Path of the Extra

Azriel’s entire body was screaming—begging him to kneel.

Every muscle, every nerve, every bone cried out in agony, desperate to surrender. If not for the crushing paralysis induced by Pollux’s aura, he would have already crumbled; he would have submitted utterly, willing to obey the star emperor’s overwhelming presence.

Pollux…

Azriel couldn’t even find a coherent word to describe the hurricane of emotions raging within him.

It was simply too much—too terrifyingly vast for his exhausted mind to endure.

Suddenly, Pollux turned his gaze toward Azriel. Instantly, Azriel’s body shuddered uncontrollably, every cell in his being responding to the unbearable weight of those eyes.

“The current you, unfortunately, is far too weak to be taken seriously, Son of Death.”

Azriel’s eye widened, panic surging as he clutched his head.

‘T-that…! His voice—inside my head!?’

Pollux’s lips had never moved, yet his voice resonated mercilessly, directly into Azriel’s mind.

“Even after dying three times in such excruciating and gruesome ways, you still refuse to break… at least for now.”

Azriel ground his teeth together furiously, that arrogant voice drilling into his mind with relentless cruelty.

At the same moment, grotesque black tendrils burst forth from the earth beneath—the unmistakable presence of Void Worms. Hungry, mindless, and ravenous, they surged toward Pollux, the Skinwalker, even clawing upward towards the tree branch Azriel stood upon. Yet every single worm that dared emerge was instantly swallowed by silent silver flames, reduced to ashes before even their shrieks of agony could escape.

It wasn’t difficult to understand why:

Pollux.

He was burning them effortlessly, each Void Worm consumed by the silver blaze as swiftly as they appeared. Yet, just as Azriel thought the destruction couldn’t deepen further, another horrific phenomenon unfolded:

All around them, the trees, bushes, grass—every living thing began to wither rapidly, aging, turning pale and brittle as life was violently drained away.

The Skinwalker.

Its mere presence alone was decaying everything around it, dragging the forest into lifeless ruin.

Azriel exhaled slowly, shakily. He needed to find Lady Mio—but how?

How could he ever escape the eyes of Pollux? How could he evade the monstrous grasp of the Skinwalker? And below, the Void Worms still waited hungrily, desperate to feast on him once more.

His teeth clenched even tighter until his gums tore and blood spilled into his mouth. Azriel knew he had no other choice.

He would have to burn forever, suffer endlessly—

Until he finally found a path through the flames.

Azriel’s expression darkened; the single eye grew sharp as steel, the final shred of doubt and hesitation burning away beneath his icy resolve.

Pollux’s face turned dangerously cold as he noticed Azriel’s sudden shift. A chilling, murderous intent erupted from the young man, violent and suffocating—so dense that even the oppressive air grew impossibly heavier.

“So this… this is the form your bloodlust and killing intent takes, Son of Death?”

Pollux’s voice echoed mockingly within Azriel’s mind once again.

For a brief moment, Pollux and the Skinwalker both turned their featureless and arrogant faces toward Azriel. They felt it—dozens, no, hundreds of ghostly hands reaching from beneath the soil, clawing desperately at their bodies, struggling uselessly to drag them down into eternal darkness.

Yet, of course, it had no real effect on either of them. Azriel’s bloodlust, as fierce as it was, was pitiful compared to these two monsters. But Azriel no longer cared.

Blood trickled steadily from between Azriel’s tightly pressed lips as he crouched slightly, knees bent in defiance. His body shivered violently, muscles resisting the reckless command he now gave them, but Azriel forced himself regardless.

White lightning burst into existence, crackling furiously around him, freezing the tree’s branches as ice exploded outward with each furious strike. Shattered ice shards scattered wildly, slicing through the air like blades of glass.

Then, as if birthed by his own wrath, a sinister, pitch-black mist seeped from Azriel’s mouth, snaking down his trembling form like a serpent, weaving silently around Void Eater and Atropos’ Elegy.

Azriel’s single eye gleamed mercilessly—cold, murderous, filled with desperate resolve. He forced his lips to curl into a defiant, trembling smile, defiance radiating from every cell of his body.

Pollux merely watched in twisted amusement; the Skinwalker remained unreadable, an eternal enigma cloaked in nightmarish silence.

Yet, gazing at Azriel’s single remaining eye, both could clearly see it:

He was consumed by a reckless, insatiable desire to destroy them—to annihilate them completely. His fury, his hatred, his desperation—all burned fiercely, engulfed in relentless bloodlust and unyielding will.

And finally, in one reckless, desperate moment—

The Son of Death leaped from his perch and plunged headlong into the chaos below.

