The Extra's Rise-Chapter 302: Third Mission (9)

Of course, Vorgath held back against me.

If he hadn't, I would have obviously died no questions asked. There wouldn't have been enough of me left to fill a thimble, just a fine red mist and perhaps one boot sailing through the air in a tragically comical arc.

I was too weak to hope to withstand him. The gap between us wasn't just a gap—it was a canyon so wide you couldn't see the other side through the clouds. Like comparing a kitchen match to a supernova. A paper cut to the Grand Canyon. A—well, you get the idea.

So why did I?

Well, it was logical.

Vorgath Ironmaw was the least rational of all the Five Popes.

This made him both the most and least dangerous of them. His unpredictability was a weapon in itself—no model could predict what someone would do when their decision tree looked like it had been drawn by a toddler during an earthquake.

In the end, he moved according to his base desires.

And what he desired was to kill the strongest. To face worthy opponents, to test himself against them, to feel the thrill of challenging combat. He was a connoisseur of violence, a sommelier of battle who found the bouquet of weak opponents distastefully bland.

In the end, I was way too weak to hope to fight against him.

But I could give him an impulse. I could be interesting enough to make him curious rather than immediately homicidal. That was the way for me to survive.

"Nightingale, did you not go?" Meilyn began, her voice strained through gritted teeth, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. Even on her knees, broken and defeated, she maintained that aura of command. "You defied my order!"

"Yes Grand Marshal," I replied, not taking my eyes off Vorgath's massive form. The Orc Pope towered over us both, his green skin crisscrossed with ritual scars that pulsed with internal power. His tusks gleamed in the strange half-light created by the residual energy of their battle. "Because I will save you."

Erebus trembled in my arm, the weapon humming with a frequency I'd never felt before. It wasn't just vibrating—it was resonating, like it recognized something in Vorgath's axe, some kindred quality that both attracted and repelled it.

For the first time in a long time, I was genuinely afraid. Not the kind of fear that gets your heart pumping before a test or a difficult fight. This was primal, cellular-level terror, the kind that makes your organs try to find the nearest exit. My mouth went dust-dry, and time seemed to stretch like taffy.

The man in front of me was as strong as Evelyn Alaric, Alastor Creighton, Charlotte Alaric and the others at the peak. Beings whose casual gestures could level cities, whose disagreements reshaped coastlines. The only one who could beat him one hundred percent of the time was Magnus Draykar, the Martial King.

But I believed in my knowledge of him. I'd studied every scrap of information about the Five Popes, analyzed every recorded engagement, memorized their patterns and preferences. Knowledge was power—not enough power to win, but maybe enough to survive.

So I moved forward.

In a burst of wind magic, with time magic accelerating me and my sword wrapped in Deepdark, I closed the distance between us. The wind gathered beneath my feet, propelling me forward like a bullet. Time slowed around me—or rather, I moved faster relative to it, everything else seeming to crawl while I operated at normal speed. Deepdark coiled around Erebus, not just covering the blade but seeming to extend it, to make it both more and less real simultaneously.

And I swung down.

The strike was perfect—or it should have been. The culmination of thousands of hours of training, the precise application of multiple magical disciplines, the ideal angle of attack against even the most formidable opponent.

My sword was stopped.

By the mere miasma emanating from him. Not his weapon, not his armor, not even his skin. Just the aura of corrupted energy that surrounded him like a toxic cloud. Erebus hit it and simply... halted, as if I'd tried to cut through the concept of solidity itself.

"Are you trying to excite me with this?" Vorgath asked, his voice like continents grinding together. He hadn't even bothered to move, still standing in exactly the same position, his axe resting casually against his shoulder. His eyes—an unsettling orange-red, like the heart of a dying star—regarded me with the mild interest one might show a moderately unusual insect.

"I'm just getting started," I responded as I gritted my teeth, enamel creaking under the pressure. Sweat beaded on my forehead, not from exertion but from the raw, crushing presence of being so close to something so absurdly powerful.

