I AM EXTRA IN A SHONEN MANGA

The Cursed Lord only smiled.

Her hand moved lazily, and from the mist around her, a dozen black tendrils lashed outward. They struck Kaen like whips, piercing through his aura and hurling him aside as though he were a mere child.

"URK—!!" Kaen's body twisted in the air. He spat blood before slamming into the broken earth, carving a trench through shattered stone. His flaming aura flickered violently, half-extinguished.

"Kaen!!" Rael's voice cut sharp through the chaos.

"Kaen!!" Lira echoed, panic rising in her throat.

Sythen lowered her hand, smirking.

"That reckless one… I can already tell. He burns brightest only because he has nothing to lose. How dull."

Rael's eyes narrowed. His rage was quiet, cold, and searing. His Seireiken vibrated in his grip, resonating with his fury and with Seraphis's emerald will.

"…Damn you." His teeth clenched as the words came like a vow.

The spirit within him answered.

"Do not falter, Rael. Call upon me fully."

The voice of Seraphis, Verdant Mirror, reverberated in his mind like a calm storm.

Rael raised his blade to the sky, emerald light flooding his veins. His voice shook the battlefield:

"Seraphis—FULL POWER!!!"

"Authorization: Maximum Output."

"Limit Break: Verdant Judicator!"

The world trembled.

Wings burst from his back not the soft, shimmering wings of partial Judicator, but six colossal, radiant constructs of living light. They stretched wide, each feather etched with fractal runes that bled into the air like living scripture. Rael's frame was engulfed in radiant sigils, every line of his uniform now transformed into armor of judgment. His sword blazed brighter than ever before judgment incarnate.

Emerald fire seared across the sky.

Lira gasped, shielding her face from the overwhelming light.

"…Rael…"

Rael's voice boomed, both his own and Seraphis's overlapping.

"Fifth Gate—Verdant Eclipse!"

The air split with power. It wasn't the complete form, it was unstable, threads of light breaking off, flickering like glass on the verge of shattering. But even as a half-formed God-tier state, the power was terrifying.

Sythen's smirk faded, ever so slightly. Her emerald eyes narrowed.

"…Oh? So the little Judicator still hides tricks. Interesting."

Rael raised his blade toward her. His expression was stone, but his heart pounded.

(It's not perfect. The Fifth Gate… still incomplete. But if I don't stand now … This entire squad will be erased.)

"Cursed Lord!!!!" Rael roared, his aura shaking the air.

"Judgment will not bow to jealousy!!"

Sythen's laughter, low and cruel, answered him.

"We'll see, boy. We'll see."

They clashed.

Her tendrils shot forth like spears of night, each laced with writhing malice. Rael met them in a storm of light, his six radiant wings shielding him as his Seireiken carved through the shadows. The ground shattered beneath each collision, radiant fissures cutting against pools of black.

"Verdant Sever—!" His blade arced in a crescent of emerald fire.

For the first time, Sythen staggered, her cheek split with a line of green flame, sizzling against her flawless skin. A single droplet of black ichor hissed as it touched the earth.

The battlefield froze.

Lira gasped, her voice breaking.

"…He landed it."

Even Kaen, still half-kneeling with blood on his lips, smirked through his pain.

"…Keh… not bad"

But Sythen's face twisted. Her emerald eyes flared with fury, her smile gone.

"...You bitch!!" Her shriek rattled the air, venom dripping from every syllable.

Before Rael could ready his next strike, her body vanished into mist. The tendrils wrapped around him from every angle, tightening, impaling. His radiant wings blazed in defiance, shattering several restraints but her true strike had already come.

Sythen appeared before him, her hand forged into a claw of abyssal glass. With a single thrust, she pierced straight through his chest.

"RAEL!!!" Lira screamed.

"Shit—RAEL!!" Kaen roared, forcing his battered body to rise.

The world slowed.

Rael's eyes widened. His breath hitched as blood filled his mouth. Emerald light burst from the wound, trying desperately to knit flesh together—but Sythen's corruption ate at it, unraveling every thread of healing.

She whispered in his ear, venomous and cruel.

"Judgment? You're nothing but glass in front of me."

