The Extra is a Genius!?-Chapter 609: Against the Horde [III]

Marcus stood near the front with his sword already stained dark and his breathing measured despite everything around him. Garron was a few steps to his right, broad as a wall and just as hard to move, while Laziel held the other side with the tense focus of someone who looked more fragile than he really was. The three of them had ended up there naturally, not because anyone needed to tell them where to stand, but because that part of the battlefield demanded people who could keep standing when the pressure became ugly.

And Marcus could do that now. That thought would have sounded arrogant to an earlier version of himself, but today it felt simple. True. He had grown a lot in recent months. While Noel had thrown himself into that insane training in the mountains, Marcus had trained too. Harder than before. Longer than before. He had pushed his body, his mana, and his spells until improvement stopped feeling exciting and started feeling necessary.

Noel kept moving forward like someone born to break every limit in front of him. Keeping up with that was difficult enough to feel unfair at times. Still, Marcus had never seriously considered stopping.

From his point of view, Noel was just extraordinary. Every time Marcus thought he had closed the distance a little, Noel found a way to rise again, faster and higher, like trying to catch someone climbing the sky itself. Marcus did not know the truth behind all of that, did not know about the system or the advantages Noel had carried from the start. What he saw was a friend who kept doing impossible things one after another, then somehow acting like it was normal.

A scream rose somewhere to his left. Steel rang against bone. A burst of magic lit the field in a brief flash of blue and orange before the noise swallowed it again. Marcus kept his eyes forward.

Today was not just another battle. He could feel that much in his bones. This was one of those days people would speak about for years, maybe generations, if they survived it. And strangely enough, beneath the tension and the blood and the constant pressure pressing against the lines, Marcus felt something close to gratitude. Noel had asked for help for a second time. That mattered more than it should have, perhaps, but Marcus did not care. Noel had trusted them enough to call everyone in, enough to let the people around him carry part of the weight for once.

For a brief moment, his thoughts flickered elsewhere. Clara was fighting in another section. Their child was behind the lines, protected for now, far from this blood-soaked ground. That thought settled inside him with surprising force. It was not only Noel’s world he was fighting for anymore. Clara. Their son. The people still standing behind these defenses. All of it had become real enough to touch.

Marcus tightened his grip on the sword.

The next wave met them before the thought could settle for long.

By now the three of them had already adapted to the rhythm of the battlefield. That did not mean it was easy. It meant they understood it. Monsters came in bursts, then clusters, then ugly mixtures of both when the line bent in one direction and pulled attention away from another. None of it was clean, but Marcus, Garron, and Laziel had stopped treating each wave like something new.

A goblin lunged first, ugly and quick in that desperate way weak creatures often were. Marcus stepped half a pace to the side and split its neck open with one clean cut.

"Be careful with the shadow wolves," he said, glancing toward Laziel. "Especially you. Garron and I can manage better up close. I’ve got the sword, and he’s got..." He glanced once toward his friend. "Whatever that is."

Garron barked a laugh just as a second goblin reached him. He caught it by the face with one hand, fingers closing so completely around its skull that the thing barely had time to twitch before the head burst apart in his grip. He shook his hand once like it was nothing. "Don’t worry. These muscles will protect him."

Laziel let out a short laugh despite himself, strained but real. His concentration never slipped, even if his eyes kept scanning too often, too sharply. That was the difference. Laziel could be afraid and still do what needed to be done. "I know. That’s exactly why I’m still standing here with both of you."

A pair of beasts rushed the front before either of them could say more. Marcus met the first with his blade and turned the second into shattered stone with a fast burst of earth magic. Garron drove his boot into another creature hard enough to fold its ribs inward and send it tumbling back into the horde.

For a while, it continued like that.

Kill. Move. Block. Cast. Breathe. Repeat.

The pattern held, but time passed strangely in battle. At first it felt sharp and manageable through momentum alone. Then little by little the weight began to change. Bodies grew more numerous. The pauses between waves felt shorter. The air thickened with mana, smoke, and blood.

After a couple of hours, the battle stopped feeling like something that could be won quickly.

It did not slow down. That was the problem. It just kept going, wave after wave, as if the field itself had decided to wear them down piece by piece. The first rush of urgency had burned away, and what remained was something heavier. A real battle of attrition.

Marcus felt it everywhere. In the way soldiers were breathing now, harsher and deeper than before. In the way spells came slower from the mages nearby, their hands less steady, their timing less sharp. Knights were dragging shields that had begun to feel too heavy. Even the formation around Marcus had started bending more often, recovering later each time.

Then the reason showed itself clearly.

The monsters coming now were stronger.

At first only a few. Creatures with tougher hides, denser mana, more weight behind every movement. Adept-rank, Marcus realized almost immediately. They hit harder and lasted longer, forcing more people to commit just to bring one down.

Then the ones that changed the field for real began to appear.

Ascendant-rank monsters pushed into the horde, and the difference was immediate, like the battlefield had suddenly been asked to carry a heavier sky. A massive horned beast with layered bone plating across its shoulders tore through a section of stakes and sent two knights flying with a single swing. Another pushed through a barrage of spells that would have killed weaker monsters twice over before finally slowing.

Marcus’s expression hardened. Not everyone on their side had reached Ascendant. That truth was becoming impossible to ignore. He saw it in the faces around him. In the hesitation. In the extra half-step back some took when the stronger monsters entered their range. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Then the orders started spreading across the battlefield. Different voices, same meaning.

"Ascendants, step forward!"

"Frontline shift! Ascendant-level fighters to the front!"

The battlefield answered. Marcus stepped forward without hesitation. Garron rolled his shoulders once like he had been waiting for this. Laziel stepped with them too, tension still in his face but not a trace of retreat in him. All across the line, others moved as well. One step, then another.

Marcus tightened his grip on his sword and looked at the monsters still coming. He had worked hard too. Maybe Noel was still ahead, maybe absurdly ahead, but Marcus refused to believe the distance between them was untouchable forever.

One day, somehow, he would stand beside him properly.