The Extra's Rise - Chapter 1097
1097: The Tenth Circle of Nullity 1097: The Tenth Circle of Nullity Tenebria was cornered against the invisible wall of the atmosphere.
She looked terrifyingly small.
The massive, dominating presence of the Overlord had shrunk.
Her left arm was gone.
Her right arm hung limp and useless, stripped of Wrath.
Her violet aura of Pride was shattered.
Her green speed of Envy was severed.
She was hyperventilating.
“You can’t do this,” she stammered, her eyes darting around frantically.
“I am the collection.
I am the sum.
You can’t subtract from infinity!” “You aren’t infinity, Tenebria,” I said, taking a step forward on the air.
“You’re just a math equation.
And I’m solving for zero.” I raised my free hand.
The blue Mana and purple Miasma inside me swirled, flowing down my arm, not into the sword, but into the air around me.
Circles appeared.
One.
Two.
Three…
Ten.
Ten concentric rings of grey light manifested behind my back, rotating slowly.
They weren’t made of fire or ice.
They were made of Script.
They were the command lines of reality.
Tenth Circle Magic.
In the past, I had used this to create effects-a fireball that wouldn’t go out, a shield that couldn’t break.
But combined with the True Grey, I realized that was a waste.
I didn’t need to create effects.
I needed to delete them.
“Stay back!” Tenebria shrieked.
She dug deep.
She tapped into the Authority of Greed.
Her shadow expanded, turning into a massive, golden maw.
“Authority of Greed: Universal Confiscation!” The golden maw lunged at me.
It wasn’t trying to eat my flesh; it was trying to eat my power.
It sought to rip the Grey right out of my soul and add it to her collection.
It was the technique she had used to humble Tiamat.
I didn’t swing my sword.
I spun the rings behind me.
“Tenth Circle: Edict of Ownership.” The Grey Rings pulsed.
A ripple of law washed over the golden maw.
The concept of “Theft” was overwritten.
The golden maw slammed into me and shattered like glass.
It couldn’t grab anything because the Edict declared that my power belongs only to me.
Tenebria gasped as the feedback hit her.
I blurred forward.
The Intangible Sword flashed.
SHKKT.
I cut across her chest, aiming for the golden knot of light in her soul.
The Authority of Greed severed.
The golden light bled out of her, dissolving into sparks.
“No!” she wailed, clutching her chest.
“My gold!
I earned that!
I took that!” She was panic-casting now.
Her eyes turned Blue (Sloth).
“Authority of Sloth: Absolute Zero Stagnation!” The air froze.
Not temperature, but time.
The molecules around me stopped vibrating.
She was trying to trap me in a permanent stasis field, to leave me frozen in the sky forever.
I felt the lethargy hit me.
My limbs felt heavy.
My thoughts slowed down.
I turned the rings again.
“Tenth Circle: Edict of Motion.” The universe must move.
The Grey Rings spun violently.
The Stagnation shattered.
The frozen air exploded outward.
I stepped through the shattered time-field.
I slashed downward.
The blade passed through her shoulder.
CRACK.
The Blue knot of Sloth snapped.
Tenebria fell.
Without the Sloth Gift to dampen gravity and inertia, she plummeted twenty meters before catching herself with a clumsy burst of raw mana.
She hovered there, panting, sweating.
She looked broken.
Her hair was matted with sweat and black blood.
Her clothes were rags.
She only had two left.
Lust (Connection).
Gluttony (Regeneration).
She looked at me with wide, tear-filled eyes.
She realized she couldn’t win a fight.
So she tried to win the person.
Her eyes turned Pink.
She didn’t attack.
She projected.
“Authority of Lust: Soul Resonance.” It wasn’t a beam.
It was a feeling.
Suddenly, I wasn’t fighting a monster.
I was looking at a frightened girl.
Images flooded my mind-memories that weren’t mine, forced into my brain by the Authority of Connection.
I felt the cold of the alleyway.
I felt the hunger that gnawed at her stomach.
I felt the loneliness of watching happy families walk by while I shivered in the trash.
I felt the desperate, burning need to be held, to be safe, to be full.
“Arthur,” her voice whispered in my mind, soft and weeping.
“Please.
I’m scared.
Don’t hurt me.
Love me.
Save me.” It was the ultimate weapon of the Lust Faction.
It weaponized empathy.
It made you fall in love with your executioner.
It made you drop your sword because you couldn’t bear to hurt the thing you suddenly adored.
My hand trembled.
The sword lowered slightly.
The tears on her face looked so real.
The fear was so palpable.
“We are the same,” she sobbed, floating closer, arms open.
“We are both broken.
Let me fix you.” I looked at her.
I felt the connection.
I felt her pain.
It was real.
She wasn’t faking the trauma.
But she was weaponizing it.
“I see you, Tenebria,” I said softly.
The rings behind me stopped spinning.
They aligned perfectly.
“But I already have a family.” “Tenth Circle: Edict of Isolation.” Sever.
I swung the sword horizontally.
I didn’t cut her body.
I cut the pink thread connecting our minds.
The psychic link snapped.
The false love vanished.
The empathy remained, but the manipulation died.
Tenebria screamed as the backlash hit her mind.
She clutched her head, blood pouring from her nose.
“Get out of my head!” she shrieked.
I stepped in.
I thrust the sword into her stomach.
SQUELCH.
I twisted.
The Pink knot of Lust unraveled.
She gasped, her eyes going wide.
The seductive aura, the supernatural charisma, the ability to manipulate emotions-gone.
She hung in the air, held up only by my hand on her shoulder.
She was trembling violently.
“One,” I whispered.
She looked down at her chest.
Only one light remained.
The first one she had ever stolen.
The one that kept her alive.
Orange (Gluttony).
It was the engine.
It was the only reason she wasn’t dead from Miasma poisoning right now.
It was actively metabolizing the toxic air and healing the massive structural damage I had inflicted.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
Her voice was tiny.
It was the voice of the Runt.
“Please.
Not that one.
I’ll starve.
It burns, Arthur.
The air burns.” She grabbed my shirt with her one working hand.
Her grip was weak.
“I’ll give you the Empire,” she begged.
“I’ll leave.
I’ll go to deep space.
Just let me keep the hunger.
It’s the only thing that keeps me warm.” I looked at the Gift of Gluttony pulsing in her chest.
It was a cancer.
It was a black hole that would never be filled.
As long as she had it, she would consume.
She would eat worlds, stars, and civilizations, trying to fill a void that had no bottom.
“You’re already starving,” I told her gently.
“This isn’t food.
It’s a parasite.” I raised the Intangible Sword for the final stroke.
“I’m not killing you, Tenebria.” The Grey Rings behind me dissolved, flowing into the blade.
“I’m curing you.” “Tenth Circle: Edict of Famine.” I drove the blade into her heart.
Tenebria threw her head back.
She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.
The Orange light exploded.
The Gift of Gluttony-the crown of the Usurper, the first sin, the engine of the Overlord-shattered.
The regeneration stopped.
The consumption stopped.
The metabolization of Miasma stopped.
I pulled the sword out.
The blade dissolved into mist.
Tenebria collapsed.
I caught her.
She wasn’t heavy anymore.
Without the density of the Gifts, without the stolen mass, she was light.
Fragile.
I held her as we slowly drifted down toward the surface of the ocean.
She wasn’t the Overlord.
She wasn’t the Apex.
She was just a girl who had forgotten how to be anything but a monster.