Path of the Extra

A raw, agonizing scream tore itself from Azriel’s throat as he collapsed onto the cold wooden floor.

For a heartbeat, he didn’t dare open his eye, breath caught sharply in his chest. Yet when he finally did, he found himself once more trapped in the accursed cabin.

This time, he was utterly alone.

Lady Mio was nowhere to be found—no comforting presence, no deceptive warmth. Azriel had long surpassed the fragile window between death and rebirth. Now, only dread remained, clawing ruthlessly at the edge of his sanity.

The nauseating urge to vomit surged violently, bitter bile rising from his stomach. Gritting his teeth, Azriel bit down hard, forcing it back down as his body shuddered uncontrollably.

‘Not now.’

A merciless headache pounded his skull, relentless, until it gradually faded beneath the soothing chill of [Soul’s Crucible].

His mana core—he could feel it clearly, vibrant and alive. It was no longer blocked. For now, at least, he could wield mana freely.

Slowly, painfully, Azriel rose to his feet, forcing strength into trembling limbs. His single eye gleamed fiercely, igniting with grim determination.

In an instant, the familiar embrace of his soul armor encased him in polished, obsidian-black plates. Void Eater settled in his right hand, Atropos’ Elegy in his left—faithful companions to face the storm.

Without hesitation, Azriel unleashed his aura. It exploded outward violently, a tempestuous blaze, roaring unchecked rather than clinging to him like armor. His presence alone scorched the air, blazing brilliantly around him like a storm.

He could sense it clearly now—mana flowing chaotically, crashing against him like relentless waves breaking against a solitary shore.

A heartbeat passed, barely enough time to brace himself, before a presence erupted nearby—a presence of pure horror. His blood ran cold, bile churned once again, and terror clawed at his very marrow.

‘Skinwalker.’

Azriel didn’t hesitate. Time had long lost meaning in this forest of eternal nightmares. He would not waste even a single breath. With a surge of will, a bolt of scarlet lightning crackled violently above him before blasting open the cabin wall. Wreathed in dancing crimson lightning, Azriel shot forward in a blur, leaving only a scorched trail behind.

He sprinted desperately, his feet barely touching the ground before he surged upward, leaping high onto the treetops. Yet as he balanced atop a trembling branch, preparing to move again, he froze.

His body refused to obey.

Paralyzed, unable even to lift a finger, Azriel felt ice-cold panic wash over him. His eye widened in horror as he slowly, unwillingly, turned back towards the cabin he had just escaped.

There, standing impossibly still atop the ruined roof, was the grotesque figure of the skinwalker—a featureless abomination, a twisted mockery of life, radiating an aura of pure dread.

Azriel’s heart stopped for a moment, cold terror gripping him tighter as realization flooded in.

‘Grade-1 Titan!’

Skinwalkers were nightmares given form—he had expected its strength, but even knowing did little to prepare him for the crushing power emanating from it.

‘Dammit! How could anyone possibly defeat this entire forest?’

Despair threatened to swallow him whole, yet suddenly a realization cut through his frantic thoughts, blazing like a lifeline in the dark.

‘What am I thinking? I don’t need to defeat them—I just need to find Lady Mio!’

She was the key, his only path out of this nightmarish labyrinth.

But where could she possibly be?

The skinwalker hadn’t moved an inch, yet its presence alone was suffocating. Azriel’s heart pounded mercilessly, head throbbing as countless headaches assaulted him, barely kept at bay by [Soul’s Crucible]. He shivered uncontrollably, the hollow stare of its featureless face threatening to shatter his fragile sanity.

His mind begged desperately to break, pleaded silently to surrender—to finally rest.

Then, impossibly, horribly, the skinwalker took one slow step forward. That single, dreadful motion nearly stopped Azriel’s heart entirely, threatening to force him back into the endless loop.

Yet bizarrely, terrifyingly, the skinwalker froze again, leg poised mid-step, as though bound by invisible chains.

