Extra’s Rebirth: I Will Create A Good Ending For The Heroines - Chapter 463

Chapter 463: The Trial of Unity [II]
‘Sadistic bastard.’

Sylvia’s thoughts churned behind her serene expression as she processed the Elf King’s rules.

It knew exactly what it was doing. If the trial had simply been about reaching three hundred kills, that would have been manageable. Tedious, perhaps, but straightforward.

However, by adding the stand that displayed everyone’s kill count in real-time, the Elf King had transformed a simple hunt into a battlefield of paranoia and ambush.

Sylvia’s mind worked through the possibilities with cold precision.

‘If I were facing this alone…’ she thought, her eyes distant as strategies formed and dissolved in seconds. ‘I would gather monsters I could control, herd them into a trap, then ambush the opposition at the perfect moment. Or…’

Her gaze flicked toward the glowing stand in the distance.

‘I would wait. Let them accumulate kills while I stayed hidden. Then, the moment someone crossed two hundred or so, I would strike. Kill them, take everything they had worked for, and leave them with nothing but failure.’

It was brutal and exactly the kind of trial the Elf King would design.

But she wasn’t alone this time. She had Azel, who was practically invincible in situations like this. That changed everything.

Still, there was an easier path.

“Darling, shall we go hunt?” Sylvia asked sweetly, tilting her head in that way she knew drew his attention.

The trial probably intended for teams to unify against the Rank Two Boss monster lurking somewhere in this dungeon.

That would be the noble approach… the path of cooperation and strategy.

She would rather take the convenient way out but Azel didn’t even glance at her.

“Don’t bother.”

He raised one hand lazily, his crimson eyes scanning the desolate dungeon landscape as if reading something invisible in the air.

“There are just three hundred monsters in this dungeon.”

Sylvia blinked, her mask of sweetness faltering for a fraction of a second.

“How do you know that?” she asked carefully.

Azel’s lips curved into a knowing smile.

He knew because he had played through this exact scenario in the game.

The Elf King had made them all believe there was hope in cooperation, that by working together they could avoid the Boss entirely and simply accumulate kills through teamwork.

But there were obvious loopholes buried in the rules.

First of all, the Elf King had never said that killing another contestant would actually add to your total. It had only stated that by killing a person, you would take their accumulated kills.

That meant if someone murdered a contestant who hadn’t killed anything yet, they would gain nothing in return.

There would be zero kills transferred. The rules were designed to be deceptive, encouraging violence while punishing those who acted too hastily.

He had already played the game long enough to know the dungeon’s exact composition.

There were three hundred monsters in total.

Two hundred and ninety-nine were regular creatures scattered throughout the massive space, ranging from Rank five trash mobs to more dangerous Rank four elites, in the game… there was no Rank 3 monster here.

And the three hundredth monster was the Boss.

A Rank Two monstrosity that could shred unprepared contestants into pieces.

So even if someone murdered every other team and stole all their kills, they would still cap at two hundred and ninety-nine and that would force them to face the Boss alone in a battle designed to destroy them.

“I sensed it.” Azel said with a theatrical sigh, playing his role perfectly. “There are three hundred monsters in this dungeon… however, two hundred and ninety-nine of them are regular monsters and the last one is the Boss.”

He turned to look at Sylvia directly, his crimson eyes glinting with amusement.

“I’m sure you listened to the rules, didn’t you?”

Sylvia’s mind raced back through the Elf King’s words, parsing every syllable with renewed intensity.

Then she saw it…. The trap.

Her expression darkened instantly, and she stomped her foot against the ground hard enough to crack the stone beneath her heel.

‘That sadistic elf!’

Even if they slaughtered everyone else and accumulated three hundred kills through murder and theft, they would only ever reach two hundred and ninety-nine which was one monster short.

And that would force them to confront the Rank Two Boss without sufficient preparation, without backup, and without the overwhelming firepower needed to survive such an encounter.

For most teams, it would be certain death.

Azel, however, wasn’t most people.

‘Though I think I could beat a Rank Two,’ he thought casually, hands tucked into his pockets.

