The Extra Can't be A Hero

Chapter 295: Training from Hell (3)

The Eighty-One Suns Heart Mantra.

A deviation—no, a blessing—born from the foundations of the Solaris House's sacred art, the Nine Suns Heart Mantra.

To the elders, it was an impossible theory scribbled in the margins of forbidden tomes. To the conservatives, it was an insult to the path the Founder himself had laid down.

And to Leon… It was destiny.

It was the very reason Leon possessed such terrifying potential, and why—despite Amon being hailed as the most talented Solaris Knight in recorded history—Leon genuinely had a chance to one day catch up to him.

Not through effort alone.

Not through sheer will.

But through an ability so fundamentally unfair that it bent the rules of cultivation themselves.

In fact, many within the upper echelons of the Solaris House whispered that Leon had been chosen as the Hero of this generation over Amon precisely because of it. Not because Amon lacked talent—far from it—but because Leon represented something unprecedented.

Something that did not belong to the natural order the Solaris path had obeyed for centuries.

The traditional Nine Suns Heart Mantra was elegant in its brutality.

A Solaris Knight condensed solar mana into a singular core, shaping it into miniature Suns, each one a self-sustaining engine of power.

Every Sun was a triumph over entropy, a contained catastrophe bound by will and discipline. But there was a limit for going against the heavens.

Nine. That was the limit.

Nine Suns was the ceiling imposed not by tradition, but by reality itself.

To condense a Sun was akin to constructing a nuclear reactor inside one's soul. Each additional Sun multiplied the risk exponentially. Mana instability, soul collapse, spontaneous combustion of the core—entire treatises had been written on the dangers.

Even geniuses stalled.

Alrock, for example—an overwhelming talent whose name still inspired awe—had been trapped at Eight Suns for decades.

Not for lack of effort or understanding, but because advancing further meant courting annihilation.

One miscalculation, one resonance error, and the Suns would collapse into one another, detonating from within.

The Solaris path was ruthless.

And then Leon was born.

Leon was an exception born of impossibility. His bodily constitution was unlike any Solaris before him—his meridians unnaturally flexible, his soul unusually elastic, capable of expansion without fracturing. More importantly, his affinity with water mana defied conventional logic.

Where fire was rigid, violent, and domineering, water was adaptive, dispersive, endlessly accommodating.

Where Suns should have clashed, Leon's flowed.

Instead of forcing his Suns to coexist within a fixed internal structure, his body allowed them to subdivide.

To branch. To circulate.

The pressure that should have crushed his soul was diffused, redistributed through layers of internal mana currents like tides flowing through an ocean basin.

In theory, Leon could condense eighty-one Suns.

Nine Suns within each Sun. A number so absurd it shattered every known limitation of the Solaris path and spat on centuries of doctrine. Of course, that was only a theory.

At present, Leon had condensed six primary Suns.

By ordinary standards, that alone placed him among the elites.

But Leon's Suns did not exist in isolation.

Each of those six primary Suns could, in turn, give rise to six subordinate Suns, orbiting their parent cores in perfectly balanced resonance.

Six Suns, each bearing six more.

Thirty-six Suns in total.

Even at this early stage, the results were nothing short of monstrous.

With just his six primary Suns active, Leon already stood firmly at the level of a standard Vice-Commander. When he allowed all thirty-six Suns to manifest in unison, his output rivalled—and in some cases surpassed—full Commanders of the Solaris House.

And that was without pushing himself to the brink.

Yet now… Leon was going to challenge the impossible.

"Eighty-one Suns…" Leon muttered, disbelief thick in his voice. "Can I really accomplish that within one month?"

He turned slowly to look at Amon, his expression caught somewhere between awe and outright suspicion, as if he were staring at a madman. It had taken Leon years to reach his current state. Advancing even a single Sun from this point onward was akin to climbing a sheer cliff with chains wrapped around his limbs.

Each Sun demanded absolute precision, flawless resonance, and a soul resilient enough to endure sustained internal pressure that could liquefy steel.

There was a reason prodigies stagnated. A reason legends halted at eight. Imagine being forced to construct a nuclear reactor inside your body every time you wished to grow stronger.

Now imagine building several—each one unstable, each one capable of annihilating the others if their rhythms fell out of sync for even a heartbeat.

