The Extra's Rise-Chapter 473: Resurgence (3)

I was genuinely relieved that Rachel and Lucifer had finally patched things up. No more cold glares across the training yard, no more conversations that smelled faintly of tension and suppressed sword energy. Just the two of them walking alongside me like old friends pretending the past few months hadn’t been a political fireball wrapped in romantic drama.

And, more importantly, Lucifer hadn’t turned into the jealous-villain type. You know, the one who grows a goatee, monologues about betrayal, and tries to kill you over a girl. He wasn’t going to spiral into some third-rate cliché. That would’ve been annoying.

’So that’s my level,’ I thought, walking with Lucifer, Rachel, and the others like we were some ragtag adventuring party with trust issues.

I’d fought a Vampire Elder. Not just any elder—Lazarus. The kind of mid Ascendant-rank monster who probably read dark rituals for fun and kept backup fangs in a drawer.

And I’d beaten him.

It took everything I had. Possibly more than everything, if you counted the parts of me currently held together by sheer will and Rachel’s healing spell. But I was still standing, and he wasn’t. In this world, that was the only scoreboard that mattered.

I felt something stir in me. A twinge of pride. The kind that creeps in quietly, sits down on your spine, and says, "Hey, maybe you don’t suck after all."

Deia had already done a full magical tune-up on my body, and now Rachel was keeping the engine running. Her hand on my back was warm with healing magic, the sort that mended bones and guilt in equal measure. I wasn’t quite ready to sprint laps, but I was functionally alive.

Lucifer had his arm around my shoulder. He was also being healed, mostly because he looked like he’d gone twelve rounds with a plasma chainsaw. I hadn’t paid too much attention to his fight, honestly. Too busy keeping my own insides... well, inside.

’He evolved a lot,’ Luna said inside my head. Her voice was calm and ancient, like a particularly judgmental weather report. ’His control over white mana is nearly perfect for his rank. He only got hurt because he got cocky. He could’ve beaten Lazarus too. But... he’s a bit behind you now.’

Coming from a qilin, that wasn’t just flattery. That was divine accounting.

I nodded slightly. Luna didn’t lie. Not unless it was funny.

’I thought I left him behind,’ I thought, half-smiling, ’but I guess the protagonist is the protagonist for a reason.’

And then I stopped walking.

The others noticed right away. It was hard not to when the guy who just survived an undead warzone suddenly freezes mid-step like he forgot how knees worked.

"What’s wrong?" Cecilia asked, her voice sharp and quick. "Are you hurt?"

I shook my head.

I wasn’t hurt.

Not yet.

But Luna’s senses had bled into mine. And through them, I felt something. A presence. No, not just a presence—a pressure. Like gravity got bored and decided to make a personal visit.

It was outside, near where the Vampire Monarch was still being healed. Heavy. Old. Dangerous in the same way a collapsing star was dangerous.

Then it noticed us.

And then—

There wasn’t time to blink. Or speak. Or scream.

One moment I was standing, trying to interpret existential dread.

The next, claws were already embedded in my flesh.

I didn’t move. Couldn’t, really. My body had skipped over "pain" and gone straight to "what in the nine hells just happened."

And then I saw him.

Cassius von Noctis.

The Vampire Prince.

He didn’t need a dramatic entrance. He was a dramatic entrance.

High Immortal-rank. And not the kind that looked impressive on a resume—the kind that could tear through buildings like soggy parchment and didn’t even get winded.

I stared into his eyes and felt the weight of history in them. He looked at me like I was a mild curiosity. A wrinkle in his day. An unexpected, slightly interesting gnat.

"So it’s you, Arthur Nightingale," he said casually, as if he were confirming a reservation.

He retracted his hand like he was brushing dust off his coat.

He wasn’t letting me go.

No. This was the movement of someone who already knew he’d won. Who didn’t need to keep his claws in me to prove anything.

To him, I wasn’t a threat.

I wasn’t a hero.

I was prey.

"You know, you annoy me a lot," Cassius said, circling me with predatory grace. Each step seemed to leave impressions in the ancient stone floor, as if reality itself yielded to his presence.

My friends had frozen in place. Not from cowardice—never that—but from the sheer, overwhelming pressure of his power. It was like trying to move through ocean depths with nothing but determination and lungs made for air.

"You have the love of Alyssara Velcroix, after all," Cassius continued, his voice deceptively calm despite the rage that flickered behind his eyes. "The reason she rejected me is someone like you. An ant."

I didn’t say anything, but my eyes narrowed slightly. My heart stirred once again from the mention of Alyssara Velcroix.

’I still...’ my thoughts drawled off.

