Silence.
Nobody spoke.
Arthur, Felix, Sean, Clara, and Nathan stared at the news with stunned eyes.
The black-haired boy…
They recognized him.
The content of the news was too unbelievable.
They knew the boy was strong, but to fight entities capable of destroying a city?
Felix’s phone rang.
She picked it up.
“Mars?”
“Hey, that’s Neo, right?”
Mars’ voice flowed from her device.
“What the hell is he doing there!? And why did he enter the Window!?”
“I don’t know…”
Felix pursed her lips.
Her gaze was fixed on the headlines of the news that showed the footage of Neo fighting against hundreds of Shadow monsters alone.
“I have no idea what is happening right now.”
…
Greenwood City
The boy entered the Window.
Luna was about to follow him when suddenly the Window closed.
She froze.
“What?”
The implications of the closed window made her face contort.
She hit her mechanical legs.
“Dammit!”
Letting the boy, strong as he was, into a Window alone was like putting his head on a guillotine.
She should’ve stopped him.
However, her weakened body was too slow to react.
Luna ruffled her hair.
She looked around and noticed the adventurers staring at the sky.
Some of them had taken out their devices.
They were looking at the news.
Luna frowned.
She switched on her device and opened the Akashic Record app.
As soon as she clicked on the search bar, the trending options appeared:
#1. Black-haired swordsman, Greenwood City
#2. Greenwood Labyrinth closed
#3. Shadow Window, Greenwood City
#4. Neo Hargraves, Divine Ruler
Her brows creased when she saw the #4 trending search.
“Neo? Why is his name a trending topic? Did he do something in the Academy again?”
Under her confused gaze, it became #3, then #2, and finally #1.
“Henry is going to throw the office upside down again.”
Luna, although curious, ignored it and clicked on the Greenwood City news.
She wanted to know if there was a clue about the identity of the Death-affinity boy who closed the Labyrinth and defeated the Shadow monsters who left the Window.
The news channel showed the reporter interviewing a teenager.
“Are you saying you recognize the black-haired swordsman?”
“Y-yes.”
The teenager nodded, nervous.
“I-I’m Yuriel Kalsova, Rank 999, first-year Demigod Academy student.
The black-haired swordsman is a student from the Academy.”
Luna’s eyes glowed when she saw the interview.
A smile appeared on her face.
“These reporters are finally doing something good for once.”
She watched the interview carefully, making sure not to miss a single detail.
The reporter opened his mouth.
“Oh? An academy student? Is he one of the Top 10 second-year students?
But this is strange. There isn’t anyone among the current top roster of the second-year students who can handle Death elemental that well.
Is he one of the dark horses?”
The reporter continued to question.
Knowing the candidates who could become a Templar was always one of the hot topics of the year.
The black-haired boy showed he had the ability to become a Templar.
On top of that, he was unknown.
It was a major scoop.
“N-No. He isn’t a second-year student.” Yuriel looked at the camera. “He is Neo Hargraves, the current Ruler of first-year students.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
The news reporter’s expression changed from one that of an excitement to confusion.
Neo Hargraves had repeatedly made headlines.
His feats were beyond remarkable.
But it was impossible for a first-year student to be that strong.
…
Shadow Window
Neo appeared inside the Window.
He looked around, noticing the Shadow mist decreasing his visibility, and turned back.
The entrance of the Window had closed.
“It’s happening as I remembered it to be.
Seems like my memory isn’t all bad.”
He had read the novel eons ago.
Even if he had a good memory, thanks to being a demigod, he was starting to forget the novel’s content.
“I guess the only good thing is that I still remember the major arcs clearly.”
He muttered.
The Window he was currently in was supposed to pull hundreds of civilians into itself before it disappeared.
It would’ve reopened months later after giving birth to one of the major villains of the novel.
“Her name was Mira, I think.
She was a streamer before she was abducted by the Window.
What was her channel name… Mi&Ge?
After surviving the Window and losing her lover, George, she would’ve awakened her Darkness element and gained an inheritance that was stored here to become powerful in a short time.”
Neo continued to jog up his memory.
“If I’m not wrong, something here was related to Jack’s family, wasn’t it?
His ancestors were the ones who sealed this Window and created the Labyrinth, hoping one day a strong successor would be born and… something something.”
Neo tried hard, but that was all he could recall.
The Shadow Mist started to thin.
He could feel the tremors on the ground increasing in intensity.
“That makes it clear.
I’ll try to see if my Shadow spawns and—”
The air was torn apart before he could complete his words, and a massive fist descended toward him.