It would probably be a close battle depending on what type of Boss spawned.

Some Rank Twos were glass cannons with devastating attacks but weak defenses. Others were tanks that could withstand punishment for hours.

But ultimately, he was confident he would win.

‘Still, why make things harder than necessary?’

“So…” Azel said aloud, glancing around the barren dungeon landscape. “What I think is that we rack up enough monster kills to draw the other teams to our location, then subdue them. Or we go hunting ourselves and pick them off one by one.”

He personally thought the first option was better.

Let the prey come to them.

“I’d go with the first one.” Sylvia agreed immediately.

And then their surroundings vibrated then the air around them rippled, folding inward as reality itself seemed to bend and distort.

The dungeon walls that had been solid and real moments ago suddenly felt… wrong.

An illusion was forming around them.

Azel’s instincts flared but before he could even react, a notification flickered across his vision.

[Kyone’s Blessing has prevented Lunar Illusion from manifesting]

The distortion shattered like glass, fragments of false reality dissolving into motes of silver light that faded into nothing.

Azel turned sharply in a specific direction, his crimson eyes locking onto a distant cluster of boulders nearly a hundred meters away.

“They came to us instead…” he muttered.

A slow, wicked grin spread across his face. Elves didn’t really like to listen to reason, did they?

He would just have to beat some sense into them.

…

Feliora crouched behind a massive boulder, her heart pounding as she watched the two figures in the distance.

Her Lunar eyes, a rare gift among her people, allowed her to see far beyond normal vision.

She could perceive the shimmering cores of the monsters Azel and Sylvia had already killed, glowing like dying embers scattered across the ground.

She couldn’t hear what they were saying from this distance, but she didn’t need to.

All she needed to do was strike first.

Her fingers wove through the air, tracing intricate patterns as silver mana coalesced around her hands.

“Lunar Illusion,” she whispered.

The spell unfurled like a blooming flower, invisible threads of magic reaching out to ensnare Azel and Sylvia’s senses.

It would trap them in a false reality, make them see things that weren’t there, and feel sensations that didn’t exist.

It was her signature technique.

And the moment it took hold, her fiancée would strike.

But just as the illusion formed, wrapping around the pair like a net… It shattered completely.

Feliora’s breath caught in her throat.

“Your illusion failed…?”

Her partner’s voice was low and confused as he crouched beside her, his own silver-green hair tied back in a warrior’s knot.

He was one of the few men in their city who could wield the Lunar attribute, specifically chosen by her parents to complement her abilities.

Together, they were supposed to be unstoppable but the illusion had failed.

Azel turned in their direction and then he smirked.

He was looking directly at her.

Through more than a dozen meters of distance and even through solid rock.

Directly. At. Her.

“Run!” Feliora screamed.

She leapt to the right just as a streak of golden light obliterated the entire boulder in a single devastating impact.

The explosion was deafening.

Chunks of stone the size of houses were hurled into the air, raining down like meteors as Feliora rolled across the ground, barely avoiding being crushed.

Dust and debris filled her lungs as she scrambled to her feet, coughing violently.

When the dust cleared, Azel stood exactly where the boulder had been.

He had a wicked grin plastered across his face, and his crimson eyes gleamed.

Feliora’s instincts screamed at her.

They were in serious trouble.

Her fiancée raised both hands toward the sky, and the ground beneath him began to tremble.

Silver mana erupted from his body in waves, condensing into solid platforms that floated around him like shields.

“Lunar Formation!” he cried out desperately.

Dozens of shimmering platforms materialized, each one inscribed with protective enchantments that glowed with power.

It was a defensive technique passed down through generations, meant to withstand even the strongest attacks.

But then Feliora noticed something.

Glowing runes had appeared on her fiancée’s arms and legs and these were runes that weren’t part of his spell.

“Huh?” he muttered, staring down at them in confusion.

They exploded.

The blast tore through flesh and bone and her fiancée’s scream echoed across the dungeon as his arms and legs were completely severed in an instant.

He collapsed to the ground, writhing in agony, as his blood pooled beneath him.

