The Extra Can't be A Hero

The Demon Count braced himself to launch another devastating strike against the barrier—this time with overwhelming force, aiming to shatter the mirror dimension's defences entirely. Magic surged through his hands as the ashen ring materialised once more, poised to unleash a sonic assault meant to bring everything to ruin.

But before the vile creature could release his destructive power, a beam of pure energy tore down from the heavens, moving faster than any mortal eye could follow. Count Varethrak's defences activated in an instant, enveloping him in a thick, shimmering shield that refracted the searing light.

Yet even that was not enough. Though the beam was deflected, the refracted energy sliced through his right side, burning away flesh in a flash of heat and agony.

"Lord Count!"

Malachi let out a sharp cry as he drew his sword, the blade hissing as it cut through the air. Panic flickered in his eyes—how had that attack slipped past both their senses? His gaze darted toward the Demon Count, not out of concern or loyalty, but from fear of what would follow if the Count were to fall.

The Prophet's wrath would be swift, and it would surely fall upon the Apostle who failed to protect his master's interests.

But to Malachi's surprise—and slight relief—the Demon Count remained calm, almost amused.

"Don't panic, you fool. This is but a scratch."

A low chuckle escaped his throat as he dusted off the tattered remains of his shirt, revealing a large, smoking hole where the beam had struck.

Blackened fabric curled at the edges, but no trace of pain showed on his face. Instead, waves of demonic mana pulsed from within him, saturating the air as his wounds closed in seconds, leaving not even a scar.

Then, something else emerged from the scorched ruin of his clothing: not one arm on his right side, but two—sinewy, clawed, and flexing with unnatural strength. The second arm had been hidden, dormant, but now it twitched to life, as if awakened by the attack.

Varethrak raised his gaze toward the heavens, eyes narrowing with curiosity more than anger, searching the skies for the bold force that had dared strike him.

From the shadows of the storm-churned sky, a figure descended—a beauty so ethereal she seemed the very incarnation of the moon goddess herself. The heavens dimmed around her, clouds swirling in reverent silence, making the radiant glow of her pure white hair shimmer like starlight on fresh snow.

Each strand danced with a gentle luminescence, contrasting starkly against the brooding darkness above. Her face was still, unmoving—eerily perfect. It bore the expressionless beauty of a porcelain doll, crafted by master sculptors who had captured a moment of timeless serenity.

Yet beneath that stillness pulsed a terrifying power. Mana surged through her veins like liquid fire, thrumming so intensely it distorted the air around her. In an instant, her presence carved out a domain of its own—a shimmering veil of magic that rippled outward, rewriting the very laws of space around her.

Within that sphere, she reigned absolutely. An empress not of thrones or armies, but of raw, divine force. Before her, all wretched foes were but insects trembling beneath the weight of celestial judgment.

"I will grant you one final act of mercy… Leave now and you will retain your life."

Yue spoke directly to the Demon Count, ignoring the stunned Apostle by his side. Count Varethrak's non-existent eyebrows seemingly furrowed as he witnessed the grandeur of Yue's magic and her faux-divine powers.

"What's this? A mage of this calibre exists in this backwards dimension?" The Count frowned and glanced back at the shaking Malachi. "It seems that the messenger of our King has been sorely misled. To not notice this menace right before his eyes. I must change the terms of our contract."

"Lord Count, the Prophet…"

"No, it doesn't matter. Even if this magician is powerful, a lesser being will always be a lesser being. I can amend the compensation later when I'm through with this."

The Count shook his head and levitated up to meet Yue in person. He seemed calm, but deep down, the words of the lesser being shook his psyche.

"Arrogant fool, you wish to grant me mercy? Me? You need to be put in your place!"

'As expected, it was a Count.'

Yue smiled, a knowing glint in her eyes. She understood all too well the blinding pride that pulsed through the veins of demon nobility. Their arrogance was both their strength and their flaw—and she intended to exploit it. If she could provoke him, wound his pride just enough, he would respond exactly as expected: with fury, not retreat.

And sure enough, he bit down on the bait, rage flickering in his eyes as reason gave way to wrath.

"You've squandered my mercy," Yue replied with a wave of her arm. "Then… prepare for judgement."

Yue's eyes blazed with radiant power as her seven mana rings ignited, each one pulsing with a distinct aura of authority and overwhelming control. In that moment, her presence eclipsed the battlefield—regal, relentless, and unyielding.

From the heavens above, tendrils of black energy snaked downward like living shadows, coiling and twisting until they formed a vast, spherical prison around the two magicians. The barrier snapped into place with terrifying speed, sealing them off entirely from the outside world. It was too precise, too seamless to be spontaneous—it felt like a trap meticulously laid months in advance, waiting for this exact moment.

The Demon Count barely had time to register what was happening before the dark construct closed in, locking him inside Yue's conjured cage—a domain of her making, and one he had no say in entering.

"Hmph, you dare challenge me to a one-on-one duel? Lesser being, your contempt knows no bounds."

"Are you the Demon of yapping or something?"

Yue openly taunted the Count once more, forcing a vein to pop in his elongated head.

"Remember my name, lesser being! For Count Varethrak of the Wither shall silence you!"

The Demon Count spread all three of his arms wide, each limb crackling with raw, unrestrained power. Mana surged to his fingertips, coalescing into dense streams of grey energy that shimmered with malicious intent.

The currents twisted and curled, shaping themselves into three concentric rings, each one resonating with a deep, ominous hum. As they aligned, their energies converged at the centre, amplifying into a singular point of devastating potential.

With a guttural roar, Varethrak unleashed the spell. The blast erupted with cataclysmic force, a torrent of destruction capable of levelling an entire city in seconds, leaving nothing but ash and ruin in its wake.

