The Extra's Rise-Chapter 505: Legacy (2)

Plum blossoms bloomed across the battlefield, not in quiet elegance but as if they’d had enough of being poetic metaphors and decided to become instruments of death. Each swing of Mo Zenith’s blade unleashed a storm—petals turned shrapnel, wind turned blade, grace turned carnage. Vampires and cultists were sliced apart with surgical precision, and the blossoms danced through the chaos with all the lethality of an ancient martial art perfected over generations.

This was not Mount Hua, not even close, but the Mount Hua sect had brought its mountain with it in the form of Mo Zenith. The man stood at the forefront of the war in the East, his Radiant-rank power flaring out in surges that left afterimages in the air and silence in the wake of each strike. His silver hair whipped around him like a banner, and his robes—pristine white despite the carnage—seemed to repel not just dirt but the very concept of defeat.

For three days now, he had led the final assault against the vampire strongholds, methodically dismantling centuries of undead dominion with the patience of a master craftsman. Each strike was calculated, each movement deliberate. This was not the wild abandon of a berserker, but the focused precision of a man who understood that wars were won not through passion, but through perfect execution.

And then, it happened.

A tremor ran through the world itself—not through the earth beneath his feet, but through the very fabric of reality. Mo’s blade paused mid-swing, frozen in the air as every instinct he had developed over decades of combat screamed in recognition.

He turned slowly, deliberately, his pale eyes scanning not the battlefield but the sky above.

The atmosphere shimmered with invisible pressure. Something—someone—had just ascended to a level that had been untouched for two centuries. The metaphysical ladder that everyone climbed had gained a new rung, and the world itself was adjusting to accommodate it.

"Magnus," Mo whispered, the name carrying across the sudden silence that had fallen over the battlefield. Even the vampires had stopped their assault, their instincts recognizing the presence of something beyond their understanding.

Mo’s hands trembled slightly as he gripped his sword—not from fear, but from the sheer magnitude of what he was witnessing. He had known Magnus Draykar for forty years, had watched him climb from a talented young swordsman to the Martial King of the East. They had been rivals once, in their youth, competing for the attention of masters and the admiration of peers.

But this... this transcended rivalry. This was witnessing history.

The pressure in the air intensified, and Mo felt something he had not experienced in decades: humility. Here he stood, a Radiant-rank master at the peak of mortal power, and yet he could feel the vast gulf that separated him from what Magnus had just achieved.

There was a bitter acknowledgment in that moment—the understanding that no matter how high one climbed, there was always another summit to reach. But alongside that bitterness came something unexpected: pride. Pride in his old friend, his former rival, his fellow guardian of the East.

Mo Zenith was a man who bowed to few, but some moments demanded reverence.

He lowered his sword and dipped his head—not in submission, but in recognition. Around him, the very air seemed to hold its breath, as if the world itself was paying homage to what had just occurred.

The vampires, sensing the shift in cosmic balance, began to retreat. Their survival instincts, honed over millennia, told them that something fundamental had changed. The apex predator of the night had just been dethroned by something far more terrible: a human who had transcended humanity itself.

"The war is won," Mo said quietly, and his words carried the weight of prophecy. "At last, it is won."

But even as he spoke, he felt the subtle wrongness in the mana signature—the shadow of corruption that clung to the edges of Magnus’s ascension. Victory, it seemed, had come at a price that made Mo’s heart clench with sudden, inexplicable dread.

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The frozen expanse of the Northern Continent stretched endlessly under a sky the color of old steel. Here, where the aurora danced between the peaks of mountains that had never known the touch of human civilization, Arden Frost sat in contemplation.

His fortress was a study in contrasts—stone foundations supporting structures of gleaming metal and crystal, where old magic and new technology existed in perfect harmony. Mana-powered heating systems kept the interior comfortable despite the sub-zero temperatures outside, and reinforced windows offered a panoramic view of the desolate beauty that was his domain.

Arden had been meditating when it happened—a daily practice that had kept his mind sharp through decades of isolation and responsibility. The technique required absolute focus, a complete withdrawal from the external world to examine the inner landscape of one’s own power.

Which made the disruption all the more jarring.

The mana in the air convulsed, rippling outward from somewhere impossibly distant yet immediately present. Arden’s eyes snapped open, pale blue and sharp as winter ice, as every sensor in his fortress began registering readings that should have been impossible.

He rose from his meditation cushion with fluid grace, moving to the great window that dominated the eastern wall of his study. Outside, the aurora had intensified, its normally green and blue lights shot through with veins of gold and silver—as if the very heavens were responding to what had just occurred.

Radiant-rank power was not subtle. When one of the world’s handful of living legends unleashed their full strength, it sent ripples through the planet’s mana field that could be felt by every sensitive soul within a thousand miles. But this... this was something else entirely.

Arden’s weathered hand found the bottle of cognac that sat on his desk—a gift from a diplomatic mission to the Southern Continent decades ago, saved for occasions that might never come. He poured himself a measure, noting how his hand remained perfectly steady despite the magnitude of what he was witnessing.

"So you’ve done it, old friend," he murmured, his voice carrying the weight of forty years of complicated history.

He had known Magnus Draykar since they were both young men, full of ambition and certainty. For a time, they had even been friends—before ideology and circumstance had driven them down different paths.

But rivalry had a way of evolving over the decades. What had once been jealousy and resentment had slowly transformed into something more complex—a grudging respect, a distant affection, an acknowledgment that they were two sides of the same coin.

The cognac burned as it went down, but it was nothing compared to the burning in Arden’s chest. Magnus had always been driven by something that Arden couldn’t quite understand—a desperate need to protect others, to stand as a bulwark against the darkness. Arden had called it foolishness once, but now...

Now he recognized it for what it had always been: love. Love for the weak, for the innocent, for the world itself in all its flawed beauty.

And that love had carried Magnus beyond the boundaries of human limitation.

Arden raised the glass in a silent toast, his reflection ghostlike in the reinforced window. Outside, the aurora continued its impossible dance, painting the frozen landscape in colors that had no names.

"Magnus Draykar," he said formally, speaking the name with the reverence it deserved. "The Martial King. The man who proved that legends could still be born."

He paused, swirling the cognac in his glass, watching the amber liquid catch the light.

"I just wish..." he began, then stopped. What was the point of wishes? They were for children and idealists. But still, the words came: "I wish it hadn’t taken a war to bring out the best in you. I wish we could have found our way back to friendship before... before whatever this cost you."

Because even from half a world away, Arden could sense the shadow in Magnus’s triumph. Ascension of this magnitude didn’t come freely. The universe demanded payment for such gifts, and the price was always higher than anyone wanted to pay.

He finished the cognac in one long swallow, feeling the burn all the way down. Outside, the aurora was already beginning to fade, the cosmic disturbance settling back into normal patterns. The world was adjusting to its new reality—one in which the impossible had become possible, if only for a moment.

Arden stood there for a long time, watching the lights dance across the sky, remembering a younger man with fire in his eyes and a dream of making the world better. Somewhere in the East, that man had just achieved something that would echo through history.

And somewhere in the North, his old rival mourned for reasons he couldn’t quite name.

"Farewell, Magnus," Arden whispered to the wind and the ice and the endless sky. "You magnificent, impossible fool."

The words were carried away by the arctic wind, lost in the vastness of the frozen continent. But perhaps, in the way that such things sometimes worked, they found their way to where they needed to go.

After all, some bonds transcended distance, time, and even death itself.