The Extra Can't be A Hero

Chapter 287: The World's Defender (1)

Amon's victory over the Demon Prince sent shockwaves rippling across the fractured planet. The Hyades Republic, still reeling from having witnessed his power firsthand when he defended them against the Demon Cult, was left utterly stunned once more.

For those who had already begun to revere him as a god, their faith deepened into fanatic devotion. The Amon Cult swelled at an unprecedented rate, becoming the fastest-growing religion in all of Hyades.

The Demon Cult, on the other hand, was blindsided. They hadn't even been aware that a Demon Prince had descended, and the realisation filled them with a fear so profound it bordered on despair.

A Demon Prince was an untouchable existence—even to the Prophet.

No, the Prophet would more likely be forced to kneel at a Demon Prince's feet, despite serving a different Demon King altogether.

And this was no ordinary Demon Prince.

It was Vol'giman, son of Autarch Zur'guth.

Vol'giman stood on a plane far beyond anything the Prophet could ever have unleashed upon Hyades, and the fact that Amon had defeated him drove a catastrophic wedge through every scheme the Demon Cult had carefully woven.

In [Bright] and even in Yue's past life, the Demon Prince had never been truly defeated. His previous descent had ended only because Isadora summoned him prematurely—Hyades itself rejected his presence once his borrowed power was exhausted.

But this time was different.

Amon did not outlast Vol'giman. He defeated him.

Which meant one unthinkable truth could no longer be denied—Amon had reached the realm of the divine.

But for the regular masses, they simply believed a Demon Prince to be a slightly stronger demon. Nevertheless, their faith in Amon deepened even further, and the masses came up with a new nickname for the man who continually defended the planet against the threat of a Demon invasion—the World's Defender.

And what was the World's Defender doing?

"Say ahhhh…"

"... ah."

Amon sat obediently on the patient's bed as Yue lovingly fed him grapes like the faithful wife that she was. Every few seconds, she would creep onto the bed with her knee only to be stopped by the eternal cockblocker that was Amon's mother.

"My son's sick! Don't try anything funny!"

"Eyyy, don't worry about that! Amon isn't that fragile! In fact, I'm confident that he could go a round or two with me right now!"

"Get out!!!"

Maya continued to chase Yue away from Amon's sickbed, clearly pissed that the woman was trying to take advantage of her son when he was gravely injured. Over the past few days, she had been busy at work, nursing Amon while Yue disappeared for some reason.

As a mother, she was clearly dissatisfied with her daughter-in-law's absence while her baby was recovering. But, naturally, there were circumstances which led to Yue, the biggest Amon fanatic on the planet, to be away from his bed.

Amon sighed and calmed his mother down, and asked nicely:

"Mom. Please leave Yue and me alone for now. I have something to discuss with her."

"Tch, if she assaults you, just scream. I'll come running back in."

"Why are you treating me like a sexual predator?"

"Cause you are, you damned vixen!!!"

Amon's father had to drag his wife out while she kicked the air, finally giving Amon and Yue a moment to themselves.

"Heh, if you wanted to meet me alone so badly, you just had to ask. There's no need to be so secretive."

"Hah. Yue, let's skip the bullshit for today, okay?"

Amon rubbed his head, clearly still not in the pink of health. Yue noticed his apprehension and downplayed her playfulness, ready to listen to whatever her husband was about to say.

"Isadora… Did you get her?"

"Yeah," Yue smiled like a vicious warden who had jailed her prey. "She's locked within my alternate dimension. Even the Prophet won't be able to get to her."

"I see… I hope you've gotten your revenge then."

One of the reasons why Yue was hunting Isadora was that the Apostle of Lust had indirectly caused the death of her mother. And while that wasn't the main reason, it was a motivating factor.

"I will slowly torture her, and make her wish for death."

"Do as you please. As long as you milk out all of the information about the Demon Cult from her first."

"Heh, don't worry about that. I'm a specialist in that."

Yue puffed her chest out in complete confidence. Knowing that the Apostle of Lust was no match for her anymore, Amon eased his tension and moved on to the next topic… and it was arguably the more important of the two.

"Yue… You know, I hadn't always trusted you."

The ethereal young woman froze, completely shocked that the conversation had taken this turn. She looked straight into Amon's eyes and saw only a cold seriousness.

