The Extra's Rise
Chapter 640 - 640: Dullahan (5)

Reika was still holding her ground, but it was obvious now—she was losing.

Not because of a lack of skill. No, her technique was sharp, movements graceful, and her blade sang with conviction. But skill only went so far when your opponent had a few hundred years' worth of raw power and a Domain bending reality like a spoiled child with a paper crane. The gap between their mana ranks wasn't a gap—it was a gorge. And she was close to falling in.

Just as the Dullahan's greatsword came swinging with enough force to cleave through reinforced alloy plating, I moved.

One thought.

One feather.

And I was there.

The transition was silent, immediate—no spell circle, no glow, no delay. My hand wrapped around Reika's waist as I spun her behind me, blade already rising to catch the Dullahan's strike. The impact reverberated through my arm, but the angle held. Sparks danced like lightning bugs having a stroke.

Reika stiffened in my grasp. Her face, usually composed even in chaos, turned crimson. She looked up at me, and her violet eyes bloomed into sharp, petal-like shapes. Her own unique eyes.

"W-what are you doing, Master?" she asked, trying to sound stern. It wasn't working.

I leaned close, voice low. "What were you doing?"

Her breath hitched. "J-just protecting Master."

There was no hesitation in her words, only resolve. No irony either, which somehow made it worse. She meant it. Fully.

I blinked, then sighed. "You know you can't solo him. He's near mid Immortal-rank, Reika."

She didn't argue.

Not because she agreed, but because she had known it from the start and did it anyway.

Another wave of upside-down crucifixes rained from above, angled like javelins thrown by a god having a bad day. With Reika still in my arm, I dodged through them using Featherstep—flickering between black feathers like a shadow skipping across shards of broken glass.

I set her down gently, my gaze steady.

"Never die, Reika. That's the only order that matters if you insist on calling me Master."

She stared for a second longer, then nodded. "Understood."

I turned back to the Dullahan.

He stood silently, head still missing, body unwavering. His armor gleamed with darkness, still cracked from earlier, but far from broken. The Domain around him pulsed—each wave distorting reality with more strength than the last. Even the laws of motion were starting to fray. Falling didn't happen downward anymore. It just happened.

I narrowed my eyes, my sword shifting in my grip. Astral energy coiled around it, tightening, shaping.

It was time.

Not for a flashy spell, or even a clever trick.

This one came from my Master. Not the figurative one—but the old man who'd broken my bones in training and made me rebuild myself from the ground up. The one who taught me that legacy wasn't a thing you wore like a crown—it was something that weighed on your back until you either crumbled or carried it properly.

I was about to show the Dullahan the latter.

But then—

A ripple. Cold and dry, like the air before a sandstorm.

Erebus manifested behind me.

He wasn't supposed to, not until things got worse. But keeping Wings of Eclipse running while defending from a near mid Immortal-ranked Domain was pushing even him past his limit. Hidden support wasn't going to cut it anymore.

He stepped forward, his body a sculpture of obsidian and blood-crimson bone. His eye sockets burned like dead stars reigniting.

"I will hold the line," he said, his voice as low as tectonic plates shifting.

"You're not built to tank this one," I warned, already stepping ahead.

Erebus bowed his skull slightly. "I am already dead, Master. This is simply maintaining the shape of that fact."

Fair enough.

Still, I turned back once. "Stay safe, Erebus."

He didn't nod.

He didn't need to.

He just stepped forward, bones gleaming in the flickering light, and met the Dullahan's Domain with one of his own.

Now I had an opening. My sword hummed with coiled astral power.

The attack was ready.

The movement my Master—the Martial King—said would suit me. He never showed it. Just an idea, a rough sketch of motion scribbled with the last of his will before he died on the sand-scattered fields of Indel Prime.

He thought it would be my third movement. Maybe he was right. I didn't name it after him, though. He'd have hated that. Instead, I forged it the only way I knew how—through repetition, injury, and that nagging sense that if I didn't get it right, I wouldn't live long enough to try again.

Third movement of my Grade 6 sword art: Stellar Cascade.

Falling stars. That was the image.

Not a single, graceful meteor. No, this was the sky breaking apart. It was debris and rage and the sound of a hundred promises falling from orbit. My sword was the carrier. Purelight ran through the blade like a living artery, fed by gravity, ice, earth, and space astral energy—all weaving through the core of it.

The moment I stepped forward, the Domain trembled. The Dullahan moved to intercept—too slow.

One strike.

Then three.

Then fifteen.

Every swing a drop from heaven. Sharp, burning. No wasted motion. No grace. Just raw celestial attrition. The blade traced afterimages through the space around him like molten trails, each one lashing into his armor with thundercrack force.

The Dullahan's breastplate fractured. One pauldron shattered completely. His body was a mess of sparks and torn matter.

I drove him back.

The world bent under the weight of my barrage. I thought I'd hit the ceiling of what I could do.

I thought I'd won.

That was my mistake.

The Dullahan didn't stay down. He didn't fall. His broken body knit itself back together in front of me, piece by piece. Limbs reattached. Gaps closed. The light in his hollow helm reignited with fury.

No. Not just fury. Power.

Mana flooded the Domain like a breached dam. He'd climbed. Mid-Immortal rank. That was it. I hadn't brought him to his knees—I'd awakened him.

And now I was out of time.

The pressure collapsed in on me. His Domain—thick, forceful, and vile—cut through the environment like a tide. All the dark feathers I'd left scattered, all the coordinates I'd laced through the field with Wings of Eclipse, turned inert. Snuffed out.

Featherstep—gone.

I felt the lockdown clamp over my body like a vice.

He surged forward. A horizontal sweep. I barely raised my blade in time, and even then, I was sent skidding back across scorched ground. My heels dug grooves in the shattered terrain. One more hit like that and—

A streak of violet intercepted him.

Reika.

She crashed into his blade with her own, taking the full brunt of the follow-up blow. Her body twisted midair, blood scattering like broken code across the air, but she recovered enough to buy me a breath.

Not long. Just enough.

I pushed forward.

He raised his weapon again—too slow.

I didn't need a blade. Not this time.

I closed the distance—one step. Half a step. No step.

I pressed my knuckle against his chestplate. The heat from my core surged up through my arm, loaded into the point of contact. The pressure between us shifted—momentum warped.

Sixth movement of my Grade 5 CQC art: Zero-Inch Punch.