The Extra Can't be A Hero

The journey from the Demon Cult's stronghold to Espadavale took less than an hour. The two figures—Malachi, the Apostle of Subservience, and Count Varethrak the Wither—travelled not by mount or machine, but through levitation, gliding silently through the lifeless skies that hovered like a casket lid over the mirror dimension.

They arrived at the edge of Espadavale, suspended above a jagged cliffside that jutted out like a broken tooth into a restless sea. The waves below were not blue, but a swirling mixture of black brine and crimson foam, thrashing violently against the stone as if in protest against the arrival of such malefic beings.

Above them, thick, churning clouds spread across the heavens, twisting shapes that whispered madness, thunder without lightning, despair without rain. The very air was heavy with it: sorrow soaked in magic, despair as natural as breath.

Malachi floated wordlessly, his long, bone-forged robes drifting behind him like funeral banners. It had only been a few days since he left the mirror dimension. Now, as he took in the familiar ridgelines, the arcane latticework humming beneath the surface, and the sigil-marked battlements restructured with a meticulousness that made his skin crawl, he felt it: resistance.

A pulse of irritation throbbed behind his eyes. He raised a gloved hand to his cheek, fingers brushing along the bone beneath. The ache there wasn't physical—it was memory.

Memory of how long it took to weaken the fortified barrier, and yet it stood stronger than before.

"Rebuilt already," Malachi muttered under his breath, his voice flat but edged with venom.

Beside him, Count Varethrak remained silent, his insectoid eyes glinting with quiet amusement as his tendrils tasted the air.

"Count Varethrak, we've arrived."

"Lesser creature, don't speak my name!"

The Demon Count snapped back at the Apostle of Subservience, seemingly disgusted that his honoured name had slipped out from Malachi's mouth.

"... my apologies."

Once, Malachi was an honoured Knight, feared, respected, and unyielding. But that man was long buried beneath ash and regret. Now he knelt—not before a sovereign he had pledged loyalty to, but before a creature who had never drawn breath as a man.

A Demon Count. Varethrak, a being who regarded humans as filth beneath his talons, and whose contempt for mortality was matched only by his vanity. The irony was bitter: the Count was powerful, yes, but not so much that Malachi couldn't one day strike him down in fair combat.

Malachi bowed his head low, jaw clenched, eyes cast to the cold, cracked floor. Pride was a luxury he had forfeited long ago. This was the cost of survival—of the choice he made when he abandoned the light and bound himself to the Demon Cult.

Whatever glory he had once worn like armour was now rusted, replaced by chains of servitude and silence. He was no longer a knight. He was a tool—a shadow in the wake of monsters.

And though it burned within him, he said nothing.

"Lord… Count. The target is within this mirror dimension."

"Mirror dimension, eh. Kekeke, it looks far stronger than I'd expected."

Varethrak glanced down at the barrier with increased interest, as if he were a researcher examining how ants built colonies. Amused by the complexity of the structure, and impressed by the knowledge of humans, a lesser being.

"This dimension is still primitive, so how could a mere human create something of this level?"

"Lord Count… could you dispel this?"

"Hmph! What do you take me for?!"

The Demon Count snorted, a low, guttural sound that carried both disdain and disbelief. The mere suggestion that he might fail offended him on a primal level. His insectoid eyes narrowed, flickering with contempt as he slowly raised one clawed hand into the air.

With a languid motion, as though barely deeming it worth the effort, he conjured a swirling grey ring in the centre of his palm. The moment it appeared, the very fabric of the realm responded—a surge of mana exploded outward like a silent detonation, sending tremors through the sky itself.

High above, clouds split and spiralled, and a piercing screech ripped through the air, sharp and unnatural. The sound echoed for miles, reaching even the distant outskirts of Espadavale, where townsfolk clutched their heads in agony, unaware of the source.

The sea churned violently beneath them. Waves rose like walls, crashing against the cliffs with bone-rattling force. Cracks began to web across the cliffside as the earth groaned under the weight of unnatural energy. Between the Count's elongated fingers, a ring of ashen light solidified, pulsing, ancient, and malevolent.

It was not fire, nor ice, nor storm—it was something older.

A force that belonged to a time before mortals named magic. Without ceremony or warning, he released it. The sonic strike tore through the air like a divine decree, colliding with the outermost layer of Espadavale's arcane barrier.

The shield held for a heartbeat, glowing fiercely as it resisted—but then it shattered like brittle glass, exploding outward in a flash of silver and dust. The force alone would have driven lesser magicians to their knees, snuffing their resolve like a candle in a hurricane.

But Count Varethrak was unmoved.

He lowered his grey, gnarled arm slowly. His tendrils writhed, and his twisted mouth curled downward into a frown—not of exhaustion, but of disappointment.

"Amusing… It's far more sturdy than I'd thought… It would take a little more effort to break it without destroying the people inside."

"If it would please the Lord Count."

"Don't order me around, you filthy lesser being." The Demon Count once again snapped, but this time, he held back his anger, for he had failed in breaking down the barrier. "I'll do it again. Stand back."

"... Understood."

