The World Is Mine For The Taking-Chapter 1243 - 192 - Leon Vs. Veronica - Round 2 (4)
After a while, I finally stopped using Time Manipulation on her.
The world, which had felt thick and heavy like it was trapped inside glass around her, snapped back into motion once more.
Even though I could manipulate time, it wasn’t some godlike ability I could throw around carelessly. It only worked on a smaller scale. I had to focus. And I mean, really focus to use it. The kind of focus where the rest of the world fades into a blur and you forget to breathe for a second. And while I was using it, I couldn’t move freely. I was basically a statue with power. If someone managed to bypass the effect or catch me off guard, I’d be done for. Well, not really. But it was basically pointless to use Time Manipulation if I couldn’t also move.
That vulnerability was exactly why I don’t really use it.
In a real fight, standing still for even half a second could mean losing your head.
So no, I didn’t use it for convenience. I didn’t use it to toy with people.
I used it now for one reason only.
To show the difference.
Veronica wasn’t just some random knight. She was known as the second-in-command of the entire Magic Knight military—the strongest military force in the Milham Kingdom. People whispered her name with respect. Some with fear. She was the kind of person you pointed at and said, That’s what strength looks like.
And yet...
When time resumed, she fell like a discarded doll.
She had been frozen mid-air when I released the technique. For a split second, she just hung there, like the world hadn’t caught up yet. Then gravity pulled her down mercilessly. She slammed into the platform face-first. The impact echoed across the arena, and it was a sharp and ugly thud.
A collective gasp rippled through the audience.
She tried to push herself up. Her fingers twitched against the stone with her nails scraping lightly. For a moment, I thought she might actually stand.
But then her eyes rolled back.
And she went still.
She just went unconscious.
Silence followed. Not the peaceful kind. The tense, suffocating kind where everyone’s waiting for something else to happen.
The umpire looked at me.
Really looked at me.
His expression wasn’t just shock. It was the kind of stare you give something you don’t quite understand. Like he’d just watched something that shouldn’t exist. Something that bent the rules too casually.
He didn’t step closer than necessary.
"Winner!" he announced, voice loud, but stiff, like he had to force it out.
Round two was over.
I had won. Again.
That meant Veronica had lost to me twice now.
There would be a third round.
Best of five.
One more win for me, and it would be over.
Not exactly ideal odds for her.
I rolled my shoulders slightly, feeling the lingering hum of mana settle back into place.
I intended to win this tournament.
Not barely.
Not narrowly as well.
Win literally.
***
Lilia’s POV
They granted Veronica an additional hour of rest.
Normally, there were only two hours between matches. And that was the standard procedure. But what happened out there wasn’t standard. The strain on her body as well as the sheer force she endured in those two rounds, it would’ve been reckless to send her back out without proper recovery.
If they hadn’t extended the break, she might not have been able to stand in the third round.
And this was the third round.
He already had two wins.
If he secured this one, it would all be over.
Which meant... Princess Myrcella’s plan would fully begin. Or perhaps it already had. Everything had been prepared. Every piece placed carefully on the board.
And now the final moves were playing out in plain sight.
As if that weren’t enough, he just revealed himself to be the owner of the Leonamon Company, which was the corporation responsible for pushing the world toward modernization with relentless innovation. Modern-engineered transportation, and even communication devices. Infrastructure that made old systems look prehistoric.
The kind of company that didn’t just follow trends.
It created them.
Why would someone like that enroll as a cadet in the academy?
It didn’t make sense.
Unless this was never about becoming a knight.
At this point, calling him a threat felt like an understatement.
I couldn’t use my Authority on him. I had tried. It simply... didn’t work. As if something repelled it naturally.
Even Veronica couldn’t touch him.
And Veronica could touch almost anyone.
He wasn’t someone you controlled.
If anything, it felt like control bent around him instead.
I doubt even the Princess has him on a leash.
In fact, I get the unsettling feeling that it’s the other way around.
Who is that man, really?
I hate not having answers.
I opened the door quietly.
Veronica was already awake.
She stood near the window on the far side of the room with her posture straight as well as her shoulders squared. Sunlight spilled across her figure, casting sharp lines of gold along her silhouette.
She looked... perfectly fine.
Which was absurd.
After being thrown around like that—like a ragdoll caught in a storm—I expected her to be lying down, grimacing, and even barely able to move.
But there she was.
She was calm and still.
Looking out the window as if nothing had happened.
To be honest... I’m worried.
"Are you okay?" I asked carefully.
She turned toward me.
Her eyes met mine, but there was distance in them. Like she was looking through me—or at something beyond the walls of this room.
"I’m fine," she said.
She sounded fine.
Her voice wasn’t strained. She had no bitterness nor frustration on it.
You wouldn’t think she had just been completely outclassed. You wouldn’t think she had been tossed around earlier in front of the entire kingdom.
I walked over and sat at the edge of the bed.
The mattress dipped slightly beneath my weight.
"Do you want to give up?" I asked.
I was direct. Maybe blunt. But we didn’t have time for polite dances.
She shook her head slowly.
"At this point, giving up isn’t even something I’m considering," she replied. "If this is the last round... then I’ll finish it properly."
Her tone was steady.
She didn’t sound prideful. And not angry.
Just... resolved, I guess...
Which unsettled me more than if she had been furious.
She felt different.
Subdued, maybe. Quieter, in fact. Like something inside her had shifted.
This is the first time I’ve ever seen her like this.
"Tell me, sister," she said after a pause.
Her voice softened slightly.
"Do you believe in prophecy?"
I blinked. "Prophecy?"
"Yes. The prophecy that Lilith will return. Have you heard of it?"
The name stirred something faint in my memory.
I remember a bard singing about it recently in the lower districts. Something dramatic, as bards tend to do.
The lady in black who set the world ablaze and reforged it.
One of the Great Ones.
She would be reborn from the ashes of her own fire.
The lyrics weren’t subtle. They practically shouted the identity at you. Even with most historical records about Lilith erased or buried, enough fragments remained. Historians had begun piecing together scraps as well as old texts, faded carvings, and even contradictory myths.
The more they uncovered, the more unsettling the picture became.
"And what about it?" I asked.
Veronica lifted a hand and placed it over her chest.
Right over her heart.
Her fingers curled slightly into the fabric of her uniform.
"I think..." she began.
Her voice faltered for a fraction of a second.
And then I noticed it.
A faint blush spreading across her cheeks.
Veronica. She was blushing.
That alone was enough to throw me off balance.
"I think," she continued more firmly, "that prophecy is going to come true."
There was something in her expression I couldn’t quite decipher.
It wasn’t fear.
It wasn’t devotion.
It wasn’t even doubt.
It was something deeper. Like it was something that was personal.
