Path of the Extra

Azriel’s eyes shifted toward Pierre, inevitably.

’Tch. The one time he should not be calm, he is...’

With no other choice left to him, Azriel turned his full focus onto Pierre.

”You must feel rather high and mighty now that you have succeeded in creating a Mana Contract.”

”What? A Mana Contract?” It was Corven who spoke, caught entirely off guard, his head snapping toward Pierre. Azriel seized the moment. Corven’s grip on him had slackened the instant his attention shifted, and Azriel wrenched himself free, shoving Pierre back a step in the same motion. Corven rounded on him, jaw clenched tight, but Azriel had already turned an arrogant, needling smile on Pierre instead.

”Judging by Corven’s reaction, it clearly was not him who taught you how to do it. Which means you managed it through pure luck, instinct, and, I suppose, having a dissociative disorder helps considerably when it comes to meeting one of the conditions.”

Pierre’s one eye widened by slow degrees, anger building visibly as he registered the insult for exactly what it was.

”Ah, but credit is due where credit is due, Pierre.”

Azriel clapped his hands together, as though genuinely impressed.

”Even an inferior version is still a version.”

Pierre’s face went slack, as though he had just been struck, and when he finally found his voice, it came out trembling with shock.

”You... know?”

Azriel scoffed. ”Know?” His gaze slid past them both, settling on the Plague. ”What exactly is wrong with all of you?” he demanded, addressing them collectively now.

”Have you not told them how I stole that poison from you?” His eyes found Corven. ”How I forced it down your own throat afterward?”

He turned to Pierre next.

”How I destroyed the very seal to your invincibility?”

Azriel’s smile faded away, inch by slow inch.

”Have I not shown every single one of you mercy? By not killing you outright. By allowing you to keep what little dignity remained. By never once coming after you since.”

His voice climbed steadily, anger threading through every word that followed.

Azriel dragged a hand through his tangled hair, brushing it back as he glared at each of them in turn, his voice dropping into something low, cold, and dark, delivered through lips that barely moved, lending the whole moment an eerie and unsettling presence.

”I am the first human to have ever entered that forest and lived to walk back out of it. I am the one who drove a dagger straight through Lady Mio’s own mana core, killing her outright, and left that entire forest in ruins, despite her being a damned Sovereign! I am the one two sociopathic brothers are hunting, and yet I could not care less about either of them! I am the one who fought that whoreish wolf, as you so charmingly named him, and I am also the one who fought the skinwalker that had been trapped there from the very start! I am the one who survived every last one of them! I am the very person who severed your hands and let you flee from that Grandmaster, and yet I am also the one who carved the mana core from his dead, poisoned corpse! I showed you mercy by letting you flee that village while I razed it to the ground alongside Corven here! I showed you mercy by never once coming after your life, even after you hurt my own sister! I am the one who just handed you revolutionaries your very victory! Corven! All you had to do was wait a single day more before you could walk free of this place, and yet here you are, coming after me again!”

’What is this...’

”I am the one who just killed dozens of Masters, toppling this kingdom’s entire military power single-handedly!”

’Am I still acting?’

”I am the one who just killed the heir, the very prince of this kingdom!”

’No... it feels... like my ego has been bruised.’

”I am the one who killed a damned child, the very key to your invincibility, and the princess of this kingdom!”

’I do not like this... I hate this... I should stop talking... this is a part of me I thought I had buried a lifetime ago... this arrogant bastard I used to be...’

”I am the one who handed you this entire kingdom on a silver platter, and yet all of you come here and spit on my kindness as though you are begging to die!”

Azriel took a step forward, blood seeping steadily from the corners of both his lips and his eyes, and yet the sight did nothing to diminish him. If anything, it only deepened how disturbing, how genuinely terrifying, he had become in that moment.

”I am the one who has contended with the strongest Divine Spirit in existence. I have dealt with the gods themselves. And I am the one who has faced men and women far more dangerous, far more brilliant, far stronger, far faster, and far superior in every conceivable way to lesser men like you!”

”...”

”...”

A silence descended the instant Azriel fell quiet, catching his breath at last. He lifted a hand to his mouth, wiping away the blood gathered there, then kept it pressed against his lips as he turned a glare on Pierre. Pierre flinched at once, stumbling backward as he met the full weight of Azriel’s crimson eyes, and then he collapsed to the ground entirely.

It was as if Pierre alone had glimpsed something the others had not. His face drained of every last trace of color, cold sweat breaking out across his skin.

Celestina and Yelena stared at him, mouths hanging open, while Lumine, incapable of anything else in that moment, could only watch with wide and horrified eyes.

”Each...” His breath caught, stealing the fluency from his words. ”Each and every time... I won. I... am the one... who... each... and every time... survives... while the rest... die. Only I... live... every time... even if I do not... want that... to be the outcome...”

His eyes moved from Pierre to Corven, and finally to the Plague, who looked every bit as horrified as he did shocked despite wearing a mask.

”Whether you two possess space affinities... whether you carry something... similar... none of it matters.”

He lowered his hand at last.

”I win. And I will... keep winning. And I promise... by the end of this scenario... even the gods themselves will come to understand...”

Then he offered them one final warning.

”Leave... or die...”

Corven let the chilling silence draw out for a few seconds before he finally spoke, his tone entirely humorless, weighted with nothing but seriousness.

”Whether you are telling the truth or not, you are hardly in a state to kill us.”

It was only in response to those words that Azriel let out a wheezing laugh and coughed up more blood.

”I... I never said... that I would be the one... to kill you.”

Corven’s frown deepened, right up until his entire body went rigid with surprise at the sound of a cold voice from directly behind the three of them.

”Master Corven.”

”...!”

They turned as one, and there, looming above them, stood the Prince of Dusk.

”Prince Lioren..!”