Then a voice—familiar, proud, and maddeningly arrogant—echoed softly, resonating with raw power:

“Both of you truly are bold, starting without me.”

Before Azriel could even blink, reality itself fractured.

In an instant, a veil of incandescent white descended, blinding, suffocating. Pure brilliance cascaded down like a celestial torrent, washing the world away until nothing remained but blinding radiance, overwhelming him utterly.

For a heartbeat, everything ceased to exist—reduced to a blank canvas of infinite, blinding white.

“Tch. How annoying—I can’t simply kill you, can I? It would be troublesome if the entire forest reset because of a mere Skinwalker.” Pollux’s voice echoed lazily, saturated with disdainful amusement.

“Though I admit, my friend, you’ve grown impressively resilient after dying so many times.”

These were the first words Azriel heard clearly as he blinked rapidly, his blurred vision gradually sharpening back into clarity. He was still standing atop the branch, his body frozen precisely where it had been, untouched by whatever incomprehensible power had just enveloped him. Nothing around him had changed, at least not physically…

—or so he thought, until his gaze moved back to where the Skinwalker stood.

The cabin was utterly gone, reduced to nothingness as if erased from existence. The featureless horror stood firmly planted upon the scorched dirt, unmoved, unchanged in its terrifying stillness.

But now—

There stood another.

Azriel felt a sensation rush over him, so profound it defied description. It was alien, regal, divine, and terrifyingly unfamiliar all at once. He felt both awed and deeply unsettled, faced once more with a being of unspeakable beauty and overwhelming presence.

The air had grown heavy—immensely cold, yet solemnly reverent, as though even the wind dared not stir in its presence.

‘…A wolf..?’

A wolf stood majestically amidst the ruin, its grandeur utterly out of place within the forest. Azriel stared, transfixed, unable to move or even breathe. This creature did not evoke the oppressive dread he felt from the God of Time—no. Instead, it reminded him vividly, overwhelmingly, of her.

The Goddess of Death.

It was massive, towering like a kingly guardian, easily as large as a war chariot, dwarfing even the largest wolves Azriel had ever seen. Its fur shimmered like liquid silver woven from threads of starlight, glistening softly with every graceful movement, as though moonlight danced across a tranquil ocean.

Silver flames curled gently around its powerful form, softly flickering like living constellations: across its broad shoulders, along its chest, at the tip of its tail, and cascading like a celestial mane down its proud spine.

Curved black horns swept gracefully backward from its regal head. But it was its eyes that held Azriel utterly spellbound—deep and endlessly black, yet within them turned delicate silver rings, spinning slowly like miniature galaxies, mesmerizing, hauntingly beautiful.

To gaze into those eyes was to feel oneself falling endlessly upward, gravity inverted, reality itself reversed.

Pollux, the last Starblood, was breathtakingly out of place in the corrupted darkness of the forest. And yet, Azriel could only see staggering beauty in him, luminous and profound, as though he were witnessing the heavens themselves incarnated into living form.

The Skinwalker, black as the void itself, faced Pollux, a creature shining with the luminance of countless distant stars.

Light and shadow stood silently opposed.

Azriel’s awe, however, was brief.

His expression darkened. Then, slowly, the lines of his face relaxed into an emotionless mask, too tired to express further shock or disbelief at what he had finally noticed.

He attempted to discern Pollux’s mana core rank, channeling mana desperately into his eye, but found nothing. It was just like trying to gauge the strength of an impossibly powerful human—an exercise in futility.

But it didn’t matter.

Because even without releasing the full brunt of his aura—still consciously holding back, still carefully restrained—Pollux’s overwhelming presence utterly eclipsed the Skinwalker’s.

This wasn’t just strength.

This wasn’t merely power.

This was something beyond mortal understanding—a cosmic storm barely contained within a single divine form.

Pollux wasn’t simply stronger.

He was unfathomably superior.