Feliora’s vision blurred with rage and terror.

She shot forward, her legs charged with concentrated Lunar power that made the ground crack beneath her feet.

Her fist cocked back, mana swirling around it like a vortex as she aimed directly for Azel’s face.

He dodged effortlessly and then his fist slammed into her gut.

The impact drove every molecule of air from her lungs.

Feliora’s eyes bulged as she doubled over, saliva spraying from her mouth as her body folded like paper.

She hit the ground hard, gasping uselessly as her vision swam.

Azel crouched beside her.

“Two of you…” he said softly. “will do very nicely.”

—

Feliora awoke with a start.

Her head throbbed, and for a moment, everything was a blur of pain and confusion.

She tried to move her hands, but they were bound tightly behind her back with something that felt like enchanted rope.

Her legs were free, but her whole body ached from where Azel’s fist had connected with her stomach.

She blinked several times, forcing her vision to clear.

The first thing she saw was her fiancée lying a few feet away, also bound. His arms and legs were completely intact now, healed as if they had never been torn apart in the first place.

He was conscious, staring at the sky with empty eyes.

‘Pathetic,’ she thought bitterly.

“Where am I…?” Feliora asked aloud, her voice hoarse.

Then she noticed her surroundings.

They were positioned in the middle of a clearing, and scattered all around them were the glowing cores of dead monsters.

The same cores she had been observing earlier with her Lunar eyes when she had tried to ambush them.

It seemed they had been captured.

“You’re with me.” Sylvia’s voice cut through the air like silk wrapped around a blade.

She squatted down gracefully, bringing her face directly in front of Feliora’s.

Her eyes studied the bound elf with an expression that was difficult to read… something between disgust and reluctant acceptance.

“We will let you guys go on one condition.”

Feliora’s lips curled into a sneer despite her situation.

“Don’t even come close to me, unroyal bitch!” she spat.

The words had barely left her mouth when a boot slammed into her back.

The kick drove her face-first into the ground making her cheek pressing directly against the sole of Sylvia’s foot.

Dust filled her mouth, and humiliation burned hotter than any physical pain.

“Ouch~” Sylvia whimpered softly, though her tone was laced with mockery. “That hurt my feelings.”

Feliora struggled to lift her head, but Azel’s boot remained pressed firmly against her back.

“You don’t have a choice.” Azel said coldly.

She managed to twist her neck just enough to see him from the corner of her eye. His crimson gaze were glowing like that of a demon.

“You and your fiancée will be completely under us for this trial,” he continued. “You’ll follow orders. You’ll hunt when we say hunt. You’ll stop when we say stop.”

His boot pressed down harder.

“And if you don’t…”

Feliora’s breath hitched.

“I accept…” Feliora said quickly.

Sure, she hated Sylvia with every fiber of her being. The adopted daughter who had stolen the spotlight, who paraded around as royalty despite having barely any blood claim to the throne.

But there was no way she would toy with the man who could have murdered her in an instant.

Who still could, if he wanted to.

Azel removed his boot from her back and crouched down, reaching for the enchanted rope binding her wrists.

“If you try any of those illusions again,” he said quietly. “I’ll ensure you’re blind for the rest of your life.”

He untied her hands slowly, half-expecting her to lash out the moment she was free.

But Feliora remained perfectly still.

“Thank you very much…” she whispered, rubbing her sore wrists.

She looked at her fiancée one more time, then threw her eyes in the opposite direction with obvious disdain.

Feliora turned back to Azel, her pride was wounded but her survival instincts intact.

“What is your plan from now?” she asked carefully, wondering why he had bothered taking them captive instead of simply killing them and moving on.

Azel stood up fully, dusting off his hands.

“We need to gather the rest of them before they start killing each other,” he said simply. “The Elf King designed this trial to turn everyone into enemies. If we let that happen, most of you will die.”

He glanced down at her with that same wicked grin from before.

“You don’t need to bring them back complete, though. Break a leg or two if they resist.”

Feliora swallowed hard.

She had gone from hunter to prey to… enforcer?