Malachi withdrew a foot with his face down, allowing the Demon Count to do his thing. With his expression hidden, no one could see the boiling rage that flickered within his eyes.

Within the barrier, Amon and Yue sensed the foreign presence, and both their faces hardened.

"A Demon noble? Isn't it too early for the Demon Cult to summon them?"

As with the hierarchies of human civilisation, the demon world operated under a strict delegation of power.

At its pinnacle stood the Demon King, a being of such immense authority and arcane divinity that his dominion spanned a realm vastly larger than any mortal world, eclipsing even a planet like Hyades in both size and complexity.

Revered as a God-King, the Demon King existed not merely as a ruler, but as a cosmic force. Yet despite his unparalleled might, he rarely involved himself in the mundane affairs of governance. His concerns lay with matters of the divine.

To maintain control over his sprawling dominion, the Demon King entrusted rule to a caste of noble demons—ancient, powerful entities who bore his mark and carried his will. These Demon Nobles were not mere administrators. They were sovereigns in their own right, each ruling over vast territories with near-absolute authority.

They had existed for aeons, their lifespans predating entire civilisations—perhaps even the formation of the Hyades Republic itself. Even the weakest among them stood as equals to the Republic's elite-ranked Knights—beings honed through years of war and magic.

But the upper echelon of demon nobility? They were something else entirely—demigods that could wipe a continent with a wave of their hands.

"It says a lot about how desperate the Prophet's become," Yue murmured, her voice caught somewhere between a nervous laugh and genuine dread. Her eyes remained fixed on the distant sky, where the storm of dark mana still churned.

"They shouldn't have the power to summon a Demon Noble—not without an obscene amount of tribute," she continued, her tone sharpening with unease.

"And yet… judging by that mana signature…" She hesitated, as if the words themselves might summon something worse. "…It has to be a high-ranking noble. A Count, perhaps."

Unbeknownst to Yue, her wild guess hit the nail on the head.

"A Count… Not ideal, but not the worst. If it were a Duke… We would be annihilated here."

In truth, it was the fourth Calamity that shattered the balance—and turned the tide of war irrevocably in the Demon Cult's favour.

It wasn't a siege or a weapon, nor even a betrayal from within. It was a summoning.

A Demon Duke.

An entity beyond reason or mortality, a walking force of nature whose mere presence warped the world around it. No blade could pierce its hide, no spell could bind its will. The Hero struck it down a hundred times, and a hundred times it rose again—unchanged, unbothered, eternal.

That moment marked the beginning of the end.

The fourth Calamity didn't just bring devastation; it announced a new era. It was the spark that ignited the Great Invasion—the point at which resistance crumbled, and survival became the only hope. And in its wake, humanity lost its brightest flame.

The Solaris House—defenders of the realm, protectors of the old bloodline—was wiped from existence. Their legacy turned to ash in a single night, consumed by a calamity no mortal could stop.

"If it's a Count… we can manage that."

"But the problem is Malachi… I won't be able to handle both an Apostle and a Demon Count at the same time."

As indomitable as Amon was, he did have his limits. Facing Malachi required everything in his power, leaving him vulnerable to an attack by the Demon Count. But fortunately, there was an easy solution.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Yue beamed from ear to ear as she stepped forward. "You aren't the only one here who can match against a Demon Count. In fact… if it's against this Count, I'm far more suitable."

"Do you know this Demon?"

"Not exactly," Yue shook her head. This was the first time she had sensed this Demon Count's mana signature, which meant he wasn't an enemy that appeared during her first timeline. However…

"But it's a magician."

When it came to magic, Yue stood unrivalled. She wasn't simply gifted—she was a prodigy in the truest sense, the kind that history books would one day struggle to describe. Her command over the arcane had long surpassed that of her peers, her mentors, and even the legends of old.

Among the living, there was scarcely a magician who could stand in her shadow, let alone match her step for step. And yet… the Demon Count was something else entirely.

He was not a magician in the traditional sense. He was an ancient being, sculpted by eras of infernal evolution and steeped in the blessings of the Demon King himself—a creature whose very existence defied mortal comprehension.

More troubling still, he wasn't here by chance. He was the Prophet's trump card—summoned with purpose, with precision. A blade meant to cleave through their final defences. Amon knew Yue's brilliance. He trusted her strength. But trust couldn't quiet the knot in his stomach.

"... Are you confident?"

"!!!"

Yue's heart lifted the moment she saw it—genuine worry in Amon's eyes. Not the measured concern of a strategist for his ally, nor the cold calculation of a partner in arms, but something more profound.

For the first time, he wasn't just thinking of her as a fellow warrior or a key asset in their plans. He cared. Truly cared.

That silent confirmation sparked something fierce within her—an intoxicating mix of pride, warmth, and unshakable resolve. If he believed in her, if he feared for her, then she would give him no reason to doubt. She wouldn't just face the Demon Count. She would annihilate him.

Yue's lips curled into a confident, radiant smile, her eyes alight with defiance and fire.

"Just watch me," she said, her voice steady as steel. "That foul thing won't lay a finger on me—won't even touch a single strand of my hair."