The Extra's Rise - Chapter 507

Chapter 507: Legacy (4)
I wasn’t expecting a message from my father. Especially not one that read like a report and hit like a hammer.

The Eastern Continent was… different.

I’d arrived with the Northern reinforcements, the Windward contingent. The Creightons had already split off to support Mount Hua, like dutiful nobles with a sense of timing slightly worse than ours. We were sent to Hwaeryun—what used to be vampire territory until the Kagu family decided to blow half their remaining strength retaking it.

It had been the crown jewel of the East. The heart. The seat of politics and martial pride. Reclaiming it had cost them dearly. A pyrrhic victory, if ever there was one.

I stood still, boots planted on cracked asphalt reinforced with mana-conductive steel. Around me, transport drones buzzed, lifting body bags like they were cargo, not corpses. Which, in this war, they basically were. The air tasted of ozone and iron, the metallic tang that comes after too much magic has been unleashed in too small a space.

‘The Kagus lost their place among the Seven,’ I thought, watching a line of them—mages, knights, civilians—being zipped up and taken away.

The family that birthed the First Hero, Liam Kagu, the man whose legend still cast a continent-sized shadow. And now? Their Radiant-rank matriarch lay comatose, and their Void Vanguard was a shattered spear. It wasn’t just a loss—it was history ending with a whimper.

Which annoyed me more than I cared to admit.

Because I’d wanted to surpass them. I’d wanted the Windwards to eclipse the Kagus in broad daylight, not inherit their position after they’d already dimmed and faded into myth. There was no glory in claiming an empty throne, no satisfaction in being handed power rather than seizing it.

“Lucifer.”

I turned at the voice, and my breath caught slightly—a reaction I’d been having more and more lately whenever she appeared. Seol-ah Moyong approached with her usual grace, like someone had programmed her footsteps to avoid stepping in blood by nanometer precision. Her black hair was pulled back in a perfect military style, revealing the elegant line of her neck, and her golden eyes held that same enigmatic depth that had been driving me to distraction for months.

She wore the formal robes of the Moyong family—deep blue with silver embroidery that caught the light as she moved. Even in this devastated landscape, she looked like she belonged in an imperial court rather than a battlefield.

“You came with reinforcements,” she said, her voice measured as always. Like she was reading dialogue from a diplomatic briefing. Or a tragedy. But there was something else there now, something I’d begun to notice in our recent exchanges—a warmth that hadn’t been there before, carefully hidden beneath layers of political training.

I nodded, forcing my expression to remain neutral. “Though it’s a bit late.”

She shook her head, those golden eyes softening slightly. “It’s not your fault. I know how much you wanted to be here. To fight.” Her gaze lingered on my face a moment longer than strictly necessary. “To help.”

The way she said that last word made something flutter in my chest—a recognition that maybe, just maybe, she understood more about my motivations than I’d given her credit for.

“Thanks,” I said, and gave her what I hoped was a casual smile. She looked away, just for a second. Not out of awkwardness. More like someone looking into the sun and needing to blink. When she looked back, there was a faint color in her cheeks that definitely hadn’t been there before.

Still, she didn’t know. Most people didn’t. That was the part I couldn’t get over.

‘Even the Moyongs haven’t heard,’ I thought, the weight of the secret pressing down on me.

Magnus Draykar had killed the Vampire Monarch. Not wounded. Not repelled. Killed. The strongest vampire on Earth—dead. And Magnus? The Martial King? He’d done it by pushing through to high Radiant-rank. The first human to do so since the First Hero Liam Kagu, two hundred years ago.

Magnus had crossed the line. He’d broken the wall the rest of us were still trying to climb. And then, like any good tragic figure, he’d died. Burned too bright, too fast. Too human.

With him gone and the Kagu matriarch down for the count, that left nine Radiant-ranks in the world. Just nine. Out of billions.

And for the first time in my life, I realized we weren’t running out of enemies. We were running out of heroes.

“How’s Deia?” Seol-ah asked, with the kind of calm that could be mistaken for indifference if you didn’t know she had enough emotional discipline to win awards for it. But I did know her, had spent enough time studying her expressions to catch the slight tightness around her eyes when she spoke that name.

The question hung in the air between us, loaded with implications neither of us was quite ready to address directly.

“She’s…” I paused, thinking of Deia’s laugh echoing through the Northern fortress, the way she’d started stealing my coats because they smelled like winter winds, how she’d begun unconsciously seeking my hand whenever we walked together. “She’s good. Better than good, actually. She’s adjusted to the North better than most people expected.”

I watched Seol-ah’s reaction carefully, noting the way her hands clasped behind her back—a tell I’d learned meant she was fighting to maintain her composure.

“She’s got her people now,” I continued, partly to fill the silence and partly because I genuinely wanted Seol-ah to understand. “The ones we evacuated from the Southern Sea’s Sun Palace. The ones who still think being human means more than just not having fangs or scales. She’s… she’s found a place there. Found purpose.”

