Chapter 128: His Invisible Shield

Lara walked through the empty cloisters of St. Celeste long before sunrise, her dark novice robe brushing against the stone floor while the cold morning air bit her face.

She headed straight for the Main Chapel to find the third judge.

The heavy oak doors stood ajar so Lara stepped inside the sanctuary, letting the smell of stale incense fill her lungs.

Hundreds of candles burned on the main altar casting flickering orange light against the high vaulted ceiling.

Sister Nefeli knelt alone in the front pew wearing her pristine white robes with gold trim.

Her hands rested on the wooden backrest of the pew in front of her while she kept her head bowed in prayer.

Lara stopped walking halfway down the central aisle.

She did not activate her gift to read the Inquisitor because reading Nefeli yielded zero results.

She tried that trick during the first phase of the tournament and found a total void.

Lara changed her tactic, pushing her own emotions forward instead of pulling information out of the woman.

She lowered her mental barriers and gathered her own raw vulnerability, projecting a wave of honest exhaustion and deep fear for her friends across the empty pews and pressing it against Nefeli’s invisible shield.

She offered a raw confession delivered through mana.

Nefeli stopped praying. Her shoulders stiffened and her hands gripped the wooden backrest until her knuckles turned white, but she did not turn around.

“You project your feelings with too much volume, novice,” Nefeli said with her voice echoing in the empty chapel, sounding flat and devoid of inflection.

Lara took another step forward. “I know you can feel them, Sister.”

“I feel nothing.”

“That is a lie,” Lara stated.

Nefeli stood up from the pew and turned around to face the young novice.

Her pale green eyes locked onto Lara, projecting the standard intimidating aura of an elite Church evaluator.

Lara did not back down, maintaining eye contact and keeping her honest vulnerability active.

“You wear a shield,” Lara said. “A perfect empathic barrier. You spend all your energy keeping it intact so no one knows your true nature.”

Nefeli stared at her while the intimidating aura vanished and the absolute void returned.

“How did you know?” Nefeli asked.

Her voice changed for the first time since arriving at St. Celeste, losing the flatness and gaining actual texture, sounding exhausted.

“Because I recognize the silence,” Lara answered. “It is the exact same silence I use when I pretend the pain of others does not destroy my insides.”

Nefeli walked out of the pew and stepped into the central aisle, closing the distance between them and stopping three feet away from the novice.

“You are dangerous, child,” Nefeli whispered.

“No,” Lara replied. “I am just honest.”

“In this world, that is the exact same thing.”

Nefeli looked past Lara and stared at the heavy oak doors at the back of the chapel to make sure no one else was listening before turning her attention back to the girl.

“They sent me to a place similar to St. Sophia when I was seven years old,” Nefeli stated without showing any emotion on her face, but her voice carried the heavy weight of the memory.

“My empathy overpowered my mind. I felt every execution in the capital and I screamed for days.”

Lara held her breath and listened.

“The Church treated me,” Nefeli continued. “They isolated me in a dark cell for four years and punished me every time I reacted to an external emotion. I survived by building a wall in my mind. I made the wall so thick and perfect that the priests declared me cured and made me an evaluator to judge others.”

“You spent decades pretending you feel zero emotion,” Lara said.

“It kept me alive.”

“It made you a tool for the people who tortured you.”

Nefeli flinched.

Lara stepped closer. “Raziel and Lucian fight in the final round today. Elector Mordecai wants one of them to fail, needing an excuse to send a boy to die on the southern front, and Father Marius will support the Elector.”

“Brother Thomas will vote to keep them,” Nefeli pointed out.

“His vote means zero without yours,” Lara said. “I ask you to vote to maintain both novices. I ask you to force a tie.”

Nefeli crossed her arms over her white robes. “You ask me to defy the Elector of the Inquisition to save two boys I do not know.”

“I ask you to do it for justice.”

Nefeli looked at the altar, staring at the statue of Zhalyr illuminated by the candlelight. “Justice is a luxury the Church cannot afford right now,” Nefeli stated.

“But you can afford it,” Lara countered.

Nefeli turned her gaze back to the novice, studying Lara’s face and processing the massive risk of the request. Defying Mordecai meant risking an investigation into her own mental state and risking the perfect shield she spent a lifetime maintaining.

“I promise zero favors,” Nefeli said, walking past Lara and heading toward the exit of the chapel.

Lara stood in the aisle and watched the evaluator leave.

She knew pushing harder would ruin the fragile connection she built.

She planted the seed and now she had to trust the woman’s buried conscience.

Nefeli reached the heavy oak doors and pushed them open, letting the morning light hit her face.

She stopped in the doorway and raised her right hand to look at her own fingers.

They trembled.

Her hands had stayed still for twenty years. Nefeli lowered her hand and walked out into the cloister.

Lara let out a long breath and turned around to face the main altar, offering a brief silent prayer for her friends.

She finished the prayer and walked toward the exit, reaching the threshold of the chapel and stopping dead in her tracks.

A sudden massive pressure hit her empathic senses.

The feeling bypassed the courtyard and the dormitories, coming from nowhere near a novice or an instructor. It originated from beneath her feet.

Lara looked down at the stone floor and extended her Gift downward, pushing her awareness through the foundation of the building.

She reached the deep basements and the hidden tunnels beneath St. Celeste, hitting a massive wall of ambient mana.

The ancient runic chamber Raziel activated weeks ago pulsed with energy.

The academy itself emitted a clear and distinct emotion.

The building possessed a residual consciousness stored in the ancient stones.

Lara gasped and grabbed the wooden doorframe to steady herself.

The academy felt anticipation.

The ancient stones knew what was going to happen in the arena today.

And the academy waited for it.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep