Exiled Prince: I'm the Unexpected Extra in the Novel

Chapter 196: The Crimson Night [24]

The War for The North [83]

Chapter 196: The Crimson Night [24]

As the smoke on the battlefield slowly dissipated, the descending silence felt like a guillotine. The surrounding devastation resembled a world that had suffered the wrath of a god, but the terror standing before them right now was far purer, far darker than any divine fury.

Vorloth walked forward with slow steps toward Cassian. Each of his strides was heavy, as if crushing space and time, yet equally silent.

He did not tread upon the ground; he seemed to glide over reality itself. He stopped when only a short distance remained between them. He fixed his empty, expressionless eyes directly on Cassian. In his eyes, there was no anger, no hatred, nor any satisfaction.

"Kaiser?" murmured Vorloth. His voice was as ordinary as the wind sweeping through dry leaves, yet chilling enough to freeze the soul.

This single word ignited a spark in Cassian’s mind. He did not wait. He did not think. Every combat instinct in his body screamed at him to attack. Cassian lunged at Vorloth in an instant. However, before he could even complete his move...

His eyes shot wide open from a sudden, freezing, and incomprehensible pain in his wrists.

Both of his arms had been severed right at the wrists and dropped to the ground. Blood did not even have the chance to spill; it was as if space and time in that area had been instantaneously excised.

As Cassian’s bewilderment gave way to pure terror, Vorloth’s hand was already reaching for his chest, aiming straight for his dragon heart.

The cold breath of death was on the nape of his neck. Clinging to his survival instinct in a panic, Cassian unleashed a chaos explosion.

As pitch black, all devouring destructive energy detonated between them, the recoil of this power hurled him backward, barely managing to put some distance between the two of them.

He was gasping for air as he landed heavily on the ground. His eyes involuntarily drifted to his severed arms. They were gone. His "Peerless Regeneration" skill would always close even the most fatal wounds instantly, but now... nothing was happening.

The wounds completely refused to heal. Worse still, when he looked at his chest, right above his heart where he had dodged Vorloth’s attack at the last second, he saw a smooth, hollow hole. Flesh, muscle, and bone had vanished, as if erased by absolute nothingness.

"Damn it..." Cassian hissed in pain. Desperately, he drew upon Holy Mana, wanting to recreate his limbs. The Holy Mana glowed weakly at his severed wrists, but after shedding a few tiny sparks, it instantly extinguished.

When Cassian raised his head, his eyes caught the Primordial Angels. The gods had clearly already chosen their new saint or saintess. The Primordial Angels had taken the shattered, fallen Solariel from the middle of the battlefield, had already opened massive dimensional portals, and were attempting to flee this world.

"No one is leaving!" roared Cassian. His voice was a bloodcurdling shriek tearing from a shredded throat, resembling the roar of an ancient dragon.

The dragon heart in his chest beat violently, and the space around him suddenly collapsed inward. A colossal explosion of chaos tore the sky apart. Black and purple flames detonated fiercely, swallowing the divine portals opened by the angels. The atmosphere had shattered as though it were made of glass.

When the black smoke and shockwave of the explosion subsided, the scene in the sky became clear. Among the Primordial Angels, Uriel had managed to escape at the last moment. However, the other remaining Primordial Angel had died, and the heavily wounded Solariel had collapsed face down on the ground, the portals completely dispersed. Their escape routes were entirely sealed off.

Cassian took a deep, wheezing breath, but immediately afterward, his gaze shifted back to his primary target, Vorloth. His pupils shrank in terror.

Vorloth, standing right at the epicenter of that massive chaos explosion, was merely standing motionless where he was. There was not a single scratch on him, not even a speck of dust on his clothes. That world shaking attack had simply passed by as if it were a gentle breeze blowing over him.

Cassian gritted his teeth hard enough to break them. The mana in his body... it was not replenishing. His strength was fading.

Vorloth suddenly lunged forward. His speed was far beyond the limits of what the eye could perceive; rather than movement, it was like spatial displacement.

Reacting with a split second reflex born from his survival instinct, Cassian transformed his body into black smoke. Narrowly dodging the fatal blow in his smoke form, he levitated in the air and launched a colossal onslaught of ice toward Vorloth.

