Reborn as an Extra

Chapter 874: Zain Dred, The Broken Ghost. Part-5.

"This... Sigh..."

If Zain’s words were enough to stir his heart, the status panel notifications were the final declaration that revealed the truth of this newfound ’third choice’.

Rio finally realized that he was ’afraid’ of change and was being a coward due to the possibility that he could lose his love for Lia forever, but this cowardice was also the reason he was being held back.

Rio needed to cast it all away if he wished to win the final gamble!

"I understand... I only have one way forward, and that is to gamble it all on the future version of me..."

The ’First choice’ was to abandon all emotions and ascend.

The ’Second choice’ was to abandon ascension and retain whatever emotions were left.

And the ’Third Choice’ that Rio had created anew was even simpler, ’Ascend first, ask questions later!’

It was a gamble! If his powers after ascension reached a new threshold, he might become capable of finding the reasons behind his loss of emotions; if they didn’t, then the gamble would fail.

"HAHAHAHAHA!!! YOU FINALLY GET IT!!!"

"You are indeed my descendant! You have a smart mind and are willing to persevere through hardship!! Great!!"

"Ah, I truly wish I had the chance to walk around freely and talk to you for a longer period of time..."

"I wonder how the lovely nation that I, Allen, and the others guarded with our lives is doing now... I wonder how the world outside this godforsaken corrupted land is now."

"Unfortunately... I don’t have much time to be with you."

Only after hearing those words did Rio’s excitement subside, and he immediately realized that Zain’s shadowy body was now starting to become unstable.

"Miasmic assimilation... your soul has been completely assimilated by miasma..."

Just like the Shadow Dragon King, whose soul was far too corrupted and destroyed to maintain any sort of sanity, Zain was in the same situation.

The only reason why he was still able to communicate normally with Rio was because he was burning his final vestiges of broken sanity to barely hold his consciousness together.

In a minute or two, his sanity would be completely gone and he would be completely assimilated by miasma.

"I came too late... If I had come a few hundred years ago... perhaps... sigh..."

Rio had the ability to control miasma, and if someone’s soul wasn’t too deeply embedded with miasma, Rio could still find a way to save them, but Zain was too far gone to be saved.

His soul had been submerged in miasma for more than a thousand years! His situation was unsalvageable.

"Hahaha! Don’t be sad, kiddo; after meeting you, I have pretty much no regrets left. I am actually quite happy that the ’Law’ of ’Death’ helped misdirection, that being..."

"If I hadn’t come to the demon continent and accepted corruption willingly, my wife, my children, and even Allen and the others would have fallen victim to the schemes of that entity..."

"By staying here, I helped everyone survive a disaster and hindered various plans of miasma several times!"

"Seeing you means that my legacy has been passed down pretty well... what more does a broken ghost like me from a long-gone era need? I am already very happy..."

"I have no more regrets, except that I wouldn’t be able to attend your wedding..."

A smile appeared on Zain’s dark, covered face as he patted Rio’s head with his big hand.

"Thank you, Rio... We only met for a short time, but I am proud of you. You may not have had a family before, but worry not..."

"All the efforts that you are putting in preserving your love will one day bear fruit for sure... It doesn’t matter if this broken ghost bloodline of mine couldn’t give you a proper family..."

"I am sure you will be able to live the life you want to with your love and will have a happy family of your own... make sure to tell stories about the great deeds of this forgotten grandpa to your kids, hehe~"

With that said, Zain’s dark, covered figure swayed with the wind and slowly faded away into nothingness as if he had never existed to begin with.

The humanoid skull that had preserved for thousands of years turned into ash and disappeared with the wind as Zain’s consciousness finally found eternal peace.

Originally, Zain could have actually kept on living for a very long time to come, but by using his powers to influence the trajectory of Rio’s path, Zain burned up his remaining consciousness at an extremely fast rate, thus reducing his own life.

Moreover, now that he had found peace and had no more regrets left, the ’Law’ of ’Death’ finally accepted him in its embrace and let him rest in peace.

Continuing to live on would have been torture for him, so the legendary skill ’Destination Point’ finally brought Zain Dred, the greatest necromancer in the universe to his final destination.

"Farewell..."

Looking at his empty hand, Rio once again realized how horrible his luck in terms of having loving family members was.

In his previous life, he was an orphan, and even in this life, all relatives of Rio were either dead or were left with just a broken fragment of them, and those also disappeared as time went by.

’Lia...’

The face of a certain golden-haired girl appeared in Rio’s mind as he clenched his fist and swore to himself,

’No matter what... I will not let this final shard of happiness I have left disappear... I must carve out my own ’Path’...’

With newfound sense of confidence, Rio slightly bowed to the place where Zain had disappeared and then flew straight towards the south of the continent.

Rio already knew what choice he needed to make and what he needed to do in the future; there was no more reason to waste any more time in this godforsaken land of corruption.

It was now time to head straight to the Demon King Castle and confront the Demon King in person!