I activated Soul Resonance.

The strongest ability I wanted.

The strongest.

It was right in front of me.

That strike which destroyed the sky itself. The technique that had shattered Meilyn's defenses like glass, that had broken through Deepdark and death energy and the armor of a nine-star beast as if they were no more substantial than morning mist.

'Arthur,' Luna said, her voice unusually urgent in my mind, 'Don't try—'

I ignored her.

That Axe Unity of Vorgath.

I focused on it with every fiber of my being, every neuron, every mote of mana in my system. I stared not at the physical axe but at the concept behind it—the perfect melding of wielder and weapon, the dissolution of boundaries between self and tool until they became a single entity expressing a single purpose.

I could see it now, really see it. Not just the physical movements but the underlying structure. It was like looking at the source code of reality itself, lines of cosmic programming that defined how object and wielder interacted. Vorgath and his axe weren't two things—they were one thing that happened to occupy two spaces. The axe didn't move because he swung it; it moved because it was him, an extension of his will made manifest in steel and malice.

I copied it.

And molded it to fit me.

Into my own Sword Unity.

Instantly, I felt my mind go blank as it was filled with information. It was like trying to pour an ocean into a teacup. Data, understanding, awareness—it all flooded in, overwhelming my consciousness in a tidal wave of pure comprehension.

Too much.

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This was too much.

Imagine trying to understand everything at once—not just facts but the relationships between them, the meta-structures that gave them meaning, the patterns that connected them across time and space. Imagine having the entire library of human knowledge downloaded directly into your brain in the span of a heartbeat, without index or organization.

My vision blurred, darkness encroaching from the edges. Blood vessels burst in my eyes, tiny red spiderwebs spreading across my field of view. I could feel something fundamental beginning to give way, like structural beams groaning before collapse.

'Luna, filter this!' I yelled internally as I felt her presence lighten the burden. She moved through my consciousness like a master librarian, categorizing, prioritizing, shelving what could wait and highlighting what was immediately crucial. The flood didn't stop, but suddenly there were channels, dams, reservoirs to manage it.

My nose bled as Purelight encased my sword. Not droplets but a stream, metallic and warm on my upper lip. The Purelight wasn't the usual soft golden glow but something harsher, more demanding—a white-hot brilliance that seemed to cut through reality itself, leaving afterimages burned into the air.

I couldn't copy Unity, it was too high level. Like trying to run cutting-edge software on obsolete hardware—my mind simply lacked the capacity to fully contain and execute such a concept. The information was there, but my ability to process and implement it was insufficient.

But this was the next evolution of my God Flash.

The technique I'd been developing, refining, pushing to its limits. A momentary perfect synchronization between myself and my weapon, not the permanent, continuous unity that Vorgath achieved, but a single instant of absolute harmony. If Unity was a perfect marriage, this was a perfect first date—brief, but potentially life-changing.

God Flash: Absolute.

I felt it crystallize within me, the technique taking shape not just as movement but as understanding. For just one moment, one attack, I could achieve what Vorgath maintained effortlessly—the dissolution of boundaries between wielder and weapon, the expression of pure martial will.

Erebus wasn't just glowing now—it was transforming, responding to the change in me. The blade elongated, not physically but conceptually, becoming more than a sword, more than a tool. For this single instant, it was an idea given form, the platonic ideal of a cutting edge.

Vorgath saw it. I knew he did. His eyes widened slightly, the casual disinterest replaced by something sharper, more focused. The recognition of something unexpected. Something potentially interesting.

His axe moved from his shoulder, almost lazily, as if he were merely shifting its position for comfort rather than preparing to counter my attack.

Time compressed around us, the world narrowing to just this moment, just this exchange. Everything else—Meilyn's labored breathing, the distant sound of the hovertruck, the wind across the wasteland—faded into irrelevance.

I exhaled once, fully, completely, emptying my lungs of air and my mind of doubt.

Then I struck.