Her arm slid out, leaving a gaping, glowing hole through Rael's torso—his own light spilling into the air like broken fragments of a mirror. His wings flickered, destabilizing. His grip on the Seireiken faltered.

Rael stumbled, choking, yet still forcing himself upright. His voice was ragged, but steady:

"…Not… enough… You'll have to do better… to kill me."

Sythen tilted her head, amused by his stubbornness.

"…Then I'll enjoy breaking you slower."

Rael's body convulsed, but the glow of Seraphis still clung to him, his Bloom affinity sparking faintly around the wound, stalling the inevitable collapse.

Kaen's fists tightened, his veins surging with fire.

(…Dammit, he's not gonna last. If I don't move now, he'll—)

But before he could charge again, a softer glow cut across the battlefield.

Lira's tears streamed down her face, her hand trembling as she pressed it toward Rael's wound. Glyphs bloomed in midair gentle, geometric circles etched with soft light, drifting petals, and faint trails of emerald dust.

"Echo Arts: Bloom Barrier!"

A shield of flowing vines and radiant blossoms wrapped around Rael's collapsing body, halting the spread of Sythen's corruption. His ragged breath steadied, the bleeding slowed.

Rael blinked up at her, groaning. His lips curved into a half-smirk despite the pain.

"…Heh. Guess you're useful after all."

Lira's tears glistened, but her voice steadied, full of quiet resolve.

"Don't waste your breath, Rael. You're not dying here. Not while I'm still standing."

From her feet, a pulse spread outward. Vines erupted from the shattered ground—not to bind, not to lash out, but to harmonize with the cursed terrain, cleansing fragments of the corruption. The battlefield itself shivered as the blackened earth cracked and green light pulsed through its veins.

"Echo Arts: Bloom Resonance!"

Her power echoed like a hymn. The suffocating shadows wavered, a reprieve from despair.

For a fleeting moment, even Kaen's rage paused as he stared.

(…She's… actually pushing it back…? This is the Valenne bloodline…)

Narration:

Lira Valenne of the ancient Bloom bloodline. A family whose very marrow sang with life. Their Echo Arts were not forged in conquest, but in preservation. Their affinity was called soft, romantic, even naive. But in moments like this, it was the purest defiance against death itself.

But Sythen only narrowed her eyes, her emerald gaze like shards of glass.

"Tsk… annoying little flower."

Her body vanished into smoke then instantly reappeared right before Lira.

SMACK.

The sound cracked like a whip.

Lira's head snapped sideways, her body spinning from the sheer force of the slap. Blood sprayed from her lips as she crashed to the ground, petals scattering like torn paper.

"LIRA!!!" Rael's voice tore out of his chest, raw and desperate.

Kaen's pupils shrank, fury boiling over.

"You bastard!!"

Sythen looked down at the healer as if she were dirt. Her emerald eyes glowed, dripping venom.

"Flowers wilt quickest when trampled."

Then Sythen's claws slammed Rael into the stone until the ground cratered beneath him. His Judicator wings flickered, blood gushing as the cursed lord's tendrils stabbed through his ribs.

"RAEL!!!" Lira screamed, throwing herself toward him only for Sythen's heel to crush her back down into the dirt. The slap had already left her lip split, her face swelling, yet she still crawled forward.

Sythen crouched beside her, voice venomous.

"Pathetic. Your healing only delays the inevitable. Why struggle?"

She twisted her hand and Rael howled, blood spraying from his mouth.

Kaen stood frozen. His fists trembled. His breath came shallow, erratic. He wanted to move he wanted to strike but his body would not obey.

His vision blurred with tears as he watched Lira slammed, Rael pierced, both crushed under Sythen's shadow.

(Nononono… stop… not again… not like this…)

(Damnit… I'm worthless. I'm fucking worthless!)

His knees buckled. His nails dug bloody crescents into his palms.

(Kaen, you never change. You're still the same helpless brat. Always watching people bleed because you're too weak, too useless—)

Then—

—CRACK.

The sound wasn't physical. It was spiritual. A chain shattering, deep inside his chest.

Kaen's body convulsed. His eyes widened as black flame surged from his veins, not fire but something colder, emptier.

"AAAAAARGHHHHH!!!"

His Vein Gates burst open, one after another