Nobody said anything to Cassius. All of us were suppressed by his sheer presence that was on another level from anything imaginable.

The Vampire Prince’s perfect features contorted slightly, the mask of aristocratic indifference slipping to reveal something raw and surprisingly human beneath.

"Do you have any idea," he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper, "how long I’ve loved her? Four years, Nightingale. Four years of devotion while she searched for... what? A human? A boy who can barely hold a sword without trembling?"

He laughed, the sound echoing through the chamber like broken glass. "I offered her eternity. Power beyond mortal comprehension. The throne of night itself! And she looks at me like I’m offering a trinket at a village fair."

Cassius began to pace, his movements too fluid, too perfect. His night astral energy thickened around him, darkening the air and making it difficult to breathe.

His eyes flashed crimson as they fixed on me again. "And she chooses you. A barely-trained academy student with borrowed power and a martyr complex."

The chamber temperature plummeted as his rage intensified. Frost patterns spread across the ancient stone, beautiful and lethal.

"What does she see in you?" he demanded, his composure cracking further. "What quality could you possibly possess that I do not? Is it your mortality? Your weakness? Your...humanity?" He spat the last word like a curse.

Lucifer shifted slightly beside me, trying to position himself between us despite his injuries. The movement caught Cassius’s attention.

"And you," the Vampire Prince snarled, "the princeling who thinks ice can challenge night. Don’t bother. You’re as insignificant as he is."

I felt rather than saw Rachel tense behind me, her healing magic still working desperately to repair the damage from Cassius’s casual strike. The wound burned with cold fire, resisting her efforts.

"She speaks your name in her sleep," Cassius continued, his voice a mixture of venom and anguish as his attention returned to me. "Did you know that? For years, I’ve heard it. Arthur. Always Arthur. Never Cassius. Never the one who stood beside her through years of darkness."

His night astral energy began to coalesce into something more focused, more deadly. The air seemed to fold around him, dimensions bending to accommodate his power.

"If I can’t have her love," he said with terrible finality, "then neither will you. Perhaps when you’re gone, she’ll finally see—"

The world exploded into blinding white.

A bolt of lightning—too precise, too concentrated to be natural—struck Cassius with devastating force, sending him crashing into the far wall. The impact shattered ancient stone, dust and debris raining down in the aftermath.

"Back," a voice commanded—calm, authoritative, brooking no argument.

We scrambled away from the impact site, our bodies suddenly free from the crushing pressure of Cassius’s presence. I staggered, the wound in my chest throbbing with each heartbeat, but I managed to stay upright with Lucifer’s support.

A figure materialized at the chamber entrance—tall, imposing, wrapped in robes of midnight blue embroidered with silver lightning patterns. His hair, pulled back in a severe topknot, was more salt than pepper, but his stance betrayed no hint of age or weakness. freewёbnoνel.com

Li Zenith.

My master. Seraphina’s uncle. High Immortal-ranker. And quite possibly the only reason we weren’t all dead.

"Uncle," Seraphina breathed, relief evident in her voice.

Lightning crackled around Li’s form, illuminating the stern planes of his face. His eyes—sharp as a hawk’s and twice as unforgiving—scanned each of us quickly, assessing injuries and conditions with military precision.

"Sloppy," he commented, though there was no heat in the criticism. "But alive. Acceptable under the circumstances."

From the rubble across the chamber, a figure emerged—Cassius, his immaculate appearance now marred by dust and a crack across his otherwise perfect face. His eyes blazed with fury as they fixed on Li.

"The Lightning Dragon of Mount Hua," Cassius said, his voice colder than before. "You’re far from your territory, old man."

Li’s expression didn’t change, but the air around him hummed with barely restrained power. "And you’re testing my patience, young vampire. These students are under my protection."

Without looking away from Cassius, Li addressed us. "Leave this chamber. Take the eastern passage. It will lead you to the surface."

"Master," I began, but he cut me off with a slight gesture.

"Go, Arthur. You’ve done enough for today."

"They’re not going anywhere," Cassius snarled, night astral energy whirling around him like a storm.

Li sighed, the sound somehow more threatening than any show of anger could have been. "I was hoping to avoid property damage," he said mildly. "Lord Daedric will be displeased about the renovations."

Lightning erupted from his fingertips, arcing across the chamber in a display of raw power that made my hair stand on end. Cassius countered with a wave of night energy, the two forces colliding mid-air with a thunderous crack.

The air between the two combatants distorted, reality itself struggling to contain the clash of powers that should not exist in the mortal realm.

"Go," Li repeated, his voice unchanged despite the strain of holding Cassius at bay. "This is not a battle for students."

Rachel tugged at my arm. "Arthur, he’s right. We need to leave. Now."