svetikya Chapter 185 : Chapter 185
Chapter 185 : Chapter 185
Chapter 185. Logaris: Everyone, No Smiling!
The violent, unknown power forcibly fused with his original mana, washing through his mana circuits and widening what had once been river channels into seas.
Its total volume and purity had long since surpassed his former limits, reaching an entirely new level.
And beyond the increase in mana reserves, he could clearly feel that his understanding of space had entered a completely new realm.
He no longer needed complicated incantations or elaborate gestures. With nothing more than a thought, he could pry at the very foundations of space itself.
Logaris slowly opened his eyes and spread out his right hand.
Bzzz—
An extremely thin strand of energy, mixed with black and crimson, appeared in his palm.
It looked like a venomous serpent slithering through the air, and at the same time like a mass of burning dark flame. It gave off no heat, yet the surrounding space twisted faintly around it, and even the light from the night lamp was greedily devoured by it.
This power was filled with brutality, pride, and destruction.
And yet, strangely enough, it also carried an indescribable sense of familiarity with his soul.
As though… a wanderer long away from home had finally heard the sound of his native tongue.
“So this is… the ‘inheritance’ that bastard left me?”
Logaris stared at that strand of energy for a long while, a complicated, self-mocking smile curling faintly at his lips.
Then he clenched his fist and crushed the energy in his palm.
Mental exhaustion came over him like a tide. This time, he did not resist it.
He adjusted his posture and let himself sink deeper into the soft back of the chair. His gaze lingered on Sylvia’s sleeping face for one last second, and then he closed his eyes and drifted into a deep sleep.
…
The next morning.
“Ahhh—!”
A scream sharp enough to pierce the eardrums suddenly exploded inside the silent bedroom.
Logaris’s eyes flew open at once. Almost at the same moment, a shadow slipped out from the darkness in the corner of the wall. It was Esmeralda, drawn out by the commotion.
The two of them turned toward the source of the sound.
There stood an exquisitely delicate little silver-haired girl, barefoot in front of the enormous floor-length mirror.
She was wrapped in an adult sleeping robe that hung on her like a sack. One small hand clutched the collar, and her beautiful little face was filled with shock, confusion, and anger on the verge of erupting.
In the mirror, the unfamiliar little brat whose height only reached her former waist, whose silver hair flowed like moonlight all the way to her ankles, and whose face was still full of childish softness… who was that?!
“Wh… what… is going on…”
Sylvia’s voice trembled. In a daze, she raised her hand.
It was a soft, plump, pink little hand with the roundness of baby fat, nothing like the long-fingered knight’s hand that had once gripped twin swords.
Logaris rubbed at his temple and yawned as he explained, “‘Fleeting Youth.’ Its side effects. Did you forget? To put it simply, you’ve become young again.”
He had known there would be a side effect like this, so he was not surprised in the slightest. In fact, when he saw the way her entire worldview seemed to be collapsing, the corners of his mouth could not help but lift a little.
He really wanted to laugh.
What was he supposed to do?
Esmeralda froze for two seconds, then instantly understood what had happened. Her violet eyes, always carrying a trace of teasing amusement, widened on the spot. Then her thin shoulders began shaking violently and uncontrollably.
She was trying very hard not to laugh.
Logaris looked at Sylvia’s expression—she clearly wanted to kill someone, yet because of the changes in her body, she had no idea where to even start—and finally, he could not hold it in any longer.
Pfft.
It was only the faintest laugh, but it was like a spark tossed into a powder keg.
“Hahahahahahaha!” Esmeralda broke completely. She laughed so hard she bent forward and backward, clutching her stomach dramatically, tears springing from the corners of her eyes.
“Your Highness! My dear princess! I swear, this is exactly how adorable you looked when you were little ten-odd years ago!”
As if that were not enough, she stepped forward and lightly pinched Sylvia’s puffed-up little cheek, which was swollen with humiliation and fury.
The feel of it was astonishingly soft and springy.
“How dare you!”
Sylvia was mortified beyond words, her childish little face flushing crimson. She tried to put on the authority of a governor, but what came out of her throat was only a soft, crisp child’s voice, utterly lacking in intimidation. Instead, it sounded more like a spoiled complaint after failing to get candy from a parent.
That enormous contrast dealt catastrophic damage to her pride.
Humiliated into rage, Sylvia leaped straight up from where she stood. She swung her pink little fists, which looked completely harmless, but around her body surged the sharp Battle Aura of a peak Fifth-Tier knight. Like a tiny silver cannonball, she shot straight toward Logaris’s face.
She had to teach this bastard a lesson first!
Even if she had to bite him!
Faced with this “world-destroying” strike, Logaris did not even raise a hand. That infuriating smile was still hanging at the corner of his mouth.
He merely willed it.
Bzzz—
The space between him and Sylvia shifted by the tiniest, almost imperceptible degree.
To Sylvia’s senses, her fist had already been about to smash straight into the bridge of his nose, yet it strangely slipped past the edge of his clothes and struck nothing but empty air.
Because she had put too much force into it, and because she was still completely unable to adapt to this smaller body with its entirely altered balance, she stumbled. Her center of gravity tipped out of control, and it looked as though she was about to slam face-first into the ground in an utterly undignified heap.
Just then, a large hand caught her firmly under the arm. Like an unruly kitten being picked up by the scruff, she was lifted clean into the air.
“Oh dear, Your Highness, careful not to slip.” Logaris raised her to eye level, his tone dripping with mockery. “Your teeth can grow back, but if you fall and cry, that would be very hard to soothe.”
“Logaris! You—put me down!”
Sylvia kicked her two short little legs wildly in his grip. In her humiliation and anger, she instinctively exploded with the terrifying monstrous strength of a Fifth-Tier knight.
Crack.
The arm that had seemed as steady as a mountain gave a sickening snap, nearly twisted on the spot by this seemingly harmless “little cub.”
“Hiss—easy! My arm’s about to break!” Logaris sucked in a breath through his teeth. Only then did he suddenly remember that while the potion had shrunk her body, it had not discounted the thousand-times-tempered Battle Aura and monstrous strength she possessed.
As the rampaging “little girl governor” looked about ready to break free from his grip—and that soft pink little fist was already carrying a gale strong enough to shatter rock as it smashed toward his nose—Logaris’s eyes sharpened. He no longer dared treat this lightly.
Bzzz—
An invisible wave instantly enveloped Sylvia.
Sylvia felt as though the air around her had solidified into indestructible steel in an instant. Her monstrous strength, powerful enough to split mountains and crack stone, felt like it had sunk into a bottomless swamp. No matter how hard she tried, her body was frozen rigid in midair, unable to move even a single finger.