That was the Solaris path.

Except Leon did not walk it alone.

With his special constitution, Leon did not need to fear mutual detonation. His affinity with water mana allowed him to cool, separate, and harmonise the Suns.

The violent heat of solar cores was tempered, their aggression smoothed into something manageable. No matter how many Suns burned within him, his soul would never feel dry, cracked, or overwhelmed.

Even as he condensed what felt like a million degrees of radiance, his inner world flowed.

"With the concept of law embedded within this area," Amon said calmly, his voice echoing through the cave, "and my mastery over the lunar element, you won't have to worry about overloading your mana."

His gaze sharpened. "What you do have to worry about… is whether you can adapt to the power you're about to gain."

Amon turned slightly. The two Solaris legends hovered nearby, their spectral forms steady despite the oppressive atmosphere.

Both nodded.

[We will guide him.]

[Fret not. He will possess enough mastery to withstand the influence of the mana.]

Moving from thirty-six to eighty-one Suns in a single month was madness.

But it was a madness Amon had already planned for.

"Then," Amon said lightly, resting Nyx against his shoulder, "let's begin the training, shall we?"

Leon swallowed.

"W-What exactly are you planning to do?"

A cold shiver crawled down his spine. He had seen that look on Amon's face before—long ago, back when he still served as his squire. Back when he believed effort alone could bridge the gap between them.

It was the same expression Amon wore when disappointment took hold. The day Leon failed to meet expectations. Amon hadn't scolded him. Hadn't shouted.

He'd simply trained him—mercilessly—driving him into the mud again and again, until exhaustion stripped away pride, dignity, and even the desire to stand.

That smile had haunted Leon's nightmares ever since.

And now… He was standing before it once more.

"A filled tank can't ingest more water," Amon said quietly. "So before that…"

He unsheathed Nyx.

The cavern screamed. Not with sound alone, but with fractured law and collapsing equilibrium, as if the very dimension recoiled from what was about to be unleashed.

Stone walls shuddered, ancient runes flaring wildly as they struggled to maintain coherence under the sudden pressure.

Amon threw his head back and released a fearsome roar, one that carried no language—only command.

At once, Nyx responded.

The blade drank in all surrounding light, devouring illumination, shadow, and even reflection itself. For a heartbeat, the cavern was plunged into absolute darkness, as though the moon had swallowed the world whole.

Then— Nyx ignited.

Cold, silver moonfire erupted along its edge, not burning but cutting, each flicker sharp enough to cleave concepts rather than matter. Lunar radiance spilt forth in merciless torrents, clean and absolute, painting the cavern in hues of argent and pale blue. The air crystallised under its presence, breath turning heavy, time itself seeming to hesitate before advancing.

With it came Amon's killing intent, no longer restrained, no longer filtered through discipline or mercy.

It surged outward like a tidal wave, crushing, suffocating, and inescapable. It was not rage, nor bloodlust—it was certainty. The certainty that anything standing before him could be ended, and that the world would be quieter for it.

For the first time, Leon felt Amon unhinged.

It was not merely strength. It was presence. Like a lunar god descending to wage war among fragile mortals, Amon's existence alone crushed the air, bending will, breath, and instinct itself.

Leon felt impossibly small—a lone firefly trembling before the moon's radiance.

Even the two Solaris legends recoiled. Their incorporeal forms shuddered as an instinct older than pride clawed at them—the dread of death—directed at the being known as Amon Solaris.

The Solaris Founder's expression hardened, uncertainty flickering through his ancient gaze.

The Solaris Saint, in contrast, trembled with barely restrained excitement, her spirit itching for battle.

This was far beyond what either had expected.

Before Leon could even process it, his knees buckled. His body moved to grovel on instinct alone, overwhelmed by the monstrous existence standing before him.

"T-This…"

Leon realised, teeth clenched. This is what's needed… to fight the Demon Prince.

Yet even in the face of such crushing power, Leon did not feel fear.

The first emotion that surfaced was regret.

He had heard of the Demon Prince's might.

Heard that it had taken everything Amon possessed merely to repel its grandeur. And now he understood. The gap between himself and Amon was still vast. Unforgiving.

"Leon," Amon said, smiling faintly, moonlight burning behind his eyes.

"Let's spar… like the good old days, shall we?"