The Extra's Rise - Chapter 1092
1092: The Scream of Steel 1092: The Scream of Steel The distance between us was closing nearly instantly, but to my dilated perception, the world had slowed to a crawl.
The raindrops suspended in the air were no longer water; they were static obstacles, frozen in time.
I was no longer holding a sword.
I was gripping a dying star.
Valeria was screaming.
It wasn’t a metaphor, nor was it the sound of wind shearing against the edge.
The physical steel of the blade was vibrating at a frequency so high it produced a shrill, piercing shriek that drowned out the thunder of the storm.
The high-grade mithril alloy, forged by the greatest smiths of the Northern Continent and bathed in the mana of a Sovereign, was disintegrating at the molecular level.
I was pouring the Tenth Circle-the direct manipulation of reality’s source code-into a vessel meant for swinging at armor.
I was forcing the concept of “Nothing” into an object made of “Something.” The metal turned white.
Then transparent.
Then, it began to flake away, dissolving into particles of superheated light trailing behind me like a comet’s tail.
My hands burned.
The leather grip had vaporized milliseconds ago, leaving me holding the bare, molten tang of the blade.
The heat seared my palms, fusing my flesh to the steel, welding bone to hilt.
I gritted my teeth, tears stinging my eyes.
Not from the pain-pain was irrelevant now-but from the guilt.
‘I’m breaking her,’ I realized, the thought heavy in my chest.
‘To kill the monster, I have to murder my partner.’ I hesitated.
Just for a fraction of a microsecond, my will faltered.
I tried to pull back the power, to save the blade from total annihilation.
I tried to throttle the Miasma and The Grey pulsing through my veins.
“Do not.” The voice didn’t come from the air.
It resonated directly in the majestic cathedral of my soul, clear, cold, and metallic.
It was a voice I hadn’t heard often.
In all the years we had fought together, Valeria-the ancient, undead spirit fused to the steel-had been a quiet companion.
She spoke in hums, in warnings, in the subtle weight of the blade during a parry.
She was a silent guardian who let her edge do the talking.
But now, she spoke.
And her voice was devoid of fear, filled only with a fierce, knightly pride.
“Master,” she said, her tone sharp as the edge she carried.
“Do not pity the steel.
I was a warrior before I was a weapon.
I did not linger in this form to sit on a mantle and gather dust.
I remained to cut.” The vibration in the blade shifted.
The screaming stopped, replaced by a low, harmonious hum that resonated with the frequency of my own heartbeat.
She wasn’t fighting the overload anymore; she was embracing it.
She was holding the disintegrating physical structure together with the sheer force of her own soul, buying me the one swing I needed.
“I have waited centuries for a strike like this,” she whispered, a ghost of a laugh in her voice.
“Swing me, Arthur.
Make it a cut worthy of the end.” My hesitation vanished.
The guilt was replaced by a solemn, burning resolve.
“Thank you,” I whispered to the steel.
I locked my eyes on Tenebria.
She was rushing toward me, a catastrophic singularity of black light.
The Overlord Art: Seven Sins Impact was terrifying to behold.
It wasn’t just a punch.
The space around her fist was warping, buckling under the weight of seven contradictory laws of physics.
Gravity collapsed inward (Gluttony).
Time distorted and lagged (Envy).
Force multiplied exponentially (Wrath).
Kinetic energy dampened around her (Sloth).
Defense hardened to absolute rejection (Pride).
She was throwing a miniature, chaotic universe at my face.
She was the immovable object, the sum of all things, the apex of existence.
I roared, channeling every ounce of Miasma and Mana I had into the edge.
I pulled the toxic air of the Abyss and the pure mana of Earth and smashed them together in the forge of my core.
“Sovereign Sword Art: Final Form!” I didn’t slash.
I didn’t thrust.
I painted.
I drew a line across the world.
A line that separated the “Before” from the “After.” A rule that stated that nothing, not even a god, could exist across this boundary.
“WORLD SEVERING!” “SEVEN SINS IMPACT!” We collided.
There was no sound.
