Transmigrated as the Villain: I Will Destroy Fate

Chapter 168: Revenge Is Best Served Cold [2]

Ronan understood instantly.

Jason Vrell was not a random variable. He was not another strong student caught in Mesmer’s indiscriminate invasion.

He was the brother of Marcus Vrell.

The student Ronan had ordered Aura to kill during the Inter-Class War.

Of course Mesmer would use him. It was the cleanest kind of weapon. Grief sharpened into a blade and pointed directly at its source. Even if Jason knew nothing before, Mesmer could have given him pieces. Suspicion. Names. Direction. A purpose for his anger.

That was all it would take.

But the question was not why. The question was how.

How did Mesmer know?

The Academy never solved Marcus’s death. It was not public information. Ronan had ensured the kill was clean enough to leave confusion but not proof. Even Grace, with her similar knowledge and sharp instincts, likely did not know. There should have been no direct line connecting Marcus’s corpse to Ronan’s command.

Unless Mesmer had been watching from inside. Not through some distant scrying magic, but through a student.

Someone who was there. Someone who saw the fractures in Class S, who saw Aura’s isolation, who saw Freya’s subtle manipulations, and who could piece together the aftermath.

It didn’t have to be him taking over a student’s body necessarily. I could just be a spy. That explained why Mesmer’s reaction to him being alive was just amusement, likely because he already knew, but his reaction to Ronan’s soul path ritual was different, likely because he had to be up and personal for that.

The thought made too many other things click into place.

Ronan searched his memory of the novel, but found nothing. No mention of a hidden spy Mesmer possessed among the first-years. Then again, the novel had never finished.

Before he could follow the thought further, Jason spoke.

"Ronan Ashbourne."

The name fell into the clearing, heavy and final. Ronan’s eyes narrowed, his attention snapping entirely to the man in front of him.

"I did not expect to meet you here," Jason said. His voice was controlled, but a current of something raw ran beneath it. Anger held down for too long, pressed into a hard, dense shape. "Not like this."

He did not waste time with pleasantries. He took a slow step forward, his gaze fixed on Ronan.

"Truthfully," Jason continued, his voice low, "I never wanted revenge as badly as some might think."

Elara tensed beside Ronan. "Revenge?"

Even Seraphina looked a little confused by that.

Ronan did not answer her. He kept his attention locked on Jason, his expression a careful mask of neutrality. He would play ignorant. He would let the other man move the pieces first.

"I know not of what you mean."

Jason sighed, a sound of weary frustration. "The man warned me you would be difficult."

There it was. Confirmation. Mesmer. Or at least, someone acting on his behalf.

Jason stopped circling the issue. "Why did you do it?"

Ronan’s expression remained unchanged. He feigned confusion, a slight tilt of his head. "Do what?"

This time, Jason’s composure cracked. His hand tightened around the hilt of his massive longsword, the leather creaking. His frustration became visible, not explosive, but close.

"Why," Jason said, his voice dropping into a deadly clarity, "did you order the murder of my brother, Marcus?"

The air froze.

Elara went perfectly still. She repeated the name, her voice a hollow whisper. "Marcus... Vrell?"

Seraphina’s reaction was less audible but just as immediate. Her back straightened, her gaze snapping between Jason and Ronan.

Of course they knew the name. Everyone from the Inter-Class War knew it.

Two students had died. Marcus Vrell. And Reddy. The Academy had never determined the true cause of either death. One was attributed to a monstrous beast. The other was left unanswered.

Both deaths had been Ronan’s fault. One indirectly. One directly.

Ronan’s eyes darkened. "Marcus was not a good person."

The words were not a justification.

They were not an admission of guilt. He did not care about Marcus’s character. Marcus had been useful dead, and that was the only variable that mattered at the time.

But Jason did not need to know that. This was a test, an attempt to gauge whether this confrontation could be steered away from its inevitable conclusion. To see if Jason’s mind could be changed.

Fighting Jason was a bad option.

Ronan’s body was a wreck. His soul felt like fractured glass. His forearms were barely functional, held together by Seraphina’s healing and his own mana. Elara was exhausted. Seraphina was injured. Even at their best, Jason was a powerhouse. He was strong enough that overwhelming all three of them was a real possibility.

And that was before considering the stone.

Seraphina’s account of Brutas crushing a stone to gain a final surge of power was not a small detail.

Demonic enhancement. A fragment of condensed power that overclocked the user’s mana core, pushing their body into a do-or-die state. Strength, speed, and durability surging far beyond their natural limits, at the cost of eventual, certain death. A tool for disposable agents.

If Jason had one of those, this fight was not winnable.

"He was not," Jason agreed, his voice tight. "He was arrogant. Cruel, at times. He did things I did not defend." He paused. "Does that mean he deserved to die?"

He turned the logic back on Ronan. "Your reputation is not much better, is it, Ashbourne? Shameless. Predatory. Useless, until recently. If being a bad person is enough, what about you? Do you deserve to die, too?"

Ronan felt a flicker of amusement at the irony. Of course Jason was right. But Ronan cared little for it.

The jab about Marcus was a test to see if Jason’s mind could be swayed, not a moral argument.

A weak attempt to find an exit that frankly did not exist.

You cannot reason with a man standing before his brother’s killer.

Jason seemed to understand that. His expression settled. The last of the forced civility fell away, leaving only grim purpose.

"My anger was not only for you," he admitted. "For a long time, it was for the Academy. For their incompetence. For letting a student die and then giving my family nothing but silence." He looked directly at Ronan. "But you are here. And the Academy is not."

He raised his sword.

The massive blade, heavy enough to cleave a man in two, pointed steadily at Ronan’s chest. The air grew cold.

"So I will take this opportunity." The restraint in his voice finally broke, narrowing into a clean, sharp demand. "One on one. Face me yourself, if you dare call yourself a man."