The Extra is a Genius!?-Chapter 600: The Place Beyond Manacode [II]

The words settled heavily between them. If this place really was the dimension where Noctis had imprisoned Elarin, then this was not some passing dream created by the strain of ascending to Manacode. It was something real, or close enough to real that the distinction stopped mattering. That alone would have been enough to unsettle him. The fact that Noctis was sitting beside him, speaking as if this meeting were somehow possible, only made the silence feel stranger.

For a moment Noel simply looked at him. The shock of seeing him again had not fully faded. He had accepted long ago that their last conversation would remain exactly that. Noctis had said he could not return to the world, and Noel had believed him. He still did. Which meant the obvious answer was the only one left. Noctis had not come back. Noel had come here.

His gaze lifted briefly toward the endless black sky before returning to the man beside him. "How does this work, Noctis?"

Noctis rolled one shoulder lightly and glanced down at his own hand as if checking it out of habit. "We’re not here with our physical bodies," he said. "Only our souls. Our consciousness. Call it whichever you prefer." His tone stayed casual, but confusion still sat underneath it. "What I don’t understand is how you managed to get here at all. Reaching this place should only be possible once someone rises to that level and—"

He stopped. His head turned sharply toward Noel, the earlier calm vanishing from his face all at once. "You reached Manacode!?"

"Yes. Just a few minutes ago." Noel frowned slightly. "I ascended, and then I appeared here. That was the part that surprised me most."

Noctis stared at him for a second longer, then leaned in just enough to study his face more carefully. "Huh."

"What?"

"Your mind seems stable." He leaned back again, still watching him. "Time flows differently here. Badly. That distortion is one of the reasons it’s easy to lose your mind in this place. We’re only in the outer layer now. I stay here most of the time so it doesn’t affect me more than necessary."

He pushed himself to his feet in one easy motion and looked down at Noel. "Come on. Follow me. I’ll show you my brother."

Noctis did not hurry. He walked with the same unbothered pace he always seemed to carry, hands loose at his sides, eyes forward as if there were nothing strange about leading someone through a place like this. Noel rose and followed him across the dark surface, his gaze shifting once toward the endless black horizon before returning to the path ahead.

The silence remained unnatural, but now it pressed against him less harshly than before. At least now he knew this place had shape, rules, and purpose. That made it easier to endure. The ground still resembled a perfectly still sea, black and reflective in places, yet it never rippled beneath their steps. Above them the sky remained immense and star-filled, so wide that Noel found it difficult to judge distance properly.

Noctis finally slowed and stopped. He lifted one finger and pointed upward.

Noel followed the gesture. For a second he saw nothing but darkness and stars. Then the shape resolved. It hung impossibly high above them, vast enough that its size only became clear after his eyes adjusted. Multiple rings encircled it, huge bands rotating around a central transparent orb like the slow turning of something colder and far more unnatural than anything he had seen before. The orb itself was clear enough that Noel could see a figure suspended within it, motionless, head lowered slightly, as if asleep in a way no sleeping body should ever remain.

"That’s my brother," Noctis said. "Elarin. He’s sleeping now. Or as close to sleeping as he can get. His connection to the world seems to have been severed."

Noel’s expression sharpened immediately. He remembered the moment at once. Roberto. The broken projection. The orb through which Elarin had spoken. Roberto had destroyed it without hesitation, and at the time Noel had only understood it as a tactical act. Looking up at the prison now, the implication became obvious. That had not just silenced a conversation. It had likely cut whatever thread still bound Elarin to the outside world.

"I never expected you to reach Manacode," Noctis continued, his tone quieter now. "I thought it was impossible. Until now, only my brother and I ever got that far." He paused briefly. "But I think Roberto may have reached it too. Or he’s very close."

"You think so?"

"I can’t say it with complete certainty. But if he was speaking to Elarin and moving that deeply into things he should never have touched, then he must have entered this place somehow." His eyes remained on the prison above them. "As you know, everything runs on a loop. Every time the protagonist of a core dies, there are tiny windows where I can’t interfere with anything. Brief gaps. If something changed, it probably happened there."

The words settled hard. Noel already knew Roberto was dangerous, already knew the final battle would not be simple. But hearing this from Noctis, while staring at the prison hanging above an endless black sky, stripped away whatever remained of hope that the end would be clean.

The final fight was going to be worse than he had imagined.

For a little while, neither of them said anything. Noctis kept looking at the prison suspended above them while Noel remained silent beneath that impossible sky, the weight of what he had just learned settling into place inside his mind. The silence no longer felt hostile. Heavy, but no longer empty.

Then Noctis spoke again, and the shift in topic was so human that it almost felt strange in a place like this. "So," he said, glancing sideways at Noel, "how’s life been treating you?"

Noel looked at him for a second, surprised despite himself. Of all the things he expected to hear there, that was not one of them. "I became a father," he said. "Three times. Nicolas. Elyria. Cloe. The family will probably keep growing." A faint breath escaped him, not quite a laugh but close. "I reached Manacode. And now I’m waiting for the day everything ends."

Noctis stayed quiet long enough that Noel thought he might not answer at all. But eventually he lowered his eyes and said, in a voice quieter than before, "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For what you’re doing."

Noel held his gaze for a moment before answering. "You know this is my world too, right? Ever since you reincarnated me there, it stopped being someone else’s problem." He paused briefly. "The time I’ve lived there has already been better than the life I had on Earth. So you don’t need to thank me. If anything, it should be the other way around."

Noctis said nothing for a moment. When he finally spoke, his voice had changed. "This is probably the last time we see each other. If you win, this dimension disappears. My brother disappears with it. So do I." He paused. "And if you lose—"

"I won’t." Noel cut him off before the thought could finish. "I have a family to protect now." He held Noctis’s gaze steadily. "Roberto said he has allies. Do you know who they are?"

Noctis exhaled slowly. "Probably monsters. But I can’t say for sure. Like I told you, no one has ever gotten this far before." He looked out across the endless dark one last time. "You should go. Your friends outside are probably panicking."

Noel nodded once. "Thank you for everything, Noctis. I hope you get to see what I do at the end."

Noctis didn’t answer with words. He stepped forward and wrapped Noel in a quick embrace, the kind given without warning and without explanation, like holding a younger brother for the last time. Then he pulled back, raised one hand, and snapped his fingers.

The world vanished.

Noel’s eyes opened sharply. Cold stone. Thin mountain air. The smell of blood and broken mist. The first thing he saw was Selene leaning over him, her face tighter than he had ever seen it, blue eyes fixed on his with fear she had not bothered hiding. Behind her stood Daemar, Marcus, Laziel, and Garron, all of them tense and clearly unsure what they had just witnessed.

Noel lifted one hand and rested it against Selene’s head, his fingers brushing through her hair. "I’m alive," he said. "Stop dramatizing."

For a second none of them reacted. Then a system window appeared in front of him.

[Noir is evolving...]

Of course. He had reached a new rank, and Noir was changing with him again, just as she always had. But this time felt different. Final. Like the last great shift waiting in her path had finally arrived.

He pushed himself upright slowly, his body still weak from the transformation, and looked across the basin one last time. The dead chimera lay behind him, the pale mist was gone, and the valley had become only stone, bones, and silence.

Noel exhaled once. "Alright," he said, glancing toward the ridge above and the endless mountain beyond it. "Time to go home. I’m done with these mountains."