The energies involved were too dense, too absolute for the air to transmit vibration.
The atmosphere simply ceased to exist in a ten-mile radius.
The clouds, the rain, the light-everything was erased, replaced by a perfect, expanding sphere of absolute whiteness.
Physics broke down.
Up became down.
Light became heavy.
I felt the impact travel up my arms.
It shattered my elbows instantly.
It pulverized the bones in my shoulders.
The shockwave turned my ribs to powder inside my chest.
But I held the line.
Valeria bit into the Black.
The Grey blade met the Seven-Colored fist.
It was a clash of philosophies.
Tenebria was the weight of Everything-the messy, chaotic, powerful reality of the universe.
I was the definition of Nothing-the void that carved meaning into the chaos.
For a heartbeat, we were deadlocked in the center of the sky.
Tenebria’s eyes were wide, maniacal, staring into mine through the blinding discharge of energy.
She was smiling.
Her teeth were bared in a rictus of pure, adrenaline-fueled ecstasy.
“YES!” she screamed silently into the void, her voice projected by pure intent.
“CUT ME!
PROVE YOU EXIST!” She pushed harder.
The Seven Sins flared.
The Gift of Wrath exploded, trying to blow my sword apart with thermonuclear force.
The Gift of Sloth tried to freeze the blade in place, turning the air around it to molasses.
The Gift of Gluttony opened invisible maws, trying to eat the mana fueling the edge.
But Valeria refused to stop.
Guided by my Sovereign Will, the spirit of the blade rejected the laws of the Demon Overlord.
She ignored the Sloth.
She cut the Wrath.
She denied the Gluttony.
She pushed past the field of force.
She touched Tenebria’s skin.
The composite armor of Dragon Scales, Demon Chitin, and Divine Pride-the armor that had tanked the breath of the Dragon Empress, the armor that had never been breached in ten thousand years of conquest-met the edge of the World Severing.
CRACK.
A sound finally escaped the vacuum.
It was a wet, sickening tear.
It was the sound of a god bleeding.
The blade sliced through the violet aura of the Authority of Pride.
It cleaved the translucent Dragon Scales.
It parted the black Chitin.
It sank into her flesh.
It cut deep into the side of her neck, aiming for the spine.
Blood-iridescent, black, and heavy-sprayed out, sizzling against the energy field like acid.
It coated my face, burning hot, smelling of ozone and ancient power.
I had her.
I was going to decapitate the Overlord.
“BREAK!” Tenebria shrieked.
She didn’t retreat.
She didn’t try to dodge the lethal blow.
She stepped into the blade.
She flexed the muscles of her neck, reinforcing them with the density of a neutron star, channeling the entirety of her massive mana reserves into her skeletal structure.
She clamped down on the sword with her very bones.
Simultaneously, she drove her fist forward, past my guard, aiming for my chest.
I couldn’t dodge.
I was committed to the swing.
I had poured my entire existence into this one motion.
I pushed the sword with everything I had left.
My soul burned.
My vision went white.
“CUT!” I screamed.
“CUT HER!” Valeria tried.
The spirit threw her entire existence into the edge, vibrating violently against the Overlord’s spine.
But Tenebria was too dense.
She was too real.
Her Will to exist was, in this fraction of a second, stronger than my Will to erase her.
The steel hit the spine of the Overlord…
and stopped.
The energy feedback loop spiked.
The concept of “Infinity” I had forced into the sword clashed with the concept of “Immutability” Tenebria embodied.
The paradox was too great.
Something had to give.
It wasn’t Tenebria.
PING.
A high, tragic note rang out across the Pacific, clearer and sadder than any bell.
The grey light in the blade died.
I watched in horror as a spiderweb fracture appeared at the impact point, right where the steel met Tenebria’s neck bone.
It raced down the length of the blade, glowing red, then white.
Time seemed to freeze.
“Master,” Valeria’s voice faded in my mind, gentle and final.
There was no regret in her tone.
Only the satisfaction of a soldier who had finally met an enemy strong enough to break her.
“It was a good swing.” The sword exploded.