Into the flames he went, willingly sacrificing himself upon the pyre of war, ready to burn again and again…

Until he reached the sun itself.

*****

The Son of Death, the Great Divine Star Spirit Emperor, and the Grade-1 Skinwalker were trapped within a cycle inscribed by endless bloodshed.

Their violence painted the Forest of Eternity in unending shades of crimson and ebony, a grim canvas of spilled blood and scattered viscera. Time had long since lost meaning—each death merely another brushstroke upon an infinite tapestry of suffering.

Azriel was the weakest among them, and thus it was almost always his blood that soaked the soil, his body torn open alongside the squirming Void Worms. Yet, occasionally—rarely, but undeniably—the Skinwalker’s black ichor stained the earth too, ripped from its body by Pollux’s merciless silver flames.

Each time one fell—be it Azriel or the Skinwalker—time shuddered violently. Reality convulsed, snapping back moments before death, resetting the cycle once again.

Nothing escaped this endless loop. Not even pain itself.

The agony remained burned in their memories.

Yet, no matter how desperately Azriel fought, no matter how precise his divine sword arts became, how deep he drained his mana, how powerful his spells or how intense his aura, the bitter truth never changed.

He could barely scratch the Skinwalker.

He never once touched Pollux.

He never stood a chance.

Azriel always remembered.

He remembered the sickening crunch of Pollux’s fangs snapping his spine, remembered the agony of the Skinwalker’s claws tearing his lungs apart. He recalled the revolting sensation of Void Worms bursting through his flesh, their relentless jaws eager to devour him from within, each horrific emergence ended abruptly by Pollux’s silent, silver flames.

Yet sometimes, those vile worms would find their mark, wriggling into Azriel’s wounds before he could seal them shut with his ice affinity. Whether Pollux allowed it or the worms simply eluded the silver flames, Azriel never knew—but each time, he had been forced to carve away his own flesh to stop their maddening advance.

Azriel remembered dying.

Again. Again. Again.

Yet each time, he returned.

They all did.

He burned, he shattered, he bled rivers, and screamed until his voice failed him entirely, only to rise again moments before his death. Eternally hunted, forever trapped.

What did it matter how many times he fell, how terrible the torture of the next loop became?

Within this damned forest, Azriel was immortal—just as Pollux, just as the Skinwalker, just as the gods themselves.

Every death brought rebirth.

And each rebirth presented an opportunity. Each loop was another chance to learn, another step toward understanding the twisted rules of this eternal prison.

Azriel was adapting—evolving. Death itself had become his teacher, each painful demise another lesson carved brutally into his bones. Slowly, an eerie, dark thrill seeped into his soul—a strange exhilaration born from each return.

And each time he rose again, Pollux grew quieter.

The Great Divine Star Spirit Emperor, Pollux, once so arrogant, so prideful, had grown silent. Each rebirth left him more taciturn, colder, more frustrated. He watched Azriel rise again and again, defying fate itself, defying the impossible—unable to break his unyielding spirit.

It was no longer a battle of flesh and bone, but of willpower and soul. Their silent charges at each other became like rituals—embracing death, both desperately and willingly, every loop driving them closer to madness.

Azriel no longer cared how many times he died or how terrible the horrors inflicted upon him were. He didn’t know if he could even call himself human anymore—but what did it matter? All he wanted now was to witness Pollux’s arrogant mask crack, to watch frustration twist his proud face as he repeatedly failed to achieve his goal:

Breaking Azriel’s soul.

Each time Azriel fell, he fell brutally—his bones remembering every blow, his heart recalling each moment of helpless terror. But from every fall, he learned.

Each reset made him sharper, faster, deadlier.

And gradually, the rules of this place—the laws of this eternal nightmare—started to bend beneath his relentless determination.

Azriel began to fight like a man who had lost everything, for truly, he had. Countless times over. He clawed through resets, ignoring pain and suffocation, his screams becoming a battle cry against fate itself, echoing through the trees and shattered earth.

The Skinwalker once wore his face.

That death was the worst of them all.

And so they played their endless roles—predator and prey, a wolf, a man, and a shapeless nightmare. Worms never learning, flames never fading, an immortal emperor desperate to fulfill a doomed promise.

Until finally, even the forest began to weaken.

The resets began to falter—time itself stuttering, slipping from its relentless rhythm. The Void Worms surfaced earlier each loop, more frantic, more desperate. The Skinwalker shrieked with a horrifying, unnatural fury, a sound no living creature should ever make. Pollux lifted his gaze to the pale sky above, as though sensing something coming apart at the seams.

Through broken teeth, Azriel smiled.

Something was breaking at last.

And maybe, just maybe—

This time, it wouldn’t be him.