From around the marble column ahead, a group emerged with the confidence of jackals walking into a lion's den because they thought the lion was asleep.
At the front strode a tall, narrow-faced noble dressed in violet silk robes embroidered with golden cranes. He was frowning lightly, as though he was disapproving of something.
Slightly behind him was hulking young man dressed in similar but slightly less elaborate silk robes. His right hand was outstretched and an evil grin was plastered on his face.
He was the one who casted the fire spell on Akira.
"Hahaha! You lowborn bastard. You really think you're something after saving Princess Yuki huh? Let your grandfather here put you in your place! Low life peasant. Your very presence stinks up this palace!" The hulking moron shouted at Akira.
Akira wasn't one to mince words and pull punches with his peers.
"What the fuck? You son of a bitch. Eat this!" Akira howled in anger and unleashed his lightning and ice energy without restraint. Since his secret was out, he might as well make full use of it and teach these damned stuck up nobles a lesson they will never forget.
At that moment, both cores within his body surged in response to his fury.
From his right hand, lightning erupted in a sharp, snapping arc. It slammed into the ground in front of the hulking noble with a sudden crackle, drawing a gasp from one of the attendants behind. The scent of scorched stone filled the corridor.
From his left, a pulse of cold rushed outward. Frost bloomed instantly across the tiles, racing toward their feet like a rising tide. The air cooled by tens of degrees.
The noble in front barely had time to raise a defense. His arms snapped into position as a fire shield burst to life around his chest. It sizzled the moment the cold touched it. Then the lightning struck.
There was no need for words.
Akira stepped forward again, lightning curling along his shoulder and ice coiling at his heel.
This time, he did not cast his lightning and ice energy as two separate spells. Instead, he weaved them into one, tumultuous spell with a horrific aura.
Weaving different elements together was an advanced technique that demanded both exceptional talent and absolute control. The process alone was considered a defining line between skilled practitioners and true elemental masters.
Among the recognized schools of elemental theory in Japan, the act of weaving and merging two elemental energies into a single, cohesive output was classified into two categories: Creation Duals and Destruction Duals.
The Creation Duals followed the ancient Five Elemental Cycle, a philosophical framework drawn from pre-modern cultivation texts and refined through modern magical study.
Water nourished wood. Wood fed fire. Fire birthed earth. Earth yielded metal. Metal enriched water.
These supportive combinations, while still difficult, were well-documented. Talented youths born with compatible elemental affinities could, through rigorous training, achieve fusion in combat or technique. High-level students in the Royal Academy of Japan were often expected to accomplish at least one Creation Dual before graduation.
The Destruction Duals, however, were another matter entirely.
These combinations followed the counteractive cycle.
Wood broke earth, earth blocked water, water quenched fire, fire melted metal, and metal cut wood.
The resulting interactions were unstable and required opposing energies to harmonize across a single spiritual core. Very few attempted it. Fewer succeeded.
Among the few rare cases where someone was born with two destructive elemental affinities, success in weaving them was so rare that only three recorded practitioners had ever survived the long-term burden. Two of them died within five years due to core instability. The third retired into seclusion.
But what Akira was doing did not fall into either category.
He was weaving a basic element with an advanced one.
Ice and Lightning.
Even among scholars of elemental dynamics, this was something they barely dared to model on paper. The advanced elements of Wind, Lightning, Light, and Darkness were far more volatile and dense in nature.
To be born with one advanced element was rare enough to be classified as a national treasure. To be born with two was a theoretical discussion in royal forums, something used to frighten nobles into marrying for bloodline potential.
No one, absolutely no one, had been recorded to possess one basic and one advanced element and successfully weave them into combat application.
Not in Japan. Not in any international magical registry.
And certainly not in someone whose official records had him listed as a non-elemental transfer student with an empty spiritual core.
Which meant that what Akira had just done was not only dangerous.
It was forbidden, unrepeatable, and utterly outside the realm of anything his enemies had prepared for.
Akira didn't waste a breath.
His body moved instinctively and his two cores, Ice and Lightning, surged in perfect rhythm.
With the ease of a man stepping into his own shadow, Akira wove the two energies together.
Lightning crackled up his right arm, wild and hot, while frost coiled around his left, silent and sharp. The fusion happened mid-air, swirling into a dense, silver-blue spiral that pulsed with contained violence.
The spell launched from his palm with a low thrum.
A single bolt of cold lightning struck forward with pinpoint precision and reached the hulking youth first.
The impact lifted him off his feet with a sickening crack.
The lightning tore through muscle and bone before freezing the nerves in place. His chest smoked where the bolt had entered, and his scream came half a beat late, shrill and broken.
A heartbeat later, the spell fragmented just as Akira intended.
The second wave shattered into fine needles of lightning-laced frost and stabbed the narrow-faced noble before he could even form a barrier.
Dozens of sharp streaks sliced through his robes and skin, freezing blood mid-spatter and splintering bones just beneath the surface.
He collapsed, knees buckling as his face twisted in shock.
The hall reeked of scorched silk and coppery blood.
Both young men hit the floor hard, twitching, broken, and very nearly dead.
Akira stood still, staring at the damage.
He was stunned by the sheer destructive power he had unleashed upon the two young bastards.
He had intended to injure them and teach them a lesson they would never forget. But he had not planned on killing them.
Heck, that would be beyond reckless. It would be stupid to kill two nobles right outside of the Emperor's office!
Before the full weight of consequence could settle, a shift in the air caught his senses.
Prime Minister Jingan stepped into the corridor, his footsteps heavy and unmistakably deliberate.
His eyes swept the scene with a calm that was colder than Akira's Ice Core.
"Prime Minister Jingan." Akira's pupils shrank as he prepared to defend himself. "He must be watching nearby if he could appear so quickly. And that would mean that these two idiots were sent by him to humiliate me."
With one hand, Prime Minister Jingan gestured over the fallen nobles.
The spell was unlike anything Akira had seen before.
Time stuttered around the two injured youths. Blood flowed backward. Shredded silk un-tore. Bones reformed with faint pops.
Within seconds, both were whole again even though their faces remained pale and drenched in sweat, their minds still trapped in the memory of pain.
Akira's eyes narrowed in shock.
"Bloody hell. First Princess Yuki had the Royal Element of Space. Now this bugger had the Royal Element of Time? What the hell is wrong with this world? Why are Royal Elements appearing everywhere?"
Then he felt it.
A delayed snap of displaced force.
And behind the Prime Minister, the reinforced side chamber adjacent to the Emperor's office erupted.
Stone, steel, and magic wards detonated outward in a silent burst. The entire room was annihilated, shredded from within by the full force of Akira's redirected spell.
Smoke spilled into the hallway.
Cracks spread like spiderwebs across the corridor walls.
The smell of melted steel and shattered wards filled the air.
Prime Minister Jingan turned to face him fully.
His eyes, normally beady and gleaming with malice, were unreadable.
"Curious." he said. "Very curious."