The Extra is a Hero?-Chapter 324: TRIAL BY SPIRIT
Chapter 320: Trial by Spirit
The transition wasn’t like stepping through a door. It was like being uninstalled.
One moment, I was standing on the dais in the Hall of Verdicts, surrounded by the roar of the crowd and the smell of ozone. The next, the world didn’t go black—it went static.
My vision fractured into a million jagged pixels.
A high-pitched whine, like a corrupted audio file, drilled into my skull.
I felt a sensation of absolute weightlessness, followed immediately by crushing pressure, as if the gravity of two different planets was fighting over my soul.
[System Error...]
[Connection to Server: Unstable]
[Loading Local Asset: Spirit_Realm_v1.0]
[Warning: Corrupted Data Detected.]
I hit the ground. Hard.
But there was no sound of impact. No thud. Just a silent vibration that rattled my teeth.
I gasped, pushing myself up. The air was cold, but not like Maria’s ice. It was a conceptual cold—the absence of warmth, the absence of life.
I looked around.
We were still in Sylvaren, but it was wrong. The colors had been drained away, leaving the world in high-contrast grayscale. The majestic white-wood buildings were jagged wireframes, flickering in and out of existence. The sky wasn’t blue or black; it was a swirling vortex of white noise, like a television tuned to a dead channel.
"Selena?" I called out. My voice didn’t echo. It sounded flat, as if the air itself was dampening the sound waves.
"I am here," a voice replied from my left.
Selena stood up, brushing grey dust from her dress. In the physical world, she looked like a doll. Here, she looked... solidified. While the rest of the world flickered and glitched, she remained perfectly, sharply defined. Her obsidian eyes were the only thing in this realm that held a true color: a deep, abysmal black.
"Environmental scan complete," Selena stated, looking at the swirling static sky. "We have exited the material plane. Current location: The Spirit Realm. Physical laws are... malleable."
"It’s not just the Spirit Realm," I muttered, looking at a tree nearby. The bark wasn’t wood; it was streaming lines of code that looked like ancient Elven runes mixed with binary. "It’s the source code. We’re inside the game’s operating system."
I tried to pull up my Status Window.
[Name: M???ael W?ll??n]
[Rank: ???]
[Ma?a: E??R??R]
[Skill: Quantum A??lys?s Mind - Active]
"Great," I hissed, dismissing the glitching box. "My System is bugged. The Rot has infected the interface."
"Michael," Selena said, pointing toward the horizon. "Look."
I followed her gaze. In the distance, where the World Tree should have been, stood a colossal silhouette. But it wasn’t a tree. It looked like a weeping woman made of shadows, her arms raised high, supporting the static sky.
And wrapped around her, piercing her chest and throat, were massive chains made of jagged, purple lightning.
"The World Spirit," I realized. "She’s not just sick. She’s a prisoner."
"We need to reach her," I said, drawing my dagger. The silver blade looked dull grey here. "If we can sever those chains, we free the Tree."
We began to walk. The ground beneath us felt spongy, like walking on moss that hid a deep bog.
As we moved through the ghostly streets of the Spirit City, the environment began to shift. The buildings didn’t stay static. They morphed.
One second, we were walking past an Elven library. The next, the walls melted and reformed into... a classroom?
I froze. I knew those desks. I knew that chalkboard.
It was my classroom. From Earth. From before I died.
"No," I whispered, stepping back.
The shadows on the walls elongated. They formed human shapes—faceless, mocking figures.
"You’re just an extra," the shadows whispered. "You don’t belong here. You’re a glitch. A bug. Delete yourself."
A wave of vertigo hit me. My heart hammered against my ribs. This wasn’t just a visual hallucination; it was a psychic attack. The Spirit Realm manifested the observer’s deepest insecurities.
"Michael," the shadows hissed, taking the form of my old boss, then my parents, then the truck that killed me. "You failed there. You’ll fail here."
I fell to my knees, clutching my head. The [Gamer’s Mind] passive, which usually protected me from fear, was flickering on and off like a broken bulb.
[Mental Defense: Failed]
[Panic Status: Rising]
A hand touched my shoulder.
It wasn’t warm. It was cool, firm, and absolutely steady.
"Michael Willson," Selena’s voice cut through the whispers. "Your heart rate is 160. Your pupil dilation suggests a hallucination event. Are you compromised?"
I looked up. Selena was standing there, looking at the shadow monsters with total indifference. The ghosts of my past were screeching at her, trying to find a hook—a fear, a regret, a trauma—to latch onto.
But they slid off her like water off oil.
"They... they’re attacking your mind," I gasped. "Don’t you see them?"
"I see semi-corporeal entities attempting to induce a fear response," Selena analyzed. She looked at a shadow that had taken the form of her father, King Elandor, dying on the floor.
