Reborn as an Extra

Chapter 463: The Era of ’Chosen Ones’ Ends.

Alverto’s death may seem sudden and anticlimactic, but it was not so easy or so abrupt.

He was first severely weakened by Jin, who nearly sacrificed his life and future to weaken the link between Alverto and the spire of ascension.

Next, he had to fight Link and the others while being bombarded with immense amounts of purification and healing magic by Riya constantly.

He even had to burn his own soul to forcefully teleport them, which weakened his soul and reduced the power of his ’Soul Resonance.’

Then he had to burn his ’soul’ again to deal with Rio, making him even weaker.

He was hoping that Rio would get hit by the ’memory’ trap and would not be able to reach floor 0, but that plan didn’t work at all.

Alverto was already out of options and was at his wit’s end.

He kept getting weaker and weaker with each wave of enemy while Rio got tremendously stronger.

Alverto himself knew that he couldn’t deal with Rio anymore; that’s also the main reason why he tried to buy time by telling Rio his plans and goals.

He wanted Rio to keep wasting more time or even recruit him to his own side.

But Rio saw through his plan; with his powerful instincts and his knowledge about this world’s future, he was able to figure out all the disadvantages in Alverto’s plan.

Although Alverto’s body hasn’t died and has mutated beyond recognition, his mind and sea of consciousness have both collapsed completely; he’s not much better than a brain-dead patient.

It’s just lingering ’will’ that is still keeping him stable.

Alverto didn’t want to accept his defeat and didn’t want to see his plan get destroyed by Rio; thus, he sacrificed his everything in exchange for power.

Miasmic corruption spread all over his body, his height increased, and dragon-like scales made of flesh and corruption appeared on his body as he became a giant demon.

Originally Alverto looked more like a human than a demon, but his current form has become a perfect depiction of what a demon living in hell should look like.

His legs became those of a goat, and two giant goat horns appeared on his head; his teeth grew long and sharp, making him look hideous.

Without wasting a single second, the mutated demon attacked Rio with its gigantic fist.

Now that it’s lost all sanity, it only has violence and bloodlust left in it; thus, it attacked the person closest to it.

Noticing the opponent’s increased speed and strength, Rio activated his buffs and jumped away to dodge the incoming attack.

’You have sacrificed your everything and has shown your unwavering determination...’

’It will be bad etiquette if I don’t get serious now...’

Rio placed his sword around his waist as he turned it into katana form; he bent his back a little and took a proper sword stance as he prepared for a powerful attack.

The air around him became compressed due to the sheer pressure of his aura and sword intent.

The mutated giant didn’t have any sense of danger, as it didn’t have sanity anymore, so it rushed towards Rio without even bothering to defend itself from the attack.

Rio took a deep breath as he put all his strength in a single swing.

[Sword Intent: Maximum Output!]

[Sword Sage’s Enlightenment: Chronos: Time-splitting Arc!]

As Rio swung his sword in a horizontal manner, his sword seemed to have no power at all, as it didn’t even disturb the air or the flow of mana and miasma in the surroundings.

It seemed slow yet fast, it seemed strong yet weak, and it was ’bizarre’ and ’common’ at the same time.

The sword swing didn’t even hit the mutated demon, as it was still a bit far away from Rio, and the sword seemed to have been swung in empty air.

It was ’bizarre.’

Right after Rio swung his sword, the mutated demon seemed to have hit by some ’bizarre’ power.

Its upper torso kept rushing towards Rio, but the lower torso stopped far away.

Rio lightly stepped aside as the upper torso fell to the ground and all the internal organs spilled out everywhere.

The ground was covered in blood all over as miasma and corruption spread everywhere.

While standing near the head of the fallen demon, Rio glanced at the shining stars in the sky as he placed his left hand on the hilt of his sword resting in its sheath around his waist.

"While fighting you, I wasn’t wasting my time... I am good at copying others’ techniques and skills..."

"You showed me how a royal demon uses time type skills in an effective way... Thanks for teaching me a new powerful skill, I will put it to good use..."

"Demon or not, you were a powerful warrior; I will remember you even if everyone else forgets..."

Rio smiled to himself and spoke in a tone filled with complicated emotions.

"I guess this is goodbye... ’Hero’ Alverto..."

Rio stopped calling Alverto a ’demon’ and stored his memory in his mind in the form of a ’hero.’

