[White Thorn] (Active): While active, 50% of damage received is reflected back to the attacker.
This effect originates from the Saint-tier equipment, [Aria of Flowing Silver].
Notably, [White Thorn] manifests in this world with brutal simplicity: it preemptively records the raw potency of an enemy’s combat skill before any damage reduction applies, then unleashes half that potency directly onto the attacker.
Beneath layers of damage mitigation, Luyi suffered virtually no harm.
But for Wilk, that strike was agony.
*Slish-slish—*
The sound of gushing blood.
Relentless. Ceaseless.
Splattering the floor, seeping into tile cracks, pooling into crimson puddles that swiftly stained the ground beneath Wilk’s feet.
Yet the girl opposite remained untouched. Unharmed.
This was a scene Wilk couldn’t comprehend.
*Why?*
He didn’t understand—Luyi had been struck, yet *he* was the one wounded!
He couldn’t even grasp the force that had detonated before him moments ago.
“What… did you do?”
His voice trembled, laced with shock, fury, madness, and a creeping dread.
“I told you,” Luyi said calmly, her gaze as still as an autumn lake in a maple forest. “You lack even the right to touch me now.”
*Gurgle…*
Meeting her eyes, Wilk clutched his bleeding arm and stumbled back two steps.
Pure terror radiated from him.
In this dungeon, Luyi was the sealed prisoner; he was the mastermind.
Yet now, *she* held absolute control. *He* was powerless.
*Why had it come to this?*
Wilk’s breath hitched.
*She wore the Shackles of Shadowed Confinement!*
Even a Duke-tier being couldn’t unleash a shred of power while bound by them!
Let alone a mere girl!
“…”
He felt dragged back to the Night of Stellar Abyss—the shadow she cast over him descended once more.
Before Luyi, he’d always been a worm curled in darkness. Lowly. Wretched.
Even now, as he held her captive.
*Right…*
*This shouldn’t be…*
*Her master is in my grasp!*
*She’s just a prisoner. Why am I afraid?!*
“Ha… Hahahahaha…”
Wilk swayed, then erupted into manic, furious laughter. “Lies! All lies! You’re bluffing, aren’t you?!
You must’ve crushed some hidden combat crystal just now…
Trying to scare me! Trying to make me release Alices!
But I see through your trick!”
He shouted to the dungeon, but his words sounded like pleas to himself.
“*Right*? You—a prisoner, a *Lost Bloodline*—dare speak of *qualifications* to me?!”
His eyes hardened. Mana coalesced around him. “Stand still! Don’t resist! Or your master dies!”
*Fwip—*
*Fwip—*
Mana blades shot toward Luyi.
She stood motionless.
They struck her body or grazed past her—only to shatter into nothingness on contact.
Simultaneously, explosions erupted around Wilk.
Rule-based power descended. Energy detonated in the air, slamming into him.
Ripping his skin. Shattering his sanity. Delivering pain with surgical precision.
“Foolish.”
Luyi’s voice remained flat.
Her words shattered Wilk’s pride, his mind fracturing further.
“Shut up!”
“You damned Lost Bloodline… you wretched bitch…”
Wilk raised his bleeding hand. His spatial ring flashed. A slender sword materialized in his grip.
He glared at Luyi, teeth bared, eyes bloodshot.
Mana surged wildly around him, fury drowning reason. He unleashed his strongest combat skill at her.
As his sword swept down, condensed mana transformed into a raging wave—within it blazed seven sharp sword beams!
The Soulfall Royal Family’s mid-tier combat skill: *Rage Soul Slash!*
“Break! Shatter! All of you—BREAK!”
The wave surged toward Luyi.
This time, she didn’t dodge. She stepped forward.
With a casual flick of her shackled wrist, one sword beam struck the chain *outside* the Shackles of Shadowed Confinement.
The shackles and chain weren’t fused—the chain snapped instantly, then flew backward.
Straight toward one of Wilk’s underlings.
“ARGH—!”
The chain’s jagged end pierced the man’s chest. He collapsed, screaming.
The control crystal for the mechanisms tumbled from his hand, skittering far away.
The remaining sword beams struck Luyi—every one dissolving without cutting a single strand of hair.
In response, energy detonated across Wilk’s body. Under the flickering lights, blood and explosive force bloomed like crimson blossoms.
“AAAAAGH!!!”
Wilk’s scream was raw, inhuman. He staggered, then collapsed to his knees in the blood pooling around him.
Luyi strolled toward the cracked control crystal on the floor… and crushed it underfoot.
*Crack-crack-crack—*
The mechanisms around Alices deactivated instantly, retracting.
The iron bars imprisoning her lifted.
She was free.
“What are you waiting for? Go.”
Alices had frozen in place. Only Luyi’s offhand remark snapped her back.
“Milady Luyi, I… you…”
“Let’s go. I’d hate to miss dinner.”
“…Yes!”
The exit was near.
Urged by Luyi, Alices crept toward it, glancing between Luyi and Wilk kneeling in his own blood.
Luyi turned to leave.
She’d remove the shackles after exiting the dungeon.
She wasn’t worried about being restrained.
She worried that unleashing her power here to break the shackles would collapse the entire area.
Skeg slumped against the wall, silent.
Another underling lay gravely wounded, the chain impaling his chest.
Wilk knelt trembling in the blood.
Pain.
Rage.
Fear.
And… distortion.
He finally understood Luyi’s dead-eyed gaze when she first entered.
She’d never seen them as threats.
She came because she scorned his elaborate trap.
She said he lacked the *right* because she never believed he could breach her defenses.
This fight mattered less to her than dinner.
Just like on the Night of Stellar Abyss.
*Why…?*
*Why her…?*
This nobody… why did her bloodline surpass his?
Why did she look at him like *that*?
Why did she humiliate him again and again?
This hurt worse than death.
“Luluie…” Wilk rasped through bloodied teeth. “This… isn’t over…”
His spatial ring flickered. A finely carved black crystal appeared in his hand.
“That’s—!” Alices cried. “Milady Luyi, look out—!”
Wilk crushed the crystal without hesitation.
*Vwuuuum—*
Violet-black energy erupted from him, forming a barrier. Its edge snapped shut precisely between Alices at the exit and Luyi about to leave—trapping Luyi inside.
The barrier’s aura felt familiar to Alices.
This power… came from her father. The Soulfall King.
