Suspicious

The skies stretched wide. Verdant oceans of foliage swayed gently beneath a sun-drenched sky. Mountains cradled the heavens. Rivers shimmered like molten silver, winding between valleys.

And at the distant heart of this sacred realm, towering into the clouds, stood the World Tree—an ancient monolith of bark and root, vast enough to cradle civilizations upon its branches. It was the breath of the land, the lifeblood of the Core.

But peace was a fragile illusion.

Then came the light.

A golden spear of radiance screamed across the heavens like judgment given form. It crashed into the World Tree—not just touching it, but ripping through it. The impact was catastrophic.

Half of the colossal tree groaned as its base cracked apart, roots tearing free from the sacred earth.

The severed crown rose, impossibly, into the sky. Air itself trembled, and for a moment, all the birds and beasts fell silent.

But the tree was not lifeless.

With a thundering pulse, its heartwood reignited, divine roots anchoring back into the soil. It halted mid-flight, trying to stabilize, when another presence arrived—

Black. Corrupt. Hungry.

It wasn't light—it was a void in the shape of light. It slithered through the sky like a whisper of death.

A black wire of corrupted energy lashed out, wrapping around the still-rising half of the World Tree—and with brutal finality, slammed it toward the scarred crater left by the golden blast.

The earth braced for annihilation.

But then—an impossible rebuttal.

From the eye of the crater, a pillar of holy radiance erupted—blinding, pure, absolute. A golden beam surged up to meet the falling crown of the World Tree.

The collision birthed a shockwave that split the sky, tore through the cloud-horizon, and shattered the very laws of space. Cracks etched themselves across the firmament like veins of lightning frozen in time.

And then they appeared.

The Demon and the Hero.

No words were exchanged. Only devastation. The demon was vast, malformed, an echo of nightmares given flesh—its skin layered with armor forged in hatred, wings that blotted the heavens, a presence that warped reality.

The hero stood in defiance, clad in tattered white, armor fractured but heart unyielding. His sword was broken at the tip, but his eyes held dawn.

Their clash was a tempest of legend.

The first strike leveled a continent. Blades of energy tore through forest, valley, and sea. Space fractured and folded.

Mountains rose from plains. Rivers evaporated. What had once been a paradise now became a war-torn crucible for their final reckoning.

They fought like old gods.

The demon hurled stars. The hero parted the sky.

With every exchange, thousands of kilometers crumbled. Wind screamed like mourning widows. Time itself slowed. They fought through days and nights in moments.

Then came the breaking point.

Breathing heavily, both figures stood amidst the wreckage. The sky was not sky anymore—it was a shattered pane of cosmic glass. The land was fragmented, floating. Islands of earth the size of nations drifted midair, tethered only by threads of mana.

And in this stillness, the hero knelt.

He clasped his blade to his heart, not to invoke strength, but surrender. With a whisper carried by the world's breath, he called not to his blade, but to his goddess.

And something answered.

Not light, not grace—but something else. A crimson-black energy erupted from his soul. It twisted the golden around him into something deeper, darker, more primal. It was the same as Alaric's—a force not of creation or destruction, but of will made manifest.

The demon laughed—then faltered.

The hero rose, his energy crackling, tearing at reality. The world bent beneath his feet. He rushed forward—and with a single swing of his sword, now blackened and gleaming with ruin—

he stabbed the demon through its chest.

Crimson energy erupted, flooding through the demon's core. A final scream echoed across all of existence—then silence.

Yet the demon did not die.

Even as crimson-black energy surged through its core, even as its heart was pierced and sundered, the beast endured. Not by resistance—but by nature. It was unkillable. Not immortal, but irreconcilable with death itself.

The hero stood still, sword plunged deep into that abyssal chest. His arm trembled, every fiber of his being screaming for resolution. But no cry came from the demon. No collapse. No final breath. Just silence.

A silence more deafening than battle.

He had failed.

Not for lack of strength. Not for lack of courage. But because what stood before him could not be ended by mortal means—even divine descent had limits. Even divinity had laws.

His breath slowed. The storm of mana that raged around him began to dissipate. He released the hilt of his sword, letting it remain buried in the demon's heart like a monument to futility.

And then—the Will of the World stirred.

From the cracked heavens above, a whisper descended. Not sound—but purpose. The same earth he fought to protect wrapped itself around the demon's body, not to bury it, but to claim it.

