The Extra is a Hero?-Chapter 264: ROYAL BATTLE [3]
Chapter 259: Royal Battle [3]
The arena, once a pristine stage for the display of magical prowess, had become a claustrophobic nightmare.
The purple-green smog, a toxic cocktail of Gideon’s necrotic miasma and the vaporized rot-water, clung to the mud like a shroud.
It dampened sound, burned the eyes, and, most critically, disrupted the flow of mana.
For a mage, mana sensing was a second set of eyes. Without it, they were blind.
And in the dark, the predators were hunting.
"AAAGH!"
A scream tore through the fog to the left of the Sanctum’s crash site. It was cut short by the sickening crunch of a shield impact.
"Hold the line!" Velia Ancrose screamed, her voice cracking. "Barrier formation! Back to back!"
She spun around, trying to find her teammates. But all she could see were shifting shadows in the mist. The mud sucked at her boots, anchoring her in place. Every breath tasted of copper and old graves.
ZZZZT!
A blinding flash of blue light illuminated the fog for a split second.
In that brief flash, Velia saw him. Aiden, the lightning user of Arcadia. He wasn’t casting grand spells. He was sprinting low to the ground, his body wreathed in static, splashing through the conductive muck.
Because the ground was wet, and the air was heavy with moisture, Aiden didn’t need to aim.
"Chain Lightning," Aiden’s voice echoed, flat and professional.
He drove a lightning-wreathed fist into a puddle.
The electricity didn’t just hit one target; it traveled through the water, arching effortlessly between the soaked robes of the Sanctum mages.
CRACK-BOOM!
Five mages convulsed simultaneously, their muscles seizing up as thousands of volts surged through the mud. They collapsed face-first into the sludge, twitching.
"No!" Velia shrieked. She tried to lift her staff, but a massive silhouette loomed out of the grey haze.
Alex, the shield-bearer. He didn’t even use a weapon. He simply sprinted forward like a battering ram, his tower shield glowing with a heavy, orange aura. He plowed into two Sanctum students who were trying to chant an incantation.
THUD.
The impact sent them flying backward, their wind knocked out before they even hit the ground.
"Keep moving!" Alex roared to the Arcadia lines behind him. "Don’t give them space to cast! Close the gap!"
This wasn’t a duel. It was a riot.
The Sanctum of High Magi, students who had spent their lives studying complex magical theory, geometry, and mana efficiency, were being beaten into submission with fists, hilts, and shields.
They were panic-casting, throwing fireballs that fizzled in the damp air or wind blades that went wide in the blindness.
Arcadia, on the other hand, was fighting with the ruthlessness of street brawlers.
Even Leon Lionheart, the moral compass of the team, was fighting.
He moved with a grim efficiency, his golden sword parrying desperate magical strikes before he delivered swift, non-lethal pommel strikes to temples. He didn’t look happy about it, but he didn’t stop.
Michael Wilson walked through the chaos.
He didn’t run. He didn’t shout. He simply walked through the mud, his black boots sinking slightly with each step.
A Sanctum mage, eyes streaming with tears from the gas, stumbled out of the fog directly in front of him. The mage panicked, raising a trembling hand.
"F-Fireball!"
A spark ignited.
Michael didn’t break stride. He tilted his head slightly to the left.
The fireball whizzed past his ear, singeing a few strands of hair.
[Skill: Quantum Analysis - Trajectory Prediction: 100%]
Michael stepped in. He didn’t draw a sword. He didn’t cast a spell. He simply drove his palm into the mage’s sternum.
[Seikie Ryoku: Internal Impact]
Thump.
The mage’s eyes rolled back into his head. The force bypassed the ribs and shocked the diaphragm. He collapsed instantly, gasping for air that wouldn’t come.
Michael stepped over the body. His eyes were glowing with that terrifyingly calm blue light, scanning the battlefield not for the pawns, but for the queen.
He saw the mana signature he was looking for. It was erratic, spiked with fear and the foul energy of the Rot Artifact.
Velia Ancrose.
The Cornered Queen
Velia was hyperventilating. Her formation was gone. Her team was being dismantled. The screams of her classmates were surrounding her, closing in.
I have to reposition, she thought frantically. I need high ground. I need distance.
She couldn’t fly; the gas was too thick, and her mana was unstable. But she had enough for one burst. A short-range teleport.
She spotted a ruin of the fortress wall about fifty meters away—a piece of stone that hadn’t fully melted. If she could blink there, she could use the artifact to rot the foundation under Arcadia’s feet.
"Space... bend," she whispered, the ancient words of the blink spell tumbling from her lips.
Space twisted around her. The mud and the fog blurred.
POP.
She vanished.
She reappeared instantly atop the ruined wall, stumbling slightly as her boots hit the stone.
"Hah," she gasped, wiping bile from her mouth. "I made it. Now I just need to—"
"You have a bad habit of telegraphing your intentions," a voice said.
Velia froze. Her blood turned to ice.
She looked up.
Leaning against a jagged piece of stone, not three feet away from where she had just teleported, was Michael. He was cleaning a speck of mud off his glasses.
"H-How?" Velia stammered, backing away until her heels hit the edge of the ruin. "I teleported instantly! You couldn’t have followed me!"