As this massive wave of ice engulfed Vorloth, Cassian reformed, appearing directly above the dying Solariel on the ground. He did not hesitate for even a second. He had no pity, no mercy, and no pause. He dropped onto Solariel’s chest with all his weight and ripped out the Holy Angel’s heart in a single motion.

Without a moment of hesitation, he instantly absorbed the warm heart radiating golden lights. The angel’s life energy and pure, dense mana spread through Cassian’s body like a flood washing over parched earth.

Black and golden threads erupted from the severed stumps of his wrists; his missing arms grew back from bone to skin in seconds. As his mana rapidly replenished, he felt his lost strength return manifold.

But this moment of satisfaction lasted for only a single second.

CRACK!

The colossal iceberg encasing Vorloth, chilling near absolute zero, shattered from the inside out in an instant.

While blocks of ice weighing tons scattered into the air, Vorloth casually stepped toward Cassian.

Losing no time, Cassian raised his hands to the sky. The heavens were immediately veiled in pitch black clouds, and thick, deafening, successive waves of lightning resembling the wrath of the gods began to strike directly upon Vorloth.

Simultaneously, the earth shook violently, and gigantic stone pillars shooting up from the ground like spears entirely surrounded Vorloth, preventing him from escaping anywhere. The lightning descending from the sky and the stones erupting from the earth forged a cage of absolute destruction.

The ferocity of the attack had shaken the entire capital to its core, turning surrounding structures to dust. Yet when the assault ended and the rising dust cloud cleared, Cassian’s hopes were shattered once again, far more brutally. Vorloth did not have the slightest scratch on him.

Vorloth’s empty eyes, resembling a bottomless dark void, scanned the area devoid of any emotion. While searching for Cassian, his gaze slowly shifted from the sky down beneath the earth.

At that exact moment, tearing through the ground with a massive explosion, Cassian shot out from under the earth and lunged with all his might to plunge the Chaos Sword held tightly in his grasp into Vorloth’s brain. Everything was flawless; the timing, the speed, the power... The sharp black tip of the sword was only inches from Vorloth’s temple.

But the anticipated collision, the sound of flesh being sliced, never occurred.

The only thing Cassian felt was pitch black darkness and an absolute, suffocating silence. Sight, sound, pain... everything in the world was erased in an instant.

And in the midst of that darkness, the system notification echoed:

**[You have died.]**

Floating in the dark realm, within the nothingness of his own consciousness, Cassian was in a maddening state of shock. "Are you kidding me?!" he roared at the system. His voice faded into the darkness. "He did not even touch me! Is this some kind of illusion?!"

There was no answer. Only nothingness. He was about to lose his mind. He could not even comprehend how his death had occurred, what had happened in that final second.

"DID YOU BREAK THE FUCKING SYSTEM ALONG WITH ZEUS?!" he screamed at the top of his lungs in his dark realm. He poured all his rage and despair into those words.

However, the only answer he found was once again the deafening silence. Neither a god nor a system answered him.

He began to think frantically. This was not fair. This did not abide by any rules of existence. "System!" he shouted. "Curse Vorloth! Now!"

**[System Notification: Target cannot be cursed.]**

"Rebirth flame! Now! Take as much as you want, just send me back!"

He was instantly resurrected. The moment he opened his eyes, the ruins of the battlefield, the smell of blood and ash were before him once more. Yet, the sight he witnessed made his newly beating heart ache.

Vorloth stood just ahead, in front of Cryomora’s mangled, lifeless body. And in his hand, he held the ice dragon’s blue heart, radiating a freezing aura.

"LEAVE IT!" screamed Cassian. His eyes looked as if they would pop out of their sockets. He triggered his ’Storm Heart’ skill to its absolute limits, pushing it past its boundaries. The cells in his body could not withstand this terrifying speed and pressure, beginning to tear apart; his skin cracked, his muscles ruptured. Despite leaving a bloody trail in his wake, he lunged forward in a blind frenzy.

Vorloth did not even turn to look at him. He merely, slowly, pointed his finger toward Cassian.

Despite the inconceivable speed Cassian was employing, everything around him suddenly shifted into slow motion. Time bowed to Vorloth’s will, and reality warped.

Cassian’s skin peeled away from his bones. His entire body, flesh, muscles, nerves... shattered down to the cellular level and turned to dust before his very eyes. He did not even have the chance to feel pain; his existence was being erased.