A ’hero’ who was willing to sacrifice his everything for the sake of a better future, a ’hero’ who was willing to do anything for his ’love.’

Alverto was without a doubt a ’hero’ for the ’demons’ and the woman he loved.

Even to his last breath, he was still thinking about his ’love’ and ’goals.’

An individual with such a ’noble’ soul deserved a better future.

"If not for the difference in motives and ideologies... I would have liked to become your friend, Hero of the demon race..."

*Shatter*

The sea of consciousness belonging to the original Rio shattered, and the last lingering dregs of his ’will’ slowly faded away as he confirmed Alverto’s death.

[Thank you, my friend... I couldn’t have even dreamt of having my revenge... you made it possible...]

[Thank you, wandering soul... I hope you will also find your purpose in the world... farewell, my dear friend...]

Before completely disappearing, the original Rio didn’t forget to thank him, and he left the fragments of his sea of consciousness behind.

Rio immediately mobilized his sword intent and sealed away those fragments in the depths of his sea of consciousness.

’Finally, this body is completely mine... I can use these fragments in the future to restore my emotions once I have found the cure to my fading emotions...’

Just when Rio was distracted for a few seconds, his danger sense got triggered, and he immediately glanced towards the altar in the distance.

"What!?"

He was shocked to see that the altar was already glowing with golden radiance and Kira was already done nailing Fade’s limbs to the altar with golden swords.

The altar glowed brightly along with those strange golden swords embedded in Fade’s body as it started absorbing all the luck, destiny, and even the body itself from Fade.

Before Rio could even react, the barrier surrounding the altar disappeared and reappeared near Rio instead.

The barrier confined Rio and Alverto’s upper torsos together inside of it, restricting Rio’s movement.

"The attack from before was a decoy!?"

Rio immediately figured out what had happened.

The moment Alverto was on the verge of losing his sanity, he used forbidden demon arts to burn his soul and enhance his physique.

This was actually a decoy to make Rio think that Alverto was at his wits’ end; he used that brief time frame to use the already weakened connection with the Spire of Ascension to make new changes.

He forcefully used his weakened ’soul resonance’ and changed the activation condition of the altar and also changed the location of the barrier to his own body.

He took a big gamble at the end.

If Rio wasn’t standing near Alverto’s dead body at the end when the altar activated due to Alverto’s death, he wouldn’t have been surrounded by the barrier.

Alverto had forcefully changed the location of that barrier to his own body, and Alverto had no way to capture Rio as he was already losing sanity.

It was a gamble that barely had any chance of succeeding, yet he managed to do it.

His gamble worked; Rio paid his respects to Alverto’s fallen body and stayed near him at the end, which caused him to fall for the trap.

The barrier itself posed no actual threat to Rio; thus, he didn’t notice anything at all, and even his powerful instincts couldn’t sense it coming.

If it had posed any danger to Rio, he could have sensed that something was amiss, but this barrier was not dangerous to him, so he couldn’t sense it.

"Even till the end, you still are just as stubborn..."

Rio didn’t have any other choice; he immediately covered his sword in thick miasma and started corrupting the barrier to create a gap in it, but it was too slow.

"Come on! Come on!"

Just when the situation was about to get desperate, a sudden spatial fluctuation appeared near the altar, and a girl carrying a sword and a human skull jumped out of the space-rift.

Rio was shocked at that scene.

"Riko Embeth!? You were alive!? How did you reach floor 0!?"

Rio’s mind was filled with questions, but Riko didn’t say anything; she threw that human skull at him and then clenched her sword to do a thrust attack.

Her entire body was covered in wounds, but a smile was plastered on her face; she thrust her sword with great precision right into the heart of Kira, who was standing on the spot like a lifeless puppet.

"I figured it out now... I love you, Zach! I am coming to your side!"

[Self-mana detonation!]

With a look that resembled a maniac, Riko directly detonated her body using her mana, causing the altar to crack and the ritual to go haywire.

The entire spire of ascension trembled crazily as its ’core,’ the grand altar, was damaged.

Before Rio could make any sense of the situation, he was forced to close his eyes as a flash of bright light appeared in front of him.

It was as if the entire world had gone silent for a second.

Everything outside the barrier was glowing, and a massive, powerful explosion blew it away.

The Spire of Ascension had already lost its owner; half of it was already shattered by Ashtel, and now that its core was damaged, it couldn’t keep itself stable anymore.

The entire ’Spire of Ascension’ blew up in a powerful explosion.