"Space magic creates a displacement wave before the actual matter transfer," Michael explained, his tone bored, like a professor lecturing a failing student. "With the humidity this high, the displacement creates a vacuum ripple. I calculated the trajectory, the mana cost, and your line of sight. I was waiting for you before you finished the incantation."
[Quantum Analysis] was a cheat code in the hands of a genius. He hadn’t chased her. He had simply walked to where the math said she would be.
"Monster..." Velia hissed.
She looked down at the battlefield. It was over. Her team was decimated. She was the last one standing.
The humiliation was unbearable. To lose to commoners. To lose in the mud.
"I won’t let you win!" she screamed, her eyes manic.
She reached into her robe and pulled out the blackened heart—the Rot Artifact. It pulsed with a sickening, necrotic green light.
"I’ll rot you!" she shrieked. "I’ll rot this whole arena! I don’t care about the rules!"
She channeled every ounce of her remaining mana into the forbidden item. The air around her began to decay, turning grey and ash-like.
"Die, Monarch!"
She thrust the artifact toward Michael.
Michael didn’t flinch. He didn’t cast a barrier.
He took one step forward. It was faster than the eye could track.
[Seikie Ryoku: Flash Step]
He was inside her guard instantly. His left hand shot out, not to grab her wrist, but to strike the artifact itself.
But he didn’t use his hand. He used the pommel of a dagger he had drawn in the blink of an eye.
CRACK.
It was a surgical strike. He hit the artifact at its exact structural weak point—the stress fracture created when he had frozen the rot earlier.
The blackened heart shattered.
Explosive, uncontrolled decay energy erupted from the broken artifact.
"NO!" Velia screamed as the backlash hit her.
But before the rot could consume her hand, Michael spun. He grabbed her by the collar of her robe and threw her.
He hurled her off the wall, away from the exploding artifact, down into the mud below.
SPLASH.
Velia landed hard in the muck, safe from the blast but utterly defeated.
Michael stood on the wall as the remnants of the artifact crumbled into harmless dust behind him. He looked down at her, sprawling in the filth she had despised so much.
The fog began to clear, blown away by the shockwave of the artifact’s destruction.
The silence that followed was deafening.
The Aftermath
The giant screens flickered.
[MATCH ENDED]
[WINNER: ARCADIA ACADEMY]
There was no cheer.
Usually, when the underdog wins, the crowd erupts. But this time, the fifty thousand spectators sat in stunned silence. They hadn’t watched a heroic duel. They hadn’t watched a display of flashy spells and friendship.
They had watched a military execution.
They saw the Sanctum mages, the elites of society, lying face down in the mud, twitching, groaning, covered in burns and bruises. They saw Velia Ancrose, the proud noble, weeping in a puddle of sludge.
And standing above it all, untouched, clean, and terrifyingly calm, was Michael Wilson.
He adjusted his glasses, sheathed his dagger, and turned to walk down the ramp.
Slowly, a slow clap started from the student section. Then another. It wasn’t enthusiastic cheering. It was the respectful, fearful applause one gives to a predator that has just killed a threat.
"The Monarch..." someone whispered.
"The Monarch," another repeated.
The VIP Stand
The atmosphere in the Royal Box was heavy.
King Elandor of Denmard leaned back in his chair, his expression unreadable.
"He destroyed the evidence," the King noted quietly. "By shattering the artifact, he prevented the judges from analyzing it fully. We know it was forbidden magic, but he turned it into dust before an official inquiry could pause the match."
"He saved the girl’s life," Deiman Frostheart said, taking a sip of his wine. He looked pleased. "If that backlash had hit her, she would have lost an arm. He threw her to safety while disarming her. Violent, yet controlled."
Deiman looked at the screen, specifically at Maria Frostheart, who was standing tall, looking proud of her contribution.
"He utilized every asset perfectly," Deiman continued. "He turned a disadvantageous terrain into a weapon. He used the enemy’s arrogance against them. That is not a student, gentlemen. That is a commander."
Denish William, however, looked sour. He flicked his hand dismissively.
"It was dirty," Denish spat. "Gas? Mud? Ambushing in the fog? It lacks... elegance. It lacks the chivalry of the William name."
"Chivalry gets you killed, Denish," Deiman retorted coldly. "Victory writes the history books."
Denish scoffed. "My son Eric was reduced to a brute swinging a shield in the mud. I will have words with him."
King Elandor stood up, signaling the end of the conversation. His eyes, ancient and wise, lingered on Michael Wilson’s retreating back.
"Elegant or not," the King said, his voice echoing with power. "The boy has announced himself to the world. He is no longer just a student."
The King narrowed his eyes.
"He is a variable. And I do not like variables."
Down in the arena, as the medical teams rushed onto the field to treat the Sanctum mages, Michael walked past his exhausted team.
"Good work," Michael said simply. "Go shower. You smell terrible."
Leon looked at Michael, conflict warring in his eyes.
"Michael," Leon asked quietly. "Was there another way?"
Michael stopped. He looked back at the ruined fortress, the shattered artifact, and the defeated enemies.
"There are always other ways, Leon," Michael replied, his voice devoid of regret. "But this was the only way where none of you got hurt."
Michael walked into the tunnel, leaving the light of the arena behind him, disappearing into the shadows where he felt most at home.
[Phase 3 - Semifinals: Complete]
[Next Phase: The Finals]
(To be Continued)
