A sudden, uncomfortable silence rippled through the immediate area of the ballroom. Nobles and academy students alike stopped their conversations, turning their heads to stare at the bizarre scene unfolding near the back doors.

They had no idea what Shelia was doing, but pinning a man and a beastkin to the floor with heavy restraint magic in the middle of a royal banquet was a massive breach of etiquette.

"Shelia, I am warning you!" Didi snapped, stepping forward again, her hands glowing with a faint, icy blue light as the temperature around her plummeted. "Taking a hostile action against the Crown’s sponsored ranker is a terrible idea. Back away from him right now!"

The Helza mage didn’t even flinch at the sudden drop in temperature. She completely ignored the Princess’s warning, keeping her piercing red eyes locked onto Hajin’s face while her index finger hovered just a fraction of an inch from his forehead.

She was entirely focused on breaching his mind, completely confident that her dense mana bindings were absolute.

She was wrong.

Hajin was not going to just stand there and let some arrogant noble rummage through his head. The invisible weight crushing his body was incredibly heavy, but at the end of the day, it was still just raw mana.

’Assimilation,’ he thought, his eyes narrowing sharply.

The moment the skill activated, the suffocating pressure bearing down on his limbs vanished. He didn’t physically break the restraint magic or shatter it with brute force. He simply absorbed it, pulling the dense, hardened mana directly into his own circulation and swallowing it whole.

Before Shelia could even register that her spell had failed, Hajin’s hand snapped upward.

He grabbed her wrist with a crushing grip, violently halting her finger before it could touch his skin.

She gasped, her eyes going wide with genuine shock as she tried and failed to pull her arm back.

A collective gasp echoed across the surrounding crowd. Even the older mages from the Helza family, who had been watching the scene with mild amusement just seconds ago, suddenly stood up from their tables with looks of absolute disbelief. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

Nobody broke a Helza restraint spell that easily and absolutely nobody simply absorbed it.

The moment he swallowed the spell, the invisible weight crushing Juna vanished as well. She immediately scrambled to her feet, baring her fangs as she positioned herself right next to his leg.

Shelia tried to yank her arm back again, but Hajin’s grip was completely unyielding. He didn’t let go, instead tightening his hold just enough to make her wince before he finally spoke.

"Is this how the Great Families teach their heirs to behave?" He asked, his voice cold and flat as it carried through the dead silence of the ballroom.

"Let go of me!" She hissed, her face flushing red as she struggled against his grip.

"You walk into a royal banquet hosted by the King himself, completely ignore the Princess standing right in front of you, and then assault a sponsored Ranker without a single word of provocation," he said, taking a step forward and forcing her to take an awkward step backward.

"Do you think having the Helza name means you get to act like a savage in front of the entire court?"

Shelia’s face flushed an even deeper, humiliated shade of red. "You insolent brat!" she snapped, trying to channel mana into her free hand.

He didn’t even give her the chance, yanking her captured arm down hard, breaking her physical posture and completely interrupting the mana flow before it could even form.

"Or what?" He fired back, glaring down at her. "Are you going to throw an attack spell in the middle of a crowded ballroom? Are you actually that stupid, or do you just have zero respect for the Crown?"

A low murmur rippled through the surrounding crowd. The nobles and academy students who had been watching the scene started nodding along, their expressions shifting from initial shock to outright agreement.

The Helza family was undeniably powerful, but Shelia had aggressively overstepped every single boundary of noble etiquette in the span of three minutes.

She had blatantly disrespected the Princess, attacked a sponsored guest of the King, and almost started a magical crossfire in a room full of unarmed nobles.

Even the Helza elders standing a few tables away looked deeply uncomfortable, completely unable to step in and defend her because Hajin was entirely right.

Shelia felt the heavy, accusatory stares bearing down on her from every direction. She glanced past his shoulder, her eyes sweeping over the crowd of nobles before briefly meeting the stern, deeply displeased look of a Helza elder.

She realized instantly that pushing this any further was going to cause a massive political incident her family would not be able to easily cover up.

"Please let go of me," she said, dropping the venom from her voice and forcing a tone of icy calm.

He held her gaze for another second before he slowly opened his hand, releasing his crushing grip on her wrist.

She immediately pulled her arm back, rubbing the faint red marks already forming on her pale skin. She straightened her posture and smoothed out the front of her robes, completely ignoring the whispering crowd around her.

"I apologize, Your Highness," she said, offering a stiff but perfectly executed bow to Didi. "It seems my curiosity got the better of me. Please excuse my behavior."

Without waiting for a response, she turned on her heel and walked quickly away from the group. Her face burned with quiet humiliation as she disappeared back into the crowd of Helza mages.

As she left, the immediate tension in the area finally began to dissipate, but the attention on Hajin did not.

Across the ballroom, the heirs of the Linus and Paqune families were no longer ignoring the commotion. They watched Hajin with entirely new expressions.

A ranker who could casually absorb a Helza restraint spell, physically overpower their heir, and secure a royal sponsorship from the King himself was an anomaly they could not ignore.

’Very interesting,’ the Paqune swordsman thought, swirling the wine in his glass with a faint, predatory smirk.

"She should be apologizing directly to you," Didi said, her voice still tight with lingering anger as she watched the mage walk away. "That was completely unacceptable."

"It is fine," he said, waving a hand dismissively as the adrenaline slowly started to fade out of his system. "This entire night has just been incredibly exhausting."

He glanced down, noticing that Uriel was quietly standing next to him which surprised him. She was just staring up at him with wide, stunned eyes, completely overwhelmed by everything she had just witnessed.

"I am going to leave now," he said, turning his attention back to the Princess.

"What? Already?" Bekky asked, her shoulders dropping in obvious disappointment while Didi looked equally caught off-guard.

"There are way too many eyes on me right now," he said, gesturing faintly toward the surrounding nobles who were still actively staring at them. "It is making me uncomfortable. I am just too tired to deal with any more of this political nonsense tonight."

Didi clearly didn’t want him to leave so soon, especially after he had just been attacked, but she slowly nodded her head. "I understand. I am incredibly sorry this happened."

"Don’t worry about it, I will visit you another day," he said, offering a small nod before looking back down at the floor. "Uriel. Come on."

Uriel didn’t argue as she quietly fell into step behind him and Juna as they turned away from the royal gathering.

As he walked toward the exit, the whispering crowd immediately parted to give him a wide path.

"He must be furious," one of the nobles muttered quietly, watching his retreating back.

"I do not blame him at all. Getting attacked like that right after being sponsored by the Crown? It is completely insulting."

"How exactly is the Helza family going to fix this?"

On the other side of the ballroom, Shelia stood near the edge of her family’s tables. She didn’t say a single word, her eyes tracking his movements silently until he finally walked through the exit and disappeared into the night.