himself not as the Emperor's willing lapdog, but as a tragic double-agent who ruined Lysandra's family just enough to save them from a complete imperial slaughter.
It was a masterclass in gaslighting, powered by the villain's own memories. But as Seraphina had just brutally reminded him, memory manipulation wasn't going to save him from everything.
"I am not leaving this dungeon without his head!" Seraphina screamed, raising her staff.
"If you cast another spell, Seraphina, I will treat it as an act of treason against the royal investigation," Lysandra warned, her greatsword humming with lethal, icy intent.
The two women stared each other down, the air between them literally warping as extreme heat and extreme cold violently clashed.
"Ladies, please!" Ethan coughed weakly, leaning his head against the bars. "I'm already dying. Just... let the poison do its work."
He wasn't dying.
The System had completely cleansed him. But he needed them to de-escalate before they accidentally leveled the entire dungeon with him inside it.
Lysandra glanced back at him, her eyes softening for a microsecond before she hardened her gaze toward the mage.
"The Grand Cleric is on his way. He will cast the Zone of Truth. If Nox is lying, the magic will reveal it, and you can burn him alive. But until then, he stays in this cell."
Seraphina stared at Lysandra for a long, tense moment.
Finally, with a disgusted click of her tongue, she lowered her hand. The fire in the room vanished, leaving only the damp, suffocating heat of the steam.
"Fine," Seraphina hissed, turning on her heel. She glared at Ethan through the dissipating fog. "Zone of Truth. You can't charm your way out of a divine spell, Nox. Enjoy your final hour."
She stormed out of the dungeon, her heels clicking aggressively up the stairs.
Lysandra stood in the cell for a moment longer, looking down at Ethan. She didn't say a word. She just sheathed her massive sword, turned, and walked out, locking the melted, twisted iron door as best she could behind her.
Ethan sat in the silence for a long time.
Slowly, his tiny System Guide materialized, wiping a tiny bead of sweat from her forehead.
[Well. That was close.]
"Too close," Ethan muttered, rubbing his chest. "I need to get stronger. Fast. Gaslighting only works if they give me a chance to speak. What is this Zone of Truth?"
[It's a Tier-5 Divine spell,] the Guide explained, pulling up a holographic chart.[Anyone inside the zone physically cannot speak a deliberate lie. If you try, the magic crushes your vocal cords.]
Ethan cursed. "So I can't lie. Which means Lysandra finds out I'm not a tragic hero, and Sera gets to roast me. Great. How do I beat it?"
[You overpower it. Spells in this world are dictated by Mana Realms. The Cleric is likely in the Earth Realm. If you can raise your Mana Realm high enough to resist his aura, you can beat the spell.]
Ethan pulled up his status.
[Mana: 150/150 - Awakened]
"Okay. My mana is awakened. How do I cultivate it? Do I meditate? Do I absorb a beast core?"
[You are a Transmigrator with a System, you idiot,] the fairy sighed, tapping her tiny clipboard.[You don't meditate. You buy stats. You have 50 System Points left after buying that ring. Furthermore...]
The System screen shifted, revealing a complex, glowing tree of magical pathways.
[The original Ethan Nox was considered a 'cripple' because he had no Elemental Affinity. But the System cleansed your body. You are a blank slate. To survive in this world, you need to form a Mana Core. And to do that, you must choose your starting Path.]
Three glowing icons appeared in front of Ethan's face.
[Path of the Spellblade (Focus: Agility/Mana)]
[Path of the Arcanist (Focus: Pure Mana/Intelligence)]
[Path of the Sovereign (Focus: Charm/Aura/Domination)]
Ethan stared at the three options, listening to the heavy footsteps of the incoming royal guards echoing down the stone stairs.
The Cleric was here.
It was time to stop surviving, and start playing the game.