The Cursed Extra: Bloodline of Sacrifice - Chapter 182

Chapter 182: The Weight of a Thousand Voices
“This is the place,” Vynesaa said.

Marine, who had been trailing slightly behind, stopped next to her and looked around. “Yeah… same here,” she muttered, tilting her head slightly. “My spirits are pulling in the same direction. We must be close.”

The cave entrance wasn’t easy to spot — half-covered by twisted roots and jagged rock. It sloped down under the terrain, wide enough for two people at most. The space around them smelled damp, almost ancient, like it hadn’t been disturbed in centuries.

Vynesaa stepped forward carefully, scanning the edges of the area with narrowed eyes. “It’s blocked,” she muttered, placing a hand on one of the boulders sealing the entrance. “Collapsed from the inside.”

She turned away from it and immediately reached for her communicator. “Caspian, I’ve found the exit point. It’s sealed, but we might be able to clear it if we—”

Static.

She frowned.

Again. “Caspian, do you copy? This is Vynesaa. We found the exit cave, sending coordinates. Please respond.”

Still nothing. Only that subtle hum of open silence. She checked the device again, wondering if the signal was jammed — but no, the location ping worked.

A cold feeling pressed against her chest. She clicked open the broader channel.

“This is Vynesaa. I’ve located the exit point. It’s partially blocked, but reachable. I’m sending you the coordinates now. Please converge here as soon as possible.”

Responses came in almost immediately.

“Copy that.””Received.””On my way.””Understood.”

Everyone… except him.

She switched again. “Caspian?”

Still nothing.

Her brow tightened. She hesitated for just a second before flipping to a private line. “Vera, can you hear me?”

A breath.

“Yeah, I can.”

“Where is Caspian?” Vynesaa asked, her voice a little sharper now. “He’s not replying. I’ve been trying for a while.”

“What?” Vera said, suddenly alert. “He’s not answering you?”

“No.”

There was a pause on the line.

“…He was right at the gate. He… he told me to go find the path while he held them off. I didn’t think—I thought—” Vera’s voice wavered.

There was a click. He’d hung up.

…

Vera footsteps slowed as he reached a corner, hands trembling slightly as he leaned against the stone wall. The roar of monsters echoed from behind.

“It’s all my fault,” he whispered.

He clenched his jaw, eyes stinging from frustration.

“I should’ve gone back. I shouldn’t have listened to him so blindly. He told me to run and I just… ran.” He looked down at his hands, scarred from scraping against old rubble during the earlier escape. “I left him.”

His breathing grew heavier.

“I was scared. That’s the truth. Not tactical, not logical… scared.”

He could still hear the echo of Caspian’s voice in his mind. Calm. Commanding. Trying so hard to carry all the weight alone.

“I’m a coward,” Vera said aloud. “I left the one person who never once left us behind.”

He looked back toward the distant gate.

“…What if he doesn’t come back?….. NO I SHOULD GO TO HELP HIM”

…

The red hue of his aura was fading, thinning like mist under sun. One by one, his summoned beasts had fallen—tearing through waves of black-furred monsters, only to be torn down in turn.

The last of them, a winged brute made of obsidian bone and magma veins, let out a choked roar before a cluster of spikes impaled it from all sides. It collapsed, shaking the ground.

Caspian stumbled back, breath ragged, shoulders hunched under invisible weight.

Seventy-nine down. One left.

No, none.

Even the last flicker of summoning magic refused to answer. His legs gave out. Knees hit the cold stone. He propped himself up on trembling arms.

He couldn’t keep going.

Sweat dripped from his chin. His head pounded with something far deeper than exhaustion—a fracture in the soul, a tearing at the seams of his being.

“I can’t… I can’t…” he muttered, gritting his teeth.

The monsters on the far end of the destroyed gate stood still—more than a hundred of them, some massive like siege beasts, others small and fast. But none attacked.

Not yet.

They were waiting.

Like predators circling an injured animal.

Then—

CRASH.

A boulder the size of a house smashed into the wall near him. Dust erupted in waves, chunks of stone flying past his face. One grazed his cheek, drawing blood.

“They’re… teasing me, you silly monsters” Caspian whispered.

The next wave would come.

He could feel the footsteps of something heavy approaching, a rumble that crawled along the floor.

He turned his face slightly, wiping the blood with the back of his hand. His vision was blurring. His chest felt hollow. His mana was… not gone, but misaligned. He had power, but he couldn’t access it.

“Why…?” he breathed. “Why can’t I summon them all?”

He had summoned them before. Dozens of beasts. The bond was strong. The cost—paid. And yet…

His thoughts raced, frantically pulling apart his memory of his own sacrifice system. The rules. The cause. The price.

Then it hit him.

“The first time… I sacrificed emotion.”

That was the deal.

That was the toll.

To gain power, he had sacrificed something he thought he didn’t need. He had believed emotion only made him weaker.

Love. Guilt. Hope. Fear. Grief.

Now—he understood. That sacrifice had not only numbed him, it had shackled the connection between him and his monsters.

Summoning is will. Will is emotion.

Without it—his beasts were just shadows, incomplete fragments barely holding form.

He couldn’t feel them. Couldn’t call to them.

He had traded away the very thing that anchored them to him.

And now, to survive, to buy even a few more seconds for his team, to hold this line—

“I need it back,” Caspian muttered.

But that’s not how sacrifice worked.

You don’t get back what you gave up.

Unless—

Unless you give up something else.

Something bigger.

His hand shook as he called out the system. The crystal embedded in it glowed faintly red, flickering like a warning beacon.

“System,” Caspian whispered. “Initiate new sacrifice.”

A chime echoed inside his skull.

[Sacrifice Request Detected.][Requirement: High-Grade Offering.][Target: Emotional State Retrieval.][Suggested Equivalent: 50% Long-Term Memory]

Caspian stared at the prompt, his eyes wide. He read it again.

Everything that had made him who he was up until now.

“You’re not serious…” he whispered.

“You’re already about to lose your life. What good are memories then?” bloodmoon said.

Caspian lowered his head. The monsters began to move again, like a slow, steady tide rolling toward him. Their roars were distant, but growing.

“But… I don’t want to forget them.”

He thought of Vynesaa.

Of Fianna.

Of Zareth’s cold but sincere approval. Of Vera’s awkward smile. Of darian’s stubborn sparring.

Of his teacher. Of her warmth.

Of himself, sitting under the stars one night, whispering

“I’ll protect them, no matter the cost.”

“Then pay it,” Bloodmoon said.

A pause.

Then:

He hovered over the confirmation prompt.

[Sacrifice: 50% Long-Term Memory — Confirm?]

A beat.

Then—

Click.

The world around him shattered.

Not physically—but inside his mind. Images broke like glass. Laughter echoed, then vanished. Names slipped through his fingers like sand. Faces blurred, then disappeared.

A hollow chill filled his chest.

And yet—

His aura exploded.

Full. Red. Complete.

The beasts, his true beasts, awakened.

Not flickers. Not shadows.

Monsters.

Twenty feet tall, bone-armored, fur-raged, talons glowing with runes. The sky cracked above as they roared to life around him.

Caspian, now kneeling in the middle of them all, blinked.

“…Why i am here…?”

He couldn’t remember.

The communicator buzzed weakly in his ear.

“Caspian, I’ve found the exit point. It’s sealed, but we might be able to clear it if we—”?” Vynesaa’s voice.

He looked up at the sky.

That name.

It tugged at something.

He stood slowly, surrounded by beasts.