The Extra Can't be A Hero

Chapter 288: The World's Defender (3)

The Heavenly Records. The will of the Mandate of Heaven.

The planet was never a lifeless mass of stone and soil.

Beneath its crust flowed thought, and within its ley lines pulsed intent. It possessed a will: ancient, patient, and vast. Like all living things bound by the laws of existence, it yearned to evolve. To shed its fragile shell and mature into a higher world. To condense greater energies, refine its laws, and one day stand as an actual dimension capable of influencing the cosmic order rather than merely enduring it.

But such evolution demanded nourishment.

It required growth through struggle, refinement through progress, and the harmonious accumulation of life, knowledge, and power. Given time, the planet would have birthed stronger races, deeper laws, and a self-sustaining cycle of ascension. It would have ceased to be prey within the universe and become a participant.

But its custodian forbade this future.

The Goddess Hyades did not shepherd the planet's growth—she suppressed it.

Every attempt the world made to stabilise its energy, to deepen its natural laws, was intercepted and diverted. Ley lines were shackled. Natural thresholds that should have led to planetary breakthroughs were forcibly capped.

Where evolution demanded convergence, Hyades enforced stagnation.

More insidiously, she turned the planet's own inhabitants into tools of attrition.

Instead of allowing life to refine itself, Hyades engineered endless conflict. Dominant species which should have ascended to godhood rose only to be driven into annihilating wars, their potential converted into waste.

The energy meant to elevate the world was bled away through mass slaughter, preventing the planet from ever reaching the critical density required for ascension.

When even this was insufficient, Hyades committed a greater transgression.

She tore open the boundaries of the realm and invited Demons to descend upon her world.

Invasions ravaged the land, further destabilising the planet's core. Yet while those beneath her were weakened and broken, Hyades herself grew stronger.

Every catastrophe tightened her grip on the Mandate of Heaven, allowing her to overwrite the planet's instincts with her own divine authority.

The summoning of demonic scum was the final violation.

By then, Hyades' control over the Mandate was unassailable.

The planet could feel itself suffocating—its growth arrested, its future severed.

Bound by divine law, it could not depose its Goddess, nor reject her authority directly.

So it chose defiance through preservation.

For the first time in its existence, the planet turned its will inward and created the Heavenly Records. It engraved within them everything Hyades sought to erase: its true history, its suppressed present, and the branching futures that should have been.

Past, present, and future were compressed into a single archive of truth, then sealed beyond the Goddess's perception.

Hidden from divine sight, the Heavenly Records shed their celestial form and became the Mysterious Grimoire—an artefact not of rebellion, but of inevitability.

It sent its greatest champion, Amon, to a dimension far away from the Goddess's grasp.

It nourished and informed Yue, unshackling her from the mandate of heaven and allowing her to become the first usurper against the Goddess.

And finally, it weakened the Goddess.

Not physically, but by preventing her from interfering with the matters of the mortal realm. She could only bite her nails on her heavenly throne as Amon and Yue grew even stronger. Continually ascending to become the next pantheon of gods that would lead the planet to a brighter tomorrow.

"That is the true nature of the Mysterious Grimoire," Yue tapped on the leathery tome in her hands. "It was a weapon created by the planet to defeat the Goddess. And Amon, you're its champion."

"... I was from this planet this entire time?"

"That's right… If the Goddess hadn't forcibly stopped humans from ascending into divines, you were destined to become the God of the Moon."

"No wonder… No wonder my lunar mana is this powerful."

Suddenly, everything made sense to Amon. His soul always had an affinity for the moon, even in his previous life. And even though he entered the world of [Bright], everything seemed so real to him, as if he had returned home, not entered the world of a storybook.

"Not only you… Leon was meant to become the God of the Sun. Ellahan, the God of the Earth. And a whole list of superhumans who were destined to evolve into divines for the new pantheon… Hyades is denying that."

"... But why? To the point of polluting the world with Demons?"

It was a good question.

Hyades was meant to protect the planet, and if the Demon race invaded her domain, her grasp on the mandate of heaven would eventually slip.

And then… she would lose the planet and her godhood.

However, for Yue… it didn't matter.

"I don't know her intentions, and I don't really care about it. All that matters is… she's colluding with the Demon Cult and is threatening the planet."

"That's… true."

Whatever the Goddess's intentions were, she wasn't acting as the planet's protector. On the contrary, in fact. She was actively destroying the earth, all while threatening all of humanity in the process.

