The Extra's Rise
Chapter 643 - 643: Zombie Princess (1)

The Ashen Territories stretched before us like a wound in the world that had never properly healed.

Rachel's healing magic had done its work well—the exhaustion that had threatened to drag me down was replaced by renewed vitality. Beside me, Reika moved with her usual fluid grace, showing no signs of the mana depletion that had nearly overwhelmed her during the Domain battle. Rachel's touch had been thorough, as always.

Of course, we weren't at full strength but we could move around well enough now.

We'd been walking for three hours now, picking our way through a landscape that seemed determined to remind us that death was the natural state of things. The ground beneath our boots was a mixture of volcanic ash and bone dust, creating a peculiar texture that crunched with each step. Ancient trees, petrified by some long-forgotten catastrophe, stood like twisted sentinels against the perpetually overcast sky. Their branches reached toward the heavens in silent supplication, as if frozen in the moment of their final plea for salvation.

The air tasted of sulfur and regret.

"The corruption levels are decreasing the deeper we go," Kali observed, her black eyes scanning the horizon with professional interest.

"That's counterintuitive," Rose said, her auburn hair catching what little light filtered through the ash-laden clouds. "Usually, corruption concentrates toward the center of these places."

"Unless something is actively suppressing it," Rachel added, her blonde hair seeming to glow with its own inner light against the dreary backdrop. The golden flecks in her sapphire eyes caught and reflected what little illumination existed, making her look almost ethereal in the gloom.

I nodded, though my attention was only partially on their conversation. The majority of my focus was occupied by a more immediate concern—specifically, the silver-haired woman walking slightly behind and to my left, maintaining the perfect distance of a bodyguard while somehow making it look like a dance.

Reika.

The way she moved through this desolate landscape was almost hypnotic. Where the rest of us trudged through ash and debris, she seemed to glide, her feet barely disturbing the ground. Her silver hair caught occasional glints of light, creating an ethereal halo effect that was both beautiful and somehow melancholy. Every few minutes, she would turn her head slightly to scan our surroundings, and I would catch glimpses of her profile—the elegant curve of her neck, the determined set of her jaw, the way her silver eyes seemed to hold depths that went far beyond her apparent age.

She was in love with me. I knew this with the same certainty that I knew the sun would rise tomorrow, even in this forsaken place where the sky never seemed to clear. It wasn't something she'd ever said directly—Reika was far too subtle for such crude declarations. Instead, she expressed it in the way she called me "Master," infusing that single word with layers of meaning that made my chest tight with emotions I wasn't ready to examine.

The title itself was a kind of poetry, a way of expressing devotion while maintaining plausible deniability. To anyone listening, it was simply the address of a servant to her employer. But I could hear the way her voice softened when she said it, could see the brief flash of something vulnerable in her eyes before she looked away. It was love disguised as duty, passion hidden behind propriety.

And that made it troublesome.

Not because I didn't care for her—quite the opposite. Reika was brilliant, deadly, loyal to a fault, and possessed of a quiet strength that never failed to impress me. She was also beautiful in a way that made me forget how to breathe properly when she smiled, which was rare enough to feel like a gift when it happened.

No, the problem was that I already had Rachel, Rose, Cecilia and Seraphina, and navigating those four relationships required more emotional intelligence than I was entirely comfortable possessing. Adding another layer of complexity to an already delicate situation seemed like asking for trouble.

'You're overthinking this, 'Luna's voice drifted through my mind, carrying her usual tone of amused exasperation. The qilin had been unusually quiet after the battle concluded, but apparently, my internal romantic turmoil was too entertaining for her to ignore. 'Just tell her how you feel.'

'It's not that simple,' I responded mentally, careful not to let any of my conversation show on my face. The others were still discussing corruption patterns and about the land.

'Of course it is,' Luna laughed, and I could practically feel her rolling her eyes. 'You like her, she likes you, everyone else can see it. The only person pretending this is complicated is you.'

'I already have four girlfriends. Adding a fifth seems—'

'Greedy? Ambitious? Perfectly normal for someone with your particular circumstances?' Luna's amusement was palpable. 'Face it, Arthur. At the rate you're going, you'll have a fifth wife by the time you marry.'

The mental image that conjured—me standing at some kind of altar with a line of women in wedding dresses stretching out behind me like I was collecting wives instead of fighting monsters—made me shudder visibly.

"Master?" Reika's voice was soft, concerned. She'd noticed my reaction, of course. She noticed everything. "Are you unwell?"

"Fine," I said quickly, perhaps a bit too quickly. "Just... thinking about tactical considerations."

She nodded, accepting the explanation without question, though I caught the brief flash of something that might have been disappointment in her eyes. Or maybe I was projecting. It was becoming increasingly difficult to tell the difference.

We continued walking, the landscape gradually shifting around us. The petrified trees gave way to what had once been a city—or at least, the skeletal remains of one. Broken spires reached toward the sky like accusing fingers, their surfaces blackened by whatever catastrophe had claimed this place. The streets were rivers of ash and bone, and the silence was so complete it felt almost aggressive.

"There," Kali said suddenly, pointing toward what had once been the city center. "Do you see it?"

I followed her gaze and felt my heart skip a beat. Rising from the ruins like a monument to despair was a structure that defied easy description. It was part cathedral, part mausoleum, and part something else entirely—something that made my eyes water when I tried to focus on its geometry too directly. The building seemed to exist in more dimensions than it should, its walls folding in on themselves in ways that violated several laws of physics.

And at its very peak, clearly visible even from this distance, was our objective.

The Zombie Crown.

It sat atop the impossible spire like a dark star, radiating malevolent energy that I could feel even from here. The artifact was smaller than I'd expected—no bigger than a real crown—but the power emanating from it was unmistakable. This was the source of the corruption that had been slowly spreading through the territories for decades, the anchor point that allowed the undead to maintain their presence in this realm.

It was also exactly what I needed.

"Well," Rose said, her voice carrying a note of dry appreciation. "That's not ominous at all."

"The structure appears to be some kind of dimensional fold," Rachel observed, her healing-trained eyes analyzing the building with clinical precision. "Getting inside might be... challenging."

"The real question," Kali added, "is what's guarding it. Something that powerful doesn't just sit unprotected."

I nodded, my mind already working through potential approaches. The crown was there, tantalizingly close but obviously dangerous to obtain. The building itself would likely be full of traps, guardians, and other unpleasant surprises. Getting to the artifact would require careful planning, precise execution, and probably more luck than I was comfortable relying on.

But that was a problem for when we got closer. For now, it was enough to know that our objective was real, that it was here, and that it was obtainable.

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