"I hate you," the Shadow-Elandor screamed at her. "You are a machine. You are not my daughter."
Selena tilted her head. "Incorrect. King Elandor’s last recorded sentiment was desperation for my safety. This projection is factually inaccurate."
She raised her hand. Her [Shadow-forged Scythe] materialized—not grey, but a stark, absolute black that drank the light of the realm.
"Inefficient constructs," she stated.
SLASH.
She swung the scythe. The blade didn’t just cut the shadows; it erased them. The Shadow-Elandor dissolved into static. The classroom melted back into the Elven street.
"Target neutralized," Selena said, offering me a hand. "The entities rely on emotional resonance to sustain their form. I possess no emotional resonance. Therefore, I am immune."
I took her hand and pulled myself up. I looked at her—the girl whose humanity had been sacrificed to save her life.
"You’re the perfect tank for this dungeon," I realized, a bitter laugh escaping my lips. "The Spirit Realm is a nightmare factory, and you don’t dream anymore."
"Dreams are unstructured data," Selena replied, turning back toward the chained giant in the distance. "Reality is preferable. Let us proceed."
_______
We pushed deeper. As we neared the center of the realm, the "glitches" became more violent.
The ground was no longer paved. It was a writhing mass of black vines that looked disturbingly like veins. The air was thick with purple spores that burned my skin.
[System Alert: High Concentration of Abyssal Mana.]
[Warning: The Environment is Hostile.]
"Wait," I hissed, pulling Selena behind a cluster of petrified roots.
Ahead of us, blocking the path to the World Spirit, was a creature.
It looked like a wolf, but it was wrong. Its jaw unhinged all the way to its chest. Its fur was made of needles. And its eyes... it had dozens of them, scattered across its body, all blinking out of sync.
[Target: Spirit Scavenger]
[Rank: A]
[Origin: Corrupted Memory of General Vargr]
"It’s a memory," I whispered. "The Tree remembers everything. Even the things that hurt it."
The creature was gnawing on one of the white roots of the Spirit Tree, its many eyes rolling madly.
"Path blocked," Selena noted. "Combat probability: 100\%."
"We can’t fight that thing head-on," I said. "In here, physics are ’malleable’, remember? It’s driven by will."
I looked at my dagger. In the real world, it was just steel. But here...
"I imagine it sharp," I whispered, closing my eyes. "I imagine it cutting through anything. I imagine the Void."
I opened my eyes. The grey dagger in my hand was now glowing with a pulsating, violet aura.
"Selena," I said. "Distract it. I’ll delete it."
Selena nodded. She stepped out from cover.
"Hey," she said flatly.
The Scavenger whipped its head around, snarling. It saw the small girl in the blue dress. It roared—a sound like twisting metal—and charged.
Selena didn’t move until the last second. She sidestepped with mathematical precision, the beast’s claws missing her by a millimeter.
"Now!"
I sprinted from the shadows. I didn’t run; I willed myself forward. The space between me and the beast folded.
[Skill: Void Step (Spirit Enhanced)]
I appeared directly above the creature. I drove the glowing dagger into its spine.
CRACK.
There was no blood. The creature shattered like glass. Shards of corrupted memory scattered across the floor before dissolving into white noise.
"XP obtained: Null," I noted. "Of course. No XP in a cutscene."
We landed on the path. The way was clear.
_____
We finally reached the base of the silhouette. Up close, the World Spirit was terrifying.
She was a giantess, easily a hundred feet tall, formed from translucent white light. But her light was dimming. Her skin was cracked like dry porcelain.
And the chains...
They weren’t just metal. They were massive, throbbing roots of Nether-Iron, pumped directly from the Abyss. They pierced her wrists, her ankles, and her heart.
At her feet, guarding the central root, sat a throne made of bone and black crystal.
And sitting on the throne was a figure.
He wasn’t an Elf. He wasn’t a human. He was a humanoid void, a silhouette cut out of the fabric of reality, wearing a crown of purple fire.
He looked up as we approached. His face had no features, save for a wide, white grin that split his head in two.
"Ah..." the entity spoke. The voice didn’t come from his mouth; it came from the static in the air. "The Anomaly arrives."
I froze. My [Quantum Analysis Mind] tried to scan him, but the text box just screamed.
[FATAL ERROR]
[Target: ???]
[Rank: ADMIN]
"I have been watching you, Michael Willson," the entity said, standing up. He grew taller as he stood, towering over us. "You are trying to rewrite my code."
"Who are you?" I demanded, gripping my dagger.
The entity laughed. The ground shook, and the World Spirit groaned in pain.
"I am the hunger that eats the gods," he said. "I am the Parasite King."
He pointed a finger at Selena.
"And you brought me my dessert."
(To be Continued)