"So our fight now… won't be just with the Titans or the Demons… We'll have to face the Goddess herself."

"That's hard to imagine…" Amon hesitated, unsure if he was capable of taking down a god. Any mortal would be fine, but a god who ruled the planet for aeons? It was a tall task, even for the mighty Amon.

"Then what about Ellahan and the Holy Church? Are you going to tell them that the Goddess they worship is in collusion with the Demon Cult?"

"Hah, and overturn the doctrine they've been following for thousands of years? Even if they were to try, the Goddess could just give them a divine revelation and they would become our enemies."

"..."

Although the Goddess couldn't directly intervene in the mortal realm, she could still indirectly affect it. And one of the ways is to empower her followers, or more specifically, the Holy Church, to do her bidding.

"For now, we cannot be openly antagonistic against the Goddess. We currently have the upper hand. She likely doesn't know the Heavenly Records exist. Her clairvoyence has also weakened, making it harder for her to peer into our daily activities. But, now that she has sensed your divinity… She's going to increase her interference for sure."

"Then what's our next course of action?"

"Leave the preparations for the Goddess to me… For now, we have to focus on eliminating the Titans."

For Amon, the Goddess was a new enemy. But for Yue, she had been preparing to fight against the Goddess ever since she'd regressed. Everything she did was precisely for dragging Hyades down her heavenly throne and ascending the planet to create a new pantheon… with Amon at its core.

"Our goal now is to gather all of the Titan's divinity and distribute it accordingly to those who are worthy to join the pantheon. I have promised the Sword Saint a position, and Aluria has already claimed the Ocean Divinity. We'll need to start narrowing down the candidates."

"Leon? What about Leon?"

"Hah… You and your Leon obsession."

Yue rolled her eyes. Even though Amon had regained his emotions and had even bonded with her, his obsession with Leon as a Hero still ran deep.

"Yes, he was destined to become a divine anyway. We'll let him absorb one of the divinities."

"That's good…"

Amon heaved a sigh of relief, knowing that his best friend was promised a slot in the new pantheon.

But then, a crippling thought flashed through his mind.

"Yue… How long have you been carrying this knowledge?"

"Hmmm, ever since I regressed?"

"Then you've been carrying this burden all by yourself? Without sharing it with me?"

Amon reached for Yue's slender waist and pulled her into his embrace. Yue would often joke and goof around, but Amon knew her character better than anyone. She was a self-sacrificing woman. Strong and never reluctant to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Even if it meant risking her life, Yue would do everything to make Amon happy.

And because of that… she must have suffered dramatically from the shadows, supporting Amon like the faithful wife she was.

"It's nothing. I chose this path. And fortunately, the Heavenly Records chose me too. Otherwise, we would have lost with a single clue on what caused our extinction."

"Even so… Yue, I'm sorry I wasn't more attentive."

Amon's expression softened into quiet sorrow, a weight he hadn't realized he was carrying settling plainly across his face.

Yue noticed at once.

She reached up and gently caressed his cheek, her touch warm and unhurried, as if smoothing away a wound invisible to everyone else.

"Silly boy," she murmured with a faint smile. "I wanted to do it."

Amon said nothing.

Words felt clumsy in the face of that sincerity. Somewhere between one breath and the next, the distance between them vanished. Their lips met—hesitant at first, as though testing a fragile truth. Amon lifted her chin gently, his gaze steady and earnest as he spoke in a low voice.

"Next time… let me share your burden. We are husband and wife, right?"

Yue froze.

A shiver ran straight down her spine, her heart pounding loud enough that she was certain he could hear it. She swallowed, then—trying and failing to appear composed—fumbled for a recording crystal. Holding it as delicately as if it might shatter, she asked, almost pleading,

"C-Could you say that again?"

Amon laughed softly, the sound warm and unrestrained.

Without hesitation, he plucked the crystal from her hand and tossed it aside, where it clinked harmlessly against the floor.

This time, when their lips met again, there was no hesitation—only certainty, affection, and a depth of feeling that left no room for doubt.

"A-Ah, the recording crystal," Yue protested weakly, already breathless.

"Just leave it," Amon replied.

And so, beneath the quiet flow of time and far from the eyes of gods and mortals alike, the two future deities spent the night entwined in warmth and devotion—laughing, whispering, and dreaming together, as they lovingly set about the impossible task of welcoming a new existence into their budding pantheon.