The Extra becomes the Villain's Bodyguard-Chapter 35: god’s substitute

I thought jumping into the fissure with that monster would buy Javier enough time. A suicide play, sure, but better than letting that thing chase him down. I didn’t expect the damn rift to close behind me.

The second I hit the ground on the other side, my vision blurred. My skull felt like it was splitting open, a white-hot drill boring into my brain. I tried to move—had to move—but my body refused. Not out of fear. Pure, agonizing pain.

Get up. Get up!

Through the haze, I saw the brute. Six and a half feet of scarred muscle, tusks bared, its chest heaving with rage. It stalked toward me, each step shaking the ground.

Move. MOVE!

My fingers twitched. My legs stayed locked.

The brute stopped inches from my face, its breath reeking of blood and rot. Then—smack.

Its palm cracked against my jaw like a sledgehammer.

I flew.

The world spun. My helmet tore free, clattering somewhere in the darkness. I hit the ground hard, ribs screaming. Blood filled my mouth.

Focus. Not the pain. Not the pain.

I forced air into my lungs. The brute wasn’t coming for me yet—it was snarling at the empty space where the fissure had been, like it couldn’t believe it was trapped here too.

Good. Distracted.

I pushed myself up. One shaky hand on the ground. Then a knee. Every movement sent fresh fire through my skull, but I gritted my teeth.

One step.

My boot scraped against the rocky terrain.

Another.

The brute still hadn’t noticed.

My knife. Where was—there. The combat blade was still strapped to my thigh. I reached for it, fingers brushing the hilt—

And my body locked again.

The headache returned, worse than before. My vision swam, black spots eating at the edges.

No. NO!

I collapsed.

Darkness.

—

When I woke, the world was red.

A glowing screen hovered in front of my face, flickering like a dying monitor.

[SYSTEM ERROR]

[USER IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED]

Beneath it, a miniature 3D model of me floated—bruised, bloodied, but unmistakably my own face. I could rotate it with a thought, inspecting the damage. Cracked ribs. Concussion. Left shoulder dislocated.

Below that, stats:

Name: [UNREGISTERED_ENTITY_#4829-11B]

Age: 28

Strength: 2 ❌

Intelligence: 2 ❌

Mana: 2 ❌

Dexterity: 2 ❌

Every stat was greyed out, a red "❌" blinking beside it.

At the end of my name string, a small pen icon glowed.

Editable?

I focused on it.

[INPUT DESIGNATION:]

I didn’t hesitate.

Neville.

The screen flickered.

[CONFIRMED: NEVILLE]

The rest stayed broken.

Then, from the shadows, a low growl.

The brute had noticed I was awake.

And it was pissed.

The brute loomed over me, its jagged grin stretching wider as it watched me struggle to stand. My body felt wrong—like my limbs weren’t mine, like my muscles were responding a second too late. Every movement was sluggish, every breath labored.

Why hasn’t it killed me yet?

The answer came when it swung again... not a full-force punch, but a casual backhand, like it was swatting a fly. The impact sent me skidding across the rocky ground, my ribs screaming. The brute laughed, a deep, guttural sound that made my skin crawl.

It’s toying with me.

I spat blood, forcing myself onto my knees. My knife was still in my hand, the only weapon I had left. My rifle was gone. My armor had been torn off in the earlier blows—now I was down to just my pants and the blade.

The brute took a step forward, its massive frame blocking out the dim, sickly light of this place. It wasn’t in a hurry. It wanted me to know I was going to die.

I lunged first.

Or at least, I tried to. My body didn’t move the way I wanted. My strike was slow, clumsy. The brute caught my wrist before the knife even got close, squeezing until I felt bones grind.

CRACK.

My left arm went limp, the pain so sharp I nearly blacked out. The knife slipped from my fingers—but I caught it with my right hand at the last second and stabbed upward, burying the blade into the brute’s side.

It roared, more in annoyance than pain, and backhanded me again.

This time, I flew.

The world spun. The ground disappeared beneath me.

Oh shit—

I was falling.

The brute stood at the edge of the cliff, watching as I plummeted, its expression one of cruel amusement.

Then darkness swallowed me whole.

I don’t know how long I was out.

When I came to, every part of me was screaming. My left arm was definitely broken. My ribs felt like they’d been crushed. And my head—god, my head was pounding like it was about to split open.

But I was alive.

And the brute?

Nowhere in sight.

I let out a shaky breath, staring up at the jagged cliffs above me.

At least I’m not dead yet.

But something was still wrong.

This body—it didn’t feel like mine.

And the System... it was still broken.

[STATUS: CRITICAL]

[FATAL INJURIES DETECTED]

[RECALIBRATING...]

************************************************8

The world stood still as blue screens flickered to life before every human’s eyes.

[Welcome to the Integration.]

[Survival is now your primary objective.]

For a moment, there was silence. Then—chaos.

In crowded city streets, people stumbled back, swiping at the air as if they could dismiss the glowing text like a pop-up ad.

