The Extra's Rise-Chapter 504: Legacy (1)

After what could generously be described as a long debate—and less generously as a joint interrogation disguised as affection—Rachel and Seraphina finally relented. The cuffs came off, complete with a faint shimmer of ancient runes and the sort of hum that usually meant something powerful had once been bound inside them. Hopefully not permanently.

In any case, freedom was mine. Limited freedom. The kind that came with a silent understanding that if I even looked at a battlefield, I’d be tackled by two terrifyingly affectionate women and likely cuffed again.

We were back at Mount Hua. The sect’s mountains stood tall around us, cold and proud, as if they’d seen empires rise and fall and hadn’t been particularly impressed. The sky above was a crystalline blue, the kind that made you feel like the heavens had upgraded their resolution.

Li was waiting for me outside the temple courtyard, hands behind his back, robes flapping gently in the alpine breeze. He looked me up and down like a healer examining a patient who had survived something they absolutely shouldn’t have.

"Arthur. You’re recovering well," he said, and relief colored his voice like sunrise breaking through storm clouds.

"I’m fine, Master Li," I replied, smiling. My joints still ached like a three-century-old automaton, but that was beside the point.

Li nodded, then his expression grew serious. "The Eastern Continent’s calling off student conscription. It’s official."

I blinked. "Wait—why? Isn’t the front still crawling with vampires and cultists?"

"Things have changed," Li said quietly, his voice heavy with something I couldn’t identify. "Magnus returned three hours ago, while you were unconscious."

My heart leaped. "He’s back? Where is he?"

Li’s eyes held a weight I’d never seen before. "Alone. On the Seventh Peak. He’s been waiting for you to wake up."

That single word—alone—carried more meaning than any speech. In Mount Hua, masters didn’t isolate themselves on the highest peaks unless something was very wrong.

"How is he?" I asked, though something in Li’s expression already told me I wouldn’t like the answer.

Li’s silence was answer enough.

I found him at the summit of the Seventh Peak, the highest point in all of Mount Hua. The climb had taken me two hours through increasingly treacherous paths, past the tree line, past the snow line, into air so thin it hurt to breathe. But Magnus had always preferred solitude for the important conversations.

He sat cross-legged on a flat stone outcropping, facing east toward the distant war-torn lands. His back was to me, but I could see the tension in his shoulders, the careful way he held himself—like a man made of cracked glass trying not to shatter. frёewebnoѵēl.com

"Master," I called out, my voice nearly lost in the wind.

He turned slowly, and my heart broke.

The corruption was visible now—dark veins spreading from a wound on his neck that could only have come from one source. The Vampire Monarch’s final blow. The price of victory.

’Arthur,’ Luna whispered solemnly in my mind, her usual sarcasm nowhere to be found. ’It’s... it’s bad.’

Magnus smiled when he saw me, and for a moment, he looked like the man who came to Creighton estate just to ask me to be his disciple.

"There you are," he said, his voice carrying on the mountain wind. "Come. Sit with me."

I crossed the distance between us on unsteady legs, settling beside him on the cold stone. Up close, the corruption was even worse—tendrils of darkness creeping toward his heart like ink spreading through water.

"I killed him, Arthur," Magnus said without preamble, staring out at the horizon. "The Vampire Monarch. Turned him to ash and scattered him to the winds."

"At what cost?" I asked, though I already knew.

Magnus chuckled, dry and brittle. "Everything. But it was worth it. The war is over. The students can go back to their studies. The children can sleep without fear." He turned to look at me. "You can have a life."

"Master—"

"Let me speak," he said gently. "I don’t have long, and there are things you need to know."

The wind howled around us, carrying the scent of snow and pine. Far below, Mount Hua spread out like a painting, beautiful and eternal.

"You weren’t my first disciple," Magnus began, his voice taking on the weight of long-buried memory. "There was a girl before you. Brilliant. Talented beyond measure. I thought I could save her from the darkness that talent brings."

He paused, watching clouds drift across the valley below.

"She died," he said simply. "Mana deviation took her. Her heart demon consumed her from within, and in the end... I had to kill her myself. To spare her the suffering."

The words hit me like physical blows. I’d never known. Never suspected.

"After that, I swore I’d never take another disciple. The pain of losing her, of failing her... I couldn’t bear to risk it again."

He looked at me then, really looked, as if memorizing my face.

"Then you came along," he continued. "A talent too great to leave alone."

He reached into his robes and withdrew a book bound in reinforced leather, its cover inscribed with runes that seemed to shift in the mountain light.

"This is my Grade 6 art," he said, placing it in my hands. "The culmination of everything I’ve learned about the sword. Learn it. Master it. Make it yours."

Another book followed, older and heavier, filled with notes and theories scribbled in margins.

"And this contains my thoughts on your own path. Techniques you haven’t developed yet. Movements that exist only in potential."

Finally, he stood and unsheathed the sword at his side.

Nyxthar.

Even in the thin mountain air, I could feel the weapon’s presence—a legendary-grade artifact that seemed to bend reality around itself. The blade was strange, shifting between visible and not, as if it existed in multiple dimensions simultaneously.

"I leave you this as well," Magnus said, holding the sword reverently. "It chose me once. I believe it will choose you."

"Master, I can’t—"

"You can," he said firmly. "You must. Because what I’m about to show you is the level you need to surpass."

He stepped away from me, moving to the very edge of the precipice. The wind whipped his robes around him, and for a moment, he looked like a figure from legend—the hero at the end of his story, ready for one final act.

"I reached it, Arthur," he said, his voice carrying an impossible weight. "In that moment when I faced the Vampire Monarch, when death was certain... I broke through. High Radiant-rank. I touched the realm of demigods."

’Impossible,’ Luna breathed in my mind.

But I could feel it now—the change in the air, the way the mountain itself seemed to lean in, as if recognizing the presence of something beyond mortal understanding.

"This," Magnus said, raising Nyxthar toward the sky, "is what it means to surpass human limitations."

And then he swung.

Not at an enemy. Not at any target. Just a single, perfect cut through the air itself.

The world... shifted.

There was no explosion, no dramatic display of power. Just a subtle wrongness, as if reality had skipped a frame. The clouds above us parted in a perfect line. The wind stopped. Even time seemed to hesitate.

For the first time in almost two centuries, the power of a demigod was felt on Earth.

I understood then that I was witnessing something that perhaps a dozen people in history had ever seen. Not just Magnus’s final technique, but the peak of human potential made manifest.

When the moment passed, Magnus staggered, catching himself on his sword. The corruption spread visibly, racing toward his heart like a tide that could no longer be held back.

"That’s your goal," he said, his voice weak but determined. "Not to match me. To surpass me. To reach heights I could only dream of."

He turned back to me, extending Nyxthar with hands that trembled from more than just exhaustion.

"Take it," he whispered. "And promise me—promise me you’ll use it to protect what matters. Not for glory, not for power, but for the people who can’t protect themselves."

I took the sword with hands that shook, feeling its weight—not just physical, but the weight of legacy, of responsibility, of love.

"I promise, Master."

Magnus smiled.

"Good," he said. "Then my work here is done."

The corruption reached his heart, and Magnus Draykar—the Martial King, my master, Rank 1 of humanity—closed his eyes and let himself fall forward off the cliff.

I lunged toward him, but he was already gone, disappearing into the mists below like a figure from a dream.