The Extra is a Genius!?-Chapter 510: The Thing Bound in Chains [IV]

The guardian shifted its focus completely.

The pressure snapped inward, chains screaming as its massive frame rotated, every line of force aligning toward Garron. There was no testing blow this time. No probing strike.

It came down like judgment.

Garron planted his feet anyway.

Mana tore through his body as he reinforced muscle and bone past what they were meant to handle. The impact hit him head-on, a crushing collision that drove him backward through reinforced ground as if it were wet clay. The shockwave rippled outward, snapping Elyra’s grid lines and throwing dust and stone into the air.

Garron didn’t fall.

He dropped to one knee, then both, coughing hard as blood splattered the ground beneath him. His vision blurred, ears ringing, but his hands stayed clenched, fingers dug into broken stone to keep himself upright.

The guardian raised its arm again.

Charlotte reacted without thinking.

She stepped in close and pressed her palm to Garron’s back, holy light flaring brighter than it had at any point so far. The Blessing slammed into him like a second spine locking into place, holding shattered balance together by sheer force.

Garron stayed standing.

Charlotte didn’t.

Her breath hitched sharply. She staggered, knees buckling as red stained the front of her robes, blood spilling between her fingers where she’d bitten through her lip to keep from crying out. She caught herself on one hand, shaking, vision swimming.

Noel saw it all in a heartbeat.

The Shard was right there.

Chains pulled tight. Core exposed. A perfect angle.

He could take it.

He turned instead.

Shadow folded and released him beside Charlotte as the guardian’s follow-up blow descended. Noel slid an arm under her shoulders and dragged her back into the edge of Elyra’s remaining grid, ice and shadow snapping outward to buy space.

"You’re running out," Noel said, voice tight as he steadied her.

Charlotte forced a crooked smile, blood at the corner of her mouth. "Then make it count."

The guardian shifted again.

Noel didn’t shout.

There was no need for it. Everyone was already operating on the edge of what they could handle.

"Selene," he said, moving as he spoke, voice tight but controlled. "I need the cold closer. Not spread out like before. Pull it in. Make it bite."

She glanced at the field for half a second, reading the flow of mana, the way the chains strained unevenly against the ice. Her breath came out slow, deliberate.

"...That’s going to make it harder for all of us," Selene said. "The gravity won’t be friendly."

"I know," Noel replied without slowing. "I just need it to resist instead of flow. Even for a moment."

Selene nodded once. That was enough.

She shifted her stance, shoulders tightening as she reworked the spell mid-fight. The Permafrost Halo collapsed inward, the wide ring of ice condensing into something denser, heavier. The temperature dropped sharply, frost biting deep into the guardian’s legs as gravity folded closer to its core.

"I can hold it like this," Selene said, teeth clenched now. "But not for long. This is pushing back."

"That’s fine," Noel answered. "We don’t need long."

Elyra was already down on one knee again, one hand braced against the stone, the other shaking as she forced mana through runes that were starting to strain. She looked up when she felt the shift, eyes narrowing as she understood what Noel was setting up.

"...You’re going for the center," she said.

"Yes."

She exhaled sharply, then nodded. "Then I’ll keep the ground alive under it. Just there. I can’t hold the whole area again." 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"Don’t," Noel said immediately. "Only the Shard."

Elyra pressed her palm down harder. Runes flared beneath the guardian’s chest, tight and localized, reinforcing only the space directly below the pulsing core. The rest of the battlefield groaned, cracked, threatened to give way—but that center held.

The guardian reacted instantly.

It roared, chains screaming as they fought against the compressed cold. Its movement lost its rhythm, balance shifting just enough to matter, just enough to be wrong.

Garron stepped in.

He didn’t hesitate. He couldn’t afford to.

Mana surged through what was left of his strength as he planted himself directly in its path, ignoring the way his left arm hung uselessly, ignoring the blood that dripped from his chin onto the broken stone.

The blow came down like the end of the world.

Stone shattered. Pain exploded through him. Something cracked deep in his shoulder.

Garron stayed standing anyway.

His boots carved trenches into the ground as he absorbed the impact with his entire body, vision dimming at the edges. He sucked in a breath that felt like glass and forced the words out anyway.

"Do it," he growled. "I’m not moving."

Noir was already gone.

Shadow peeled outward from her movement, threading between chains and broken armor, not attacking, not tearing—mapping. Connecting. Creating paths where none should exist.

Darkness wrapped the guardian’s core like veins.

Noel stepped into one of them.

He didn’t call fire. He didn’t draw lightning. Revenant Fang stayed low as something colder and heavier gathered instead—shadow layered with frost, compressed so tightly around the blade it felt like the air itself was being crushed inward.

It wasn’t Dark Sun.

It wasn’t Eclipse Rend.

It hurt to hold.

His heartbeat slowed, pain crawling up his spine as the channeling deepened, every second demanding more than the last.

Selene glanced over her shoulder, breath shaking now.

"You’ve got a window," she said. "Not a clean one."

Noel met her eyes through the chaos.

"That’s all I need."

She nodded.

Everything locked into place.

Selene spread her stance and let go of restraint. The halo around the guardian snapped inward, Permafrost Halo collapsing into a tighter, denser ring. Ice didn’t just spread—it bit. The Shard’s pulse stuttered as cold seized it, the chains around it locking mid-motion, metal screaming as frost crawled along every link.

Noel moved.

Shadows poured into Revenant Fang, not flaring outward, but sinking inward, deep and heavy, until the blade looked less like steel and more like a cut in the air itself.

"Shadowbound Sever."

He didn’t swing at the body.

He stepped into the space between chains and core, Noir’s shadows opening the path just long enough, and drew the blade through the connection itself. Not flesh. Not armor.

The bond.

The shadow passed through the Shard like a key turning, slicing the link that held it captive without touching the core beneath.

The effect was immediate.

The chains went slack.

The guardian froze, its massive frame shuddering as the Shard flared once, free and unbound, before the construct began to fold inward. Metal sagged. Stone cracked. The thing collapsed under its own weight, not exploding, not raging—just failing.

The ground shook as it fell.

Silence followed.

Garron dropped to one knee, breathing hard. Charlotte swayed where she stood, blood dark at her sleeve. Selene leaned heavily on a wall, eyes closed, frost still drifting from her breath. Even Elyra stayed still, focusing on keeping the ground from collapsing now that the pressure was gone.

Only then did the system appear.

It hovered calmly in Noel’s vision, impersonal as always, as if nothing extraordinary had just happened.

[Shard found. You have weakened the Second Pillar by 5% of her power. Total: 15%]

A second notification followed immediately after.

[You have slain Shard Warden (Archmage – Elite). You have received 1% Core Progress.]

[Current Core Progress: 3.00% — Mana Core: Archmage]

Noel exhaled slowly, the shadows finally loosening their grip around Revenant Fang as the weight of the fight settled into his bones. He looked at the Shard, now fully exposed, no longer bound by chains or force.

’This was only one...’

And it had taken all of them.