What I didn’t say was how Deia had also found her way into my arms on cold Northern nights, how her presence had transformed my austere fortress into something that felt like home. How she’d started wearing the Windward colors not out of political necessity but because she’d claimed she liked the way they looked on her. How she’d been teaching me the dances of her homeland while I taught her the martial techniques of mine.

Seol-ah nodded slowly, but I caught the way her jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. She understood the subtext, even if neither of us was ready to make it explicit. Of course she did. Everyone with a working brain knew returning Deia to the East would be… impractical.

The war here had only lasted a few months, but it had chewed through the continent like a data-worm through outdated firewalls. The East hadn’t just lost cities or soldiers—it had lost face. And power. And patience. And in the vacuum that followed, people were going to look for someone to blame. Someone not quite like them. Someone like Deia.

“I don’t want her living somewhere she’s just going to be a target,” I added, and the protective edge in my voice was probably more revealing than I’d intended. “The North is safer. I can protect her better there.”

The admission hung between us like a challenge. Seol-ah’s golden eyes studied my face with an intensity that made me feel exposed, as if she could read every emotion I was trying to keep buried.

“You seem to have gotten quite close,” she said finally, in a tone so carefully neutral it might have been forged from stainless steel. But there was something underneath it—hurt, maybe, or disappointment. Something that made my chest tighten with an emotion I wasn’t ready to name.

“Well, we had to,” I replied, scratching the back of my head in that universal gesture of yes-this-is-awkward-but-I’m-doing-my-best. “We’ve been in the North for months. Things happen. Bonds form.” I met her eyes directly, willing her to understand what I couldn’t quite bring myself to say. “We’re not exactly social hermits.”

The truth was more complicated than that, of course. Yes, Deia and I had grown close—impossibly, wonderfully close. She’d brought warmth to the cold Northern peaks, laughter to the austere halls of my family’s fortress. She’d made me want things I’d never thought I could have.

But standing here, watching the careful way Seol-ah was holding herself, seeing the pain she was trying so hard to hide behind diplomatic training, I realized that what I felt for Deia wasn’t the only thing complicating my life.

Seol-ah didn’t respond immediately. Just kept her gaze drifting like a surveillance drone trying not to look interested. Which, knowing her, might’ve actually been the case. But when she finally looked back at me, there was something raw in her expression—a crack in the perfect mask she always wore.

“I’m glad she’s safe,” Seol-ah said quietly, and I believed her. Despite whatever personal feelings might be involved, she genuinely cared about Deia’s wellbeing. It was part of what made her so impossible to forget. “I’m glad you were there for her when she needed someone.”

The words were generous, gracious even. They were also clearly costing her something to say.

Before I could figure out how to respond—before I could untangle the mess of emotions churning in my chest—the sound of approaching footsteps cut through the heavy atmosphere like a well-placed sword stroke.

“Lucifer.”

The voice was unmistakable. I turned, grateful for the interruption even as I felt Seol-ah step slightly away from me, rebuilding the careful distance we’d been maintaining.

There he was—Ren Kagu. Still had that perfectly unruly hair like he’d just walked out of a holo-drama, still had those violet eyes that somehow managed to look noble and annoyed at the same time. But there was something different about him now, something that spoke of trials endured and prices paid.

He looked stronger—not just in the way Integration-rankers always do with their denser auras and tighter movements, but in the way that said he’d seen things. Done things. The kind of things that leave marks, even if you can’t see them.

“Ren. Sorry for being late,” I said, pushing thoughts of golden eyes and complicated feelings to the back of my mind. This wasn’t the time or place for such considerations.

“It was our duty to protect our own continent,” he replied evenly. His voice hadn’t changed much, but there was a weight behind it now. Less teenage prodigy, more tired commander who’d learned that victory and defeat weren’t always as different as people liked to pretend.

His eyes shimmered faintly with power and history. And something else—maybe quiet pride, maybe sadness. Maybe both. I could see the burden he carried, the knowledge that the East had paid a terrible price for its freedom.

“The North stands ready to help with reconstruction,” I said formally, falling back on diplomatic protocol because it was safer than examining the complicated tangle of my personal life. “Whatever the Eastern Continent needs.”

Ren’s expression softened slightly. “Thank you. We’ll need it.”

As we stood there amid the ruins of Hwaeryun, I couldn’t help but think about the strange paths that had brought us all to this moment. Ren had his own complicated relationships to navigate—I’d heard enough rumors about his situation with the Mount Hua princess and the Creighton saintess to know I wasn’t the only one dealing with matters of the heart in the middle of a war.

The East had paid its price. Now the North was here to help clean up the pieces.

And maybe, in the process, I’d figure out what to do about the fact that my heart seemed to be pulling me in two different directions at once.