All that remained was the stubbornly beating Dragon Heart, suspended in midair.

The heart slowly took on Cassian’s form once again. Red flesh and veins wove around the heart, and his body was reconstructed in seconds.

Cassian fell to his knees, taking rapid, ragged breaths. His eyes were trembling.

He was experiencing the purest, deepest form of despair. As he lay on the ground, he could do nothing but watch Vorloth slowly absorb Cryomora’s heart, drawing that peerless power into himself. As that power passed on to Vorloth, the final shred of sanity within Cassian snapped.

He roared like a maddened beast. A colossal explosion of chaos suddenly blanketed the entire capital, turning the sky black. Sharp stone pillars rising from the earth lifted Vorloth into the air, sharp waves of wind tried to restrict him like invisible steel cables, and a relentless, devastating torrent of lightning poured down upon him from the sky.

Cassian shot out from the center of the storm like a predator. The moment his mana claw made contact with Vorloth’s skin, it decayed, eroded, and vanished. But Cassian did not stop; he ignored the pain. Opening his jaws wide like a dragon, he blasted a pure, destructive wave of chaos directly into Vorloth’s face at point blank range.

Before the attack concluded, he grabbed Vorloth by the neck with his eroded hands and hurled him from the sky to the ground like a meteor entering the atmosphere. Vorloth crashed into a massive crater, shattering the earth, but there was not the slightest reaction on his face.

Cassian descended from the sky, landing a direct hit on Vorloth’s chest with both legs, bringing a massive torrent of lightning down with him. The sheer force of the impact deepened the crater even further, burying Vorloth deeper beneath the earth.

Yet Cassian did not stop. He could not stop. Like a dragon, relentlessly, as if his lungs would burst, he continued to spew chaos into Vorloth’s face. He did not stop for minutes. Black flames turned the surroundings into an absolute hell.

Until... his mana was drained to the last drop and his body completely gave out.

He fell to his knees, his chest heaving rapidly. When the smoke parted, he saw Vorloth looking up into his own eyes with those empty, dark eyes. He still did not have a single scratch.

Everything went black once more.

**[You have died!]**

"Rebirth flame!"

Battle anew.

**[You have died.]**

"Rebirth flame!"

Battle anew.

**[You have died.]**

The cycle continued. Blood, despair, pain, and then absolute darkness. Resurrection. Battle. Death.

Finally, in the dark realm, Cassian slammed his fist into the nonexistent ground with all his might.

"Damn it!" he screamed. His voice was the cry of a completely broken man.

Cassian knew. He could not defeat him. That was the truth. No existing attack belonging to this world, no skill, no magic, not even Holy Mana could deal damage to Vorloth.

Vorloth was someone who absolutely never should have appeared throughout the story. He was an anomaly who broke the rules and corrupted the very fabric of the narrative. The only person who could defeat him was the Child of Dawn, and even that was an event meant for the very final scene of the game. Even then, the chance of success was practically zero.

"What can I even do..." Cassian muttered, looking at his own reflection on the radiant floor of the dark realm. The despair in his eyes was slowly gnawing away at his soul. "Against him... is there a single thing I can use against him?"

His eyes read the semi transparent system texts hovering in the air over and over. In the skill tab, he desperately searched for hope, a loophole, a miracle.

Then, his gaze shifted to that skill, the `Crimson Night` skill waiting in the dark tab.

The counter... had stopped at 870,000.

It was so close to reaching 1 Million. He did not know what would happen once that limit was breached, or what terrifying price the true potential of this skill would demand.

Cassian swallowed hard, looking at the counter. Inside him, two entirely opposing emotions clashed violently: he was torn between bursting into laughter like a lunatic who had lost his mind, and weeping helplessly like a child. The sheer exhaustion brought on by the death loop and the dark hope promised by this skill were tearing his mind to pieces.

As a single tear rolled down his cheek, a sickly, dark chuckle escaped his lips. He looked at his reflection one last time. Every shred of humanity in his eyes had been erased, replaced by an absolute resolve and madness.

"So be it," he whispered into the darkness.

He raised his head; his voice was no longer that of a victim, but the voice of a demon ready to sacrifice everything.

"System! Use Rebirth flame!"