"When we met all those years ago, I couldn't believe that you regressed from the past. But as time passed and you proved it with your actions… I believed you. And I trusted you. Even though… There were some secrets you sought to keep."

"... You noticed?"

"It was hard not to… I just ignored them."

Amon shook his head and locked eyes with Yue.

"I want to trust you, no, I do trust you… But, I don't think I can turn a blind eye to those secrets anymore."

"Amon… No, I understand. After experiencing that… You're bound to be confused… so let me explain everything to you now."

Yue sighed and snapped her fingers. In the next instant, Amon was swallowed by a translucent bubble and dragged through space itself, slipping into another dimension—Yue's inner world.

They passed through the void, severing the planet's dominion and slipping beyond the Goddess's all-seeing gaze. Only then could they speak freely.

Or so Amon thought.

What greeted him instead was… wrong.

They stood in a room whose walls were plastered with posters of Amon in provocatively staged poses. Crystalline screens replayed recordings of his S-tier feats on an endless loop, each angle somehow more flattering than the last.

At the centre of the room hung a lavish, gold-bordered frame depicting Amon completely naked, his manhood on shameless display, sweat glistening on his body as he mounted Yue.

Amon froze.

Two whole seconds passed in absolute silence.

Then Yue stiffened, her eyes widening in horror.

"—Wait, this isn't—!"

In a burst of panic, she snapped her fingers again, and the entire scene collapsed as the space around them violently shifted to somewhere else entirely.

"A-Ahem! Like I was saying! Let me explain everything to you now."

"N-No, Yue… What was that?"

"H-Haha, you don't have to worry about that. It must have been your imagination."

"No, but…"

"Y-You're still injured, so you must have been daydreaming!"

"But…"

"DAYDREAMING!"

"... okay."

Seeing that Yue wasn't going to budge, Amon decided to drop the conversation for a later time. And Yue, being keen on switching the subject, hurriedly began her explanation.

"Amon… What if I told you… Hyades isn't the real Goddess of the planet?"

"... what?"

This wasn't in the books. Even a five-year-old would know that Hyades was the Goddess of the world, the entity who created it and all life on it. But Yue was trying to overturn that logic.

"No, to be precise… Hyades was once human, just like all of us. But, she seized the Mandate of Heaven and became the sole divine of our dimension."

"Wait… Hyades was human?"

"Yes, and she lived during the age of the Clay Emperor."

"... what?"

Amon could hardly believe his ears. He paused, completely shellshocked by the revelation.

"The War for Heaven. That's what it was called. Gods and mortals fought against each other, each trying to seize the Mandate of Heaven to rule the planet for the next cycle. In the end, the mandate was seized by a human. A woman by the name of Hyades."

Yue continued her explanation, ignoring Amon's utter shock.

"When she ascended, Hyades decided that a fresh start was needed. She wiped out ninety percent of the planet's intelligent lifeforms and wiped any records of their civilisations. She created the Titans and gave them a false mandate of heaven, letting them rule the earth until the Dragons waged war against them to usurp the false throne."

"When the Dragons got too strong and were challenging divinity, she got them to fight among themselves, which led to the rise of humanity. And when humans were getting too powerful, she invited the Demons into the planet to weaken us."

"All so that she could keep her throne without any resistance."

Yue gritted her teeth as a well of hate spewed out for the Goddess.

"That's… hard to believe."

"But that's the truth. In fact… she's the reason why the Demon Cult managed to invade our realm once more, even though the Solaris Saint expelled them during the last Great Demon War."

"Wait… If the Goddess wants to wipe us all out… Why go through all that hassle? Couldn't she just snap her fingers and wipe us clean from existence?"

"She can't… at least not anymore."

Yue shook her head while clarifying Amon's question.

"Hyades wants to keep our planet from evolving into a higher realm, precisely because she wants to keep herself on the throne. But the planet has a will of its own. It stripped her of the World's Defender role, and now, she is unable to interfere with the material plane directly."

"Wait… how could you know all of this?"

Amon stopped the regressor, whose knowledge shouldn't have been this comprehensive. Yue smiled and revealed the Mysterious Grimoire, the same book that enabled her to turn back time.

"This… I call it the Mysterious Grimoire, but its true identity is—the Heavenly Records. The will of the Mandate of Heaven."