"What the hell is this?" a man in a business suit shouted, waving his hand through the screen—only for it to remain unaffected.

"Are we in a video game now?" a teenager laughed, poking at his status window. His friend beside him grinned, flexing his arms like he expected superhuman strength. "Dude, we’re literally the main characters!"

But not everyone was excited.

An elderly woman clutched her chest, breathing heavily as her screen displayed her frail stats.

[Strength: 1]

[Endurance: 1]

"This... this can’t be real," she whispered.

Some took the System as a challenge.

A group of gym rats, emboldened by their slightly higher Strength stats, charged at a lone wolf-like beast that had wandered into a parking lot.

"Let’s farm some XP!" one yelled, swinging a metal pipe.

The beast moved.

Claws tore through flesh before any of them could react. Screams filled the air as the survivors scrambled back, realizing too late that this wasn’t a game... there was no "level up" notification for those who managed to kill a beast, no reward for stupidity. Just blood on the pavement.

Others were more cautious. A college student in a library sat frozen, staring at her screen.

[Name: Lisa Chen]

[Intelligence: 4]

[Mana Sensitivity: 3]

She swallowed hard, then thought at the screen: ...Inventory?

Nothing happened.

Then, hesitantly, she willed the System to respond... and suddenly, a new line of text appeared.

[Command Recognized: Inventory Function Locked Until Full Integration.]

Lisa gasped. "It listens!"

Nearby, a soldier who had been trapped in the city during the initial fissure outbreaks glared at his status.

[Name: Marcus Rojas]

[Combat Proficiency: 5]

[Adaptability: 4]

He clenched his fists. "Show me my skills."

The screen shifted.

[Active Skills: None.]

[Potential Skills: Locked.]

Marcus cursed. "Then what’s the damn point?"

Not everyone had the same advantages.

A construction worker with [Strength: 5] found he could lift heavier debris than before... but not enough to stop a slime from dissolving his boot when he got too close.

A child cried as his screen displayed:

[Name: Ethan Park]

...

His mother held him tight, her own stats barely better.

Meanwhile, in an alley, a thief grinned at his [Dexterity: 4], already planning how to use it to his advantage.

The initial excitement faded fast.

No levels. No easy power-ups. No cool op skills. Just cold, hard numbers reflecting what they already were.

And the beasts?

They weren’t waiting for humans to figure things out.

[Warning: Integration Progress: 12%.]

[Prepare.]

The world had changed.

And the weak would be the first to fall.

*****************************************************

The sky split open.

Not like the fissures that had vomited forth monsters—no, this was something else, like a screen tearing to reveal something beyond. And then it descended.

A figure, humanoid in shape but wrong in ways the human mind couldn’t quite articulate.

Its proportions were just slightly off—limbs too long, fingers too precise, eyes too chilling. It wore no clothes, yet its form shifted like liquid silver, never settling long enough to be truly seen.

And when it spoke, its voice was not a sound, but a presence, slithering directly into every human mind.

"I am the Substitute."

The words were not in any language, yet all understood.

"I have taken this form so that your primitive minds may process me without breaking."

A pause. Then—

"Hm. Too many of you survived."

The words hung in the air like a death sentence.

In what was left of New York, a group of armed survivors laughed.

"Another damn hallucination," one spat, raising his rifle. "I’m not buying this shit."

He fired.

The bullet never reached the Substitute. It simply ceased midair, vanishing into nothing.

The Substitute did not even look at him.

"Disrespectful."

It raised a hand—a gesture so casual, so human... and flicked its fingers.

The entire city was erased.

Not destroyed. Not burned.

Gone.

Where skyscrapers and streets had stood, there was now only flat, featureless earth, as if the city had never existed.

Silence.

Then... screams.

"Difficulty will be adjusted."

The Substitute tilted its head, observing the chaos below with detached curiosity.

"Better."

Then it turned its gaze upward, toward the invisible barrier that had been thinning since the first fissures appeared.

"No more delays."

It reached out... and pulled.

The sky shattered.

The barrier, the last fragile shield between Earth and the Origin World, collapsed like broken glass.

And the true Integration began.

Orion felt it before he saw it.

A pressure in his chest, a wrongness in the air. He stumbled back from the bunker’s makeshift window, his breath coming in short, panicked gasps.

No. No no no—

Clara was beside him in an instant, her face pale. "Orion—?"

He couldn’t speak. His hands shook.

Because this wasn’t supposed to happen.

Not yet.

Not like this.

In their last life, the Substitute didn’t appear until years into the Integration, when humanity was already on its knees.

But now?

Now it was here on day one.

And it had just erased an entire city without effort.

Elizabeth grabbed his arm, her nails digging into his skin. "Why is it here now?!"

Orion had no answer.

Only a single, paralyzing thought:

it came too early... What’s wrong? 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

The being hovered above the world, its form flickering between human and something else.

"Survive if you can."

Then it vanished.