Roots sprouted upward, ancient vines coiling like chains of reverence. The land embraced its enemy—not as a victor, but as a guardian of the sin that could not be undone.

The hero fell to his knees.

All around him, the battlefield hung in broken stasis. The sky still shattered like stained glass, its light leaking through the fissures.

Chunks of land—entire floating continents—drifted in the open air, suspended as though the world itself could not remember its shape.

Then, it began.

A gentle wind stirred, laced with gold and light.

From the heavens, as though a long-forgotten seal had broken, a radiant white-gold glow poured downward.

It kissed the ruined earth, seeping into the shattered mountains, the burned plains, the dead rivers. Not to restore what once was, but to bless what had become.

The broken remained broken—but now, it lived.

The sky began to knit itself together, each crack sealing with divine light. The floating islands did not fall. They hovered, anchored by something new—a new mana flow, a new purpose.

The world would not return to what it was. It would begin anew, born from fracture, holy in its scars.

And the hero… watched.

Tears fell, quiet as the dust around him.

Not from grief. Not from rage. But from that silent, aching truth: he had not saved the world.

He had only delayed its end.

Still kneeling, his breathing slowed. His limbs stilled. He watched the light descend like lullabies on broken stone.

And there, surrounded by healing ruin, the hero died.

Eyes open. Watching the birth of the next world. Crying for the demon he could not kill.

His body crumbled slowly, not to ash, but to essence—joining the air, the ground, the roots. His soul lingered, blessed by the Will he had once prayed to, and in his stead remained a silent, radiant book.

A skill book. His legacy.

But none were left to see it now.

Only the wind, carrying his last breath across the world he failed to save—but died to change.

*****

✢═─༻༺═✢═─༻༺═✢

✶ I Reincarnated as an Extra ✶

✧ in a Reverse Harem World ✧

⊱ Eternal_Void_ ⊰

✢═─༻༺═✢═─༻༺═✢

*****

When Alaric opened his eyes, he stood in a boundless white expanse. The silence was complete. The stillness was sacred.

Before him stood the hero.

No longer the shattered warrior from the vision—this version was whole, radiant, dignified. Yet he cast no shadow. He was not truly present, not truly alive.

"You're not him are you?" Alaric said softly.

"Yes,"

The man replied, smiling faintly.

"Only a sliver of soul. A will preserved by Elyssira's grace. I'm what remains after death."

Alaric studied him.

"Why show me this?"

"Because you need to understand what came before. And what was lost."

The hero raised his gaze to the pale sky above them.

"There was a time,"

He said,

"when gods walked among us. When their hands shaped empires, and their voices were heard in the hearts of kings and slaves alike. But the world broke."

"The Primordial Cost,"

Alaric murmured. Alaric didn't know much about the world but still knew the basic history.

The hero nodded.

"Yes. It was not a sacrifice of flesh—but of presence. The seven primordial gods of the righteous faction—and even the demon gods—made a pact. To withdraw. To ascend beyond the veil and never again tread the soil of mortals. Not directly. Not ever."

Alaric frowned.

"Why would they agree to that?"

"Because their war threatened to tear the world apart. Every clash between them remade the land. Mountains shattered. Oceans boiled.

Entire continents vanished in the crossfire. So they rose—up to the Heavens and the Infernal Realms. From there, they guide us. Bless us. But never intervene."

He looked down at his hands—steady, translucent.

"I fought without their aid. I had only Elyssira's blessing. Not her hand. Not her power."

Alaric's voice was dry.

"That demon looked strong."

The hero let out a breath that wasn't quite a laugh.

"Yes. Zevrakos, the Iron Grudge. One of the seven Demon Generals. His hatred had weight. His wrath burned cities. He'd consumed entire kingdoms, not through war, but through despair. I faced him alone."

His eyes turned distant.

"And I won. Barely. I used everything I had. Every drop of faith. Every breath of divine light. And in the end, I still died."

"But he died too,"

Alaric murmured.

The hero turned to him.

"No. Not truly. Demons don't perish like we do. They dissolve. They scatter. And they reform. Somewhere. Sometime. Thought only the high ranking demon like the demon general or the demon King. And the way to end them is with something outside the cycle."

Alaric tensed.

"You're saying I'm that?"

"I'm saying you're not bound by what binds us,"

The hero replied.

"Your soul does not trace back to the divine pattern. You stand outside the covenants. You can break the rules the gods were forced to obey."

