The Nameless Extra: I Proofread This World

[Ophelia’s POV]

Ophelia stretched out her hand, already preparing to invoke [Warp]. She only needed to appear before Scholar Ruvian and cast [Spatial Displacement], just as she had done before. But before the spell could fully manifest, something abruptly shot into her path.

Mamveth materialized squarely in front of her. His clawed hand lunged toward her face with blistering speed, forcing Ophelia to dismiss [Warp] and wrench her head aside. His claws tore through the air only inches from her cheek.

Ophelia immediately spun along her axis and drove a kick into his chest. Mamveth raised one arm to block it, yet the sheer force still sent him skidding backward through the air. Before she could unleash another spell, however, his laughter reached her ears.

”Kukuku... surprised?” Mamveth steadied himself in the air, a vicious grin spreading across Julian’s face. ”I am no fool, Chancellor. It took me a while, but I have already found your real body.”

Ophelia’s eyes narrowed.

Thousands of identical copies of her frowned at the same time.

Mamveth was staring directly at her, slowly dragging his tongue across one fang.

”And that scholar you have been trying so desperately to hide from me...” he continued. ”Did you truly think I would not notice you protecting the same place over and over again?”

Clicking her tongue, Ophelia immediately turned her attention toward Scholar Ruvian through [Clairvoyant]. However, the moment her vision reached the distant boulder, her expression grew slightly troubled.

Scholar Ruvian was no longer there.

The massive boulder beneath him had been violently torn apart, with deep craters and jagged cracks covering what remained of its surface.

Several shattered fragments were still tumbling into the maroon void below, while thin trails of smoke curled from the ruined stone. More importantly, a few small drops of fresh blood stained the black rock.

For a brief moment, Ophelia’s fingers stiffened around her staff. The first thought that entered her mind was that Scholar Ruvian had been completely erased by that absurd spell, leaving nothing behind except those few drops of blood.

Her features grew colder.

She had already warned him that remaining here was dangerous. She had even given him more than one chance to leave, yet that stubborn scholar had insisted on entering her domain. If he had truly died because of that decision, then there was little she could have done to prevent it.

Still, a bitter feeling settled inside her chest.

Ophelia had agreed to protect him while he carried out whatever reckless plan he had, and now there was not even a corpse left for her to recover.

’Well, considering how long his method took, I suppose it was foolish of me to believe things would proceed that smoothly.’

Ophelia’s eyes turned more piercing as another thought followed.

’Now, instead of one scholar, I may have allowed two of them to become casualties because of this. I really have grown too soft.’

Then, just as quickly, the fury in her eyes began to subside. Her gaze slowly drifted away from the ruined boulder and fastened onto a distant figure behind Mamveth instead.

Her eyes flashed with surprise.

Mamveth caught the change as well.

His grin faltered when he realized Ophelia was no longer looking at him, but somewhere beyond his shoulder. At the same time, he sensed an unfamiliar presence emerge directly behind him.

His crimson eyes widened slightly.

Then, a terrifying surge of energy washed over his back, and Mamveth’s entire body went rigid. He knew that presence down to his bones.

”Impossible...” he muttered.

Without wasting another second, Mamveth immediately spun around. His expression shifted the instant he saw what was there.

It was Scholar Ruvian.

’So he survived. But...’

Yet the moment Ophelia got a proper look at him, she knew something was terribly wrong. The presence surrounding him had changed completely, carrying a far darker and more sinister weight than before.

Two black horns curved from his head, while his eyes had turned a deep crimson and the whites around them had darkened into pitch black. Corruption had spread across the left side of his face, with several dark veins crawling beneath his skin like cracks. Thick Dark Mana rolled from his body in violent waves, carrying a pressure almost as suffocating as Mamveth’s own.

Ophelia’s eyes narrowed at the sight, confusion flickering across her face. She could not understand how Scholar Ruvian was able to wield Dark Mana, much less command such an overwhelming amount of it.

