The Extra is a Genius!?-Chapter 611: Against the Horde [V]

Roberto remained behind the main clash, watching the battlefield from the rear of the monstrous tide with the calm of someone attending a performance that had exceeded all expectations. Fire flashed across one side of Thorne Territory, water burst and spread across another, and the line of defenders kept shifting, bending, recovering, and striking back against monsters that should have broken them long ago. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Honestly, he was surprised.

This was the only cycle where the world had truly managed to resist him like this. In every other one, things had fallen apart sooner. Sometimes fear broke them first. Sometimes the stronger pieces of the world never aligned in time. Sometimes the pressure was simply too much and the line collapsed before anything interesting could take shape.

But not here.

A faint smile rested on Roberto’s face as he watched another section of monsters get blasted apart under combined magic before fresh defenders stepped in to keep the line whole. He had expected resistance, of course. Noel had forced too many changes already for this cycle to end quietly. But this was more than resistance. This was the world gathering its teeth and biting back.

At the beginning, his plan had been simple. Capture Noel’s body as quickly as possible, finish the mission, and finally be free. That was what was supposed to matter. Yet now, with the battlefield spread before him and the armies of Vaelterra actually holding against mountain monsters that entire nations preferred to respect from a distance, something warmer had crept into the moment.

Excitement.

His eyes moved over the battlefield again, slower this time. ’They’re really enduring against the monsters from the mountains that divide the three continents.’ That alone was absurd. Those mountains were old, vast, and cruel, and yet the people below were holding against them. Bleeding, yes. Losing ground in places, yes. But holding.

Roberto let out a quiet breath through his nose. ’This is genuinely surprising.’ The smile on his face deepened just slightly as another part of the line stabilized when it should have collapsed. ’And I’m having far too much fun watching it.’

Roberto’s gaze settled on Marcus first. That was natural. Marcus had once been one of the people closest to him in this cycle, one of the few whose company had felt uncomplicated. Roberto still remembered that moment clearly. He had almost killed him himself back then. The only reason Marcus was still alive was because Noel had arrived in time and pulled his body away before Roberto could finish it. At the time it had felt like nothing more than an interruption. Looking at him now, it felt stranger than that.

Marcus was alive. More than alive. Strong.

From the rear of the battlefield, Roberto watched him cut through Ascendant creatures one after another, his sword flashing between spells with real weight behind every movement. Cyan fire burst from his hand in short violent strikes, earth broke enemy footing apart beneath him, and every attack flowed into the next with far more certainty than before. He was no longer fighting like someone talented. He was fighting like someone who had already crossed the line where talent stopped being enough.

Roberto smiled faintly. ’This is the first time he’s become this strong.’

That much was obvious. Marcus had changed more in this cycle than in any other. ’At this rate, if he keeps growing like this, in a decade or more he might actually reach Manacode.’ The thought lingered longer than expected. ’Poor guy. He finally has a rival worth chasing.’

There was something almost unfair about that.

’Still, I have to do my job.’

Roberto let his eyes move on. He saw Noel’s girls spread across different parts of the battlefield, each carrying her own share of the war. Laziel and Garron still holding their section around Marcus. Daemar directing the shape of the field with the calm of a man refusing to panic in front of the end of the world. Redna. The noble families. So many faces he had come to know in this cycle.

All of them here for the same reason.

To kill him.

That thought left him quiet for a moment. He could not deny it even if he wanted to. He had spent real time with them. There had been moments where he had almost forgotten the mission entirely. Talking with Noel about life, about girls, about useless little things that should not have mattered and somehow did. Those moments had been easy in a way very little else ever was.

And Noel... Roberto had truly appreciated him as a friend.

His smile faded into something quieter as he looked over the battlefield one last time. ’Everything good always comes to an end.’

After that thought, Roberto began to walk. He simply took the first step toward the battlefield, calm as ever, and that was enough. The monsters behind him moved almost immediately, as if the whole rear of the horde had been waiting for that quiet decision.

These were not the same creatures the defenders had been fighting until now.

The difference could be felt before they even fully entered the field. Dragons descended lower through the sky, their shadows passing over the ground like storm clouds rolling in before a flood. Massive monsters more than ten meters tall advanced with steps heavy enough to shake the broken earth. Others moved with the opposite kind of danger, lean bodies, low postures, sharp limbs, built for speed and killing before their prey could turn properly. Some were creatures from the mountain ranges Noel had already crossed. Many more he had never seen at all, because those ranges were simply too vast for one person to know in full.

It felt like another layer of the war had just been peeled open.

Roberto was not watching anymore.

Far above on his platform overlooking the field, Noel saw it at once. His eyes locked onto Roberto, then shifted toward the stronger monsters advancing behind him. This was no ordinary reinforcement. This was the next step, and every second he waited now was a second the line below paid for.

Noel exhaled once, his gaze sharpening.

It seemed the time had come.