“Did you not learn a lesson from last time?”
Neo stared at the incoming attack.
He used Ocean’s Embrace and took the attack head-on.
“You are too weak.”
The giant’s fingers cracked when they hit Neo.
Before the giant could cry in pain, Neo jumped high in the air.
He used its arm to run towards its head and beheaded it with an Aura Slash.
The giant monster’s head fell. Then, the headless body crashed.
The ground shook from the impact.
The shockwaves cleared the Shadow Mist, allowing Neo to take a proper look at the surroundings.
It was a desert made of black sand.
The night sky was devoid of stars.
Neo stayed near the giant monster’s corpse.
He decided to devour it before venturing deeper into the Window.
The process was slow.
Neo braced himself for the Voices of Darkness.
Neo, Neo, Neo, let’s play N
eo
LE
T’SSSSSPLa
y
The voices were no longer incoherent.
“This…
“As expected, I can understand them.”
Although he had predicted it, he was still surprised.
“This is the result of my Eternal Skill.
“It grants resistance against all status ailments such as mental corruption, curses, and poisons.
“Seems like the voices of Darkness are counted as mental corruption.”
While he could hear what the Darkness was trying to say, it didn’t help him understand the Darkness’ intention.
It continued to repeat the same words to him.
Neo took more time than he expected to devour the giant Shadow monster.
He clicked his tongue when he noticed the stats he gained.
“Only 2 secondary stats?”
The gap between him and the giant Shadow monster had been immense.
He didn’t gain much from it and had to waste a lot of time devouring it.
“This was unexpected.
“I wonder if all the monsters here are the same.
“The novel said they were monstrously strong, but it’s clear they aren’t a match for my current strength.
“The first one wasn’t at least.”
…
Depth Level 2, Shadow Window
Thousands of bones were strewn across the desert.
They radiated a dark aura, filled with grudges and despair.
At the center, a skeleton, wearing a dark red robe, sat on the throne.
The monster had red glowing eyes and it continuously absorbed the dark aura being radiated by the bones, using it as fuel to increase its power.
It held a glowing glass sphere in its hand.
The sphere showed it the battle between Neo and the giant Shadow monster.
“Finally….”
The skeleton laughed.
Its jaw rattled.
However, how could it not be happy?
It had spent hundreds of years sealed in this place by the accursed Hanma Family.
The monster, powerful as it was, had limited resources to grow stronger inside the sealed Window.
When the Window first opened, it had planned to abduct citizens and close the Window immediately.
After all, there was no knowing how strong the Awakeners had become after it spent centuries in the Window.
The monster, however, was not helpless.
It had been prepared for this day since the beginning.
It would’ve used the abducted citizens as a sacrifice to gain power beyond imagination.
“I was worried that the quality of sacrifice might be low.
“But this is good! With such a strong Awakener, I can finally make a breakthrough!
“I, one of the Myths, will be the first Awakener to reach the third rank!”
***
Author’s Note:
Hi guys, first of all thanks for supporting Extra’s Death until now.
Extra’s Death is about to reach 200,000 word count! That’s almost three whole books worth of word count!
We are Top 30 in monthly GT ranks and Top 30 in Best Seller ranks.
I can’t express how happy I’m feeling. I never expected Extra’s Death to perform half as good as it is doing and I’m still surprised that so many people like my work.
The support you’ve shown is one of the only reasons I could continue writing everyday.
I’m very thankful to all of you.
Now, the reason I’ve abducted the chapter for my personal Author Note is to tell you guys about the current release rate of Extra’s Death.
Some of you must’ve realized I’m only updating 1ch/day most of the times instead of the usual 2ch/day.
It’s partially because I’ve recently been swamped with college exams and it doesn’t help that this is my last year, so I’m pretty busy.
But the main reason is that I’ve been burnt out.
200k words. Remember that?
I wrote all of it in just three months.
It was, and is, quite exhausting.
Of course, I can force myself to write 2ch/day even in my current state.
But I don’t want to write subpar chapters.
I forced myself to write during the exams when the burn out started, and I ended up with the current City of Soul Reapers arc.
I didn’t like the arc to be honest.
So I tried my best for the next arc, the Time element Awakening arc, and I was satisfied with what I wrote.
Happy as I was, the burn out hit in full force after that arc ended.
It’s quite clear I need a rest unless I want to mess up the story.
I’ll be reducing my release rate to 1 ch/day for a few days to recover. Hope you guys forgive me for it.
Again, love you guys for all the support you’ve shown until now.
I’ll try to do a small mass release after I recover and return to the 2ch/day schedule.