More importantly, the presence standing before her no longer felt entirely like him.

Meanwhile, Mamveth understood the truth far sooner. That pressure, that corruption, and that unmistakable presence belonged to a demon. His crimson eyes remained locked onto Scholar Ruvian, his expression slowly growing colder.

Scholar Ruvian did not spare either of them a glance.

His demonic gaze lowered toward his left arm, where blood continued to spill from several deep wounds before dripping into the endless void below. He released a quiet sigh and slowly flexed his fingers.

”Haa... it appears I have disappointed my contractee.” He raised the mangled arm slightly, staring at the damage with open irritation. ”I did not expect myself to fail so miserably at avoiding that attack.”

”Now look at what that strike has done to his arm.”

She lifted the bloodied limb higher and slowly flexed his fingers, clicking her tongue at the damage.

”Still, it matters little. His life still burns, and that is enough for now. So I suppose... I can forgive myself.”

His gaze lingered on the wound for another moment. Then, with deliberate slowness, he lifted his head and turned toward Mamveth.

There was no fury on Scholar Ruvian’s face. Only a frigid stare, sharp enough to make Mamveth’s body stiffen before he even realized it.

Even Ophelia could feel the Dark Mana around him growing denser.

”How insolent... to damage the body of my contractee while it remains under my protection.”

The voice leaving Scholar Ruvian’s mouth was calm and measured, yet utterly devoid of warmth. Beneath that calmness rested a threat far more vicious than any shout.

The confidence within Mamveth’s crimson eyes began to waver.

”You... how in the damn world can you wield that venerated power?”

Morvayne paused for a brief moment before answering.

”Me? Why would I not?”

She slowly drew a cruel smirk with Ruvian’s face.

”I am the very being who commands this power. So naturally.... wielding it is as effortless to me as breathing.”

*****

[Ruvian’s POV]

After she had said that, the memory immediately ended, leaving him staring at Marielle’s frozen figure. Her finger remained pointed toward him, but the warmth that had filled her eyes only moments ago had vanished completely.

Even so, one sentence continued to echo inside Ruvian’s head.

—’Every new branch began with you.’

For a while, he could not properly process those words. His first instinct was to question exactly what she had witnessed, because futures were never supposed to be absolute.

Even Marielle herself had admitted that her spell could only reveal scattered fragments.

There had to be a limit to it.

’How could she even do that?’

The question only became more troubling when he remembered what else she had said.

She claimed to have witnessed a future so distant that the world she knew had already perished, only for another world to rise from its remains. And within that distant world, he somehow stood at the center of every new branch of Fate.

What did she even mean by that? Was she speaking about the world he had come from, or something entirely different?

Ruvian could not even begin to tell.

That part made even less sense.

If what she had seen truly existed beyond the destruction of this world, then just how far had her spell actually reached? And if it could reach that far, could something so absurd truly be called nothing more than a glimpse into the future?

Ruvian lowered his gaze slightly and remained silent. More questions continued to surface inside his mind.

Then his expression hardened, and he forcefully buried those thoughts before they could drag him any deeper.

He did not have time for this right now.

Whatever Marielle had witnessed, he could unravel it later.

Right now, Julian was still trapped somewhere inside this place while Mamveth continued wearing his body like a stolen shell.

Ruvian’s gaze returned to Marielle one final time.

Her request still remained painfully clear inside his mind, along with the desperation buried beneath her voice.

Ruvian could not promise her anything yet, but neither would he allow those words to disappear.

Because for now, Julian came first.

Immediately, Ruvian opened [Bookmarks].

The familiar map appeared before his eyes once again, and just like before, two separate markers belonging to Julian remained visible. One lingered close to his current location, while the other stood somewhat farther away.

Without wasting another second, Ruvian turned away from Marielle. His body surged forward through the frozen memory as he followed the distant marker.

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[Chapter 323: Do Not Harm My Contractee]