But just as the wave of annihilation surged toward Yue, she raised a single hand and snapped her fingers. In an instant, a luminous barrier composed of interlocking hexagonal panels materialised before her—solid, intricate, and impossibly strong.

The moment the attack struck it, the force was halted mid-air, dispersed as if colliding with a wall of divine logic. The shockwave rippled outward, but Yue remained untouched, calm amid the chaos. Varethrak froze, his expression tightening as he took a step back.

For the first time, he paused—not from exhaustion, but to reassess. His power had been met—and stopped—with effortless precision.

"Barrier magic? No, was it spatial?"

The Demon Count narrowed his eyes, analysing the intricacies of Yue's magic with growing intensity. In a duel between spellcasters, knowledge was everything. Victory belonged not to the strongest, but to the one who unravelled their opponent's essence first. If he could decipher the nature of Yue's spells—their structure, their origin, their flow—he could devise counters, dismantle her strategy, and crush her before she seized the upper hand.

But Yue had no intention of giving him that opportunity. With another sharp snap of her fingers, the air behind her thickened, and from the swirling mist emerged a monstrous silhouette. Step by step, it took shape—a massive spider cloaked in dense fog, its limbs sharp as blades and eyes gleaming with unnatural intelligence.

The mist clung to its body like a second skin, distorting its form yet making it no less terrifying. It was no simple illusion—this was a summon so vivid, so lifelike, it might as well have been an arachne nightmare pulled from the depths of ancient fear into brutal reality.

The battlefield darkened beneath its presence, and Varethrak felt his world freezing.

"Yaru, do it please."

"Hiekkk…"

The Monarch-tier spider let out a piercing shriek that echoed through the sealed domain, a sound both primal and otherworldly. With each tremor of its massive limbs, it exhaled waves of dense, choking mist that spilt across the battlefield like a living fog. Within moments, the entire space was swallowed in a shroud so thick that visibility dropped to less than a metre, turning the arena into a shadowy labyrinth of hidden threats and unseen strikes.

For most, it would have been a death trap. But the Demon Count was no ordinary foe.

"You dare use mist against me? A noble blessed by our King? You have lost your mind!"

The Demon Count parted his grotesque mouth, and from within, sinuous green tendrils slithered outward, writhing like serpents as they tasted the air. Then, with a sudden and horrifying intensity, he inhaled—like a void ripping through reality.

The mist recoiled, spiralling inward as if caught in a massive vortex, drawn helplessly into the abyss of his maw. In seconds, the thick fog that once blanketed the battlefield was gone, devoured. The mana-laced vapour was siphoned into his being, twisted and reshaped into power he now claimed as his own. Yue's eyes widened ever so slightly—an involuntary flicker of surprise.

A wicked grin crept across the Demon Count's face, sharp and cruel, as he tasted her hesitation like nectar on his tongue.

"Let me show you true terror!"

Not mere fog, but storm clouds—dense, roiling, and grey as dying embers—converged around Count Varethrak, drawn by the crescendo of his mana. The air thickened with pressure as arcs of lightning danced through the churning mass above, illuminating the gloom with flashes of raw, untamed power.

Within the heart of the storm, several glowing rings materialised, each one humming with arcane resonance, amplifying the Count's presence to an overwhelming degree. At first, there were no visible signs of destruction—only an eerie silence beneath the crackling storm. But then, subtly at first, something shifted. Yaru's presence began to erode.

His essence flickered, like smoke caught in a gale, unravelling thread by thread as if the world itself were rejecting him. It was no ordinary spell—this was erasure, a forced exile from existence, crafted by Varethrak's dark design.

"How is it? Losing your trump card that you thought could take me down?"

"... Amon was right. What's with villains and them talking so much?"

"... What?"

Despite the danger that should have weighed heavily upon her, Yue remained unnervingly calm—an unshakable stillness that seemed to mock the threat looming over her. It was as if the Demon Count's immense power was nothing more than a distant breeze, incapable of harming her, even as she stood fully exposed and vulnerable.

With a cold snap of his fingers, Varethrak was confident he could erase her from existence in an instant—obliterate her very being without mercy or hesitation. At least, that's what he believed—but the moment Yue parted her lips to speak, a deep, instinctual chill settled over the Demon Count's soul—an ancient, desperate unease born from countless years spent surviving the ruthless Demon Realm.

It was a warning he could neither ignore nor understand fully, yet it gripped him with undeniable force, shattering his confidence for the first time.

"Lesser being, you…"

"Let's end this charade."

Yue snapped her fingers again, and the thunderclouds that had swirled fiercely around her vanished in an instant, dissipating as if they had never existed. No—more than that—Varethrak's entire weave of magic unravelled and faded, erased as though some far greater force had reached down and sealed it away with absolute authority.

Only then did the Demon Count understand the source of the gnawing dread clawing at his mind.

"T-This... the power of law?! T-There should be only one divinity in this backwater dimension! H-How are you wielding the power of law?!" His voice trembled, disbelief and fury mingling in a rare, cracked note.

"... Do you think you're in any position to ask questions?"

With a single, effortless thought, Yue silenced him. In an instant, all three of Varethrak's hands were forced behind his back, shackled by invisible chains of will. Stripped of control, the Demon Count could do nothing but watch in mounting terror as his body rose from the ground, levitating steadily toward Yue. She met the grotesque figure with an innocent gaze—until a dark, sinister smile bloomed across her lips.

"I'm glad that we're inside this domain… I don't want Amon to see this side of me."

"Y-You!"

"You know… I've never tortured a Demon Count before… I wonder… if you would scream like a human? A lesser being that you loathe so much?"