Alaric's silence was long and cold.

"So what? I become your replacement? Finish what you started?"

"No,"

The hero said softly.

"You're not a successor. You're a cornerstone. The gods made their choice. The world turned. And now, someone must hold it together until it heals—or falls."

The white space began to flicker, like a candle nearing its end.

"This place is yours now,"

The hero whispered.

"Hidden. Holy. A sanctuary even the heavens cannot find. You may bring others here… if you accept them."

Alaric looked around.

"It's empty."

"Then fill it,"

The hero said.

"With memory. With meaning. With what comes after."

As his form began to fade, Alaric asked,

"…What was your name?"

The man gave a soft, tired smile.

"It was sung once. Now it is silence. Let it remain so. Also your not alone. I am the same as you. Brought here. To save the world."

He raised his hand in farewell.

"Live well, Alaric. Be still, when the world trembles."

His final words were a whisper, like wind through dying light:

"Glory to Elyssira."

***

FWOOOOSH—

Alaric's eyes snapped open.

The air hit him like a baptism.

He stood upon a precipice of polished stone, a jagged ledge carved by time and miracle, suspended high above a world that should not exist.

Where once the hero had fought and bled and perished—a dead place, scarred by divine fury and demon fire—there now bloomed an untouched world. A sanctum reborn.

He stepped forward.

The stone beneath his feet pulsed faintly with divine resonance, whispering echoes of the battle long past. But instead of ash and ruin, there was… life.

Rivers—clear as glass and winding like threads of silver silk—flowed through the land below, catching the sun in dancing reflections.

Waterfalls spilled from one floating island to another, connecting the peaks in an endless chain of cascading song.

The earth was no longer scorched. It was lush. Wild. Consecrated.

Verdant trees rose in silent reverence, their leaves glimmering faintly with light—some golden, some emerald, some a gentle blue, like moonlit mist. There were groves, meadows, and the murmur of an unseen breeze.

Birds—creatures Alaric didn't recognize—flew between floating isles in elegant spirals. Each island peak was like a fragment of heaven, suspended in defiance of gravity, gently drifting but never straying far.

The very air shimmered with sacred stillness, a living hymn to what once was lost.

He could feel it.

This place had been sanctified by the hero's death.

But now—now it had become something more. Something eternal.

A seed of paradise, born from sacrifice.

Alaric turned slowly, taking in the boundless majesty around him. He stood at the edge of the highest peak, a throne of stone and silence, untouched by time. And yet… something stirred in his chest.

The sanctuary was vast, but not empty.

There was potential here. For rest. For cultivation. For revelation.

For refuge.

"This… was a battlefield,"

He whispered.

"Now it's a cradle."

The echoes carried his voice no farther than the breeze. The land did not respond with thunder or prophecy. But the silence was warm.

Here, the dead hero's will had taken root. Here, Alaric had been chosen—not by the gods, but by history itself.

He stepped down from the stone, onto soft grass.

His boots pressed against the earth. It yielded. It welcomed him.

This was not divine territory.

This was his now.

"But, man that's kind of suspicious isn't?"

Alaric murmured to himself. He felt that the reason was too simple. He expected some kind of grand truth that would shake his entire world view. But it was surprisingly simple.

"Maybe because it is a romance fantasy world. A kind of wish fulfilling world that is for women. So the setting of the world isn't too hard core."

He sighed as he flew towards the exit. The same way he came from. The explanation and reasoning of the hero gave him felt too simple. So simple that he suspected that is it some kind of ploy.

Because this world already had a hero.

But Elyssira's grace was present. Unmistakable. No doubt that he is real or was. But still all this calling and stuff got his hopes up. Maybe his inner otaku wanted some epic lore.

But it seems like this world doesn't offer any. But he still consoled himself that at leat he didn't start as a powerless peasant. Well, he is a peasant but a powerful one.

And he also has the girls to take care of. Thinking about them brought smile on his face without him knowing.

But if what the hero said about his purpose is true. Then he was to think about what he wanted to do or how he would support humanity.

But that is for later. Right now all he wanted to do is go home.

Bur at the exit were once a massive mountain stood the serpent dragon was still there. Well it was expected because the mountain was its home and Alaric just destroyed it. He felt bad for a second but didn't let it get to him.

"Wait!"

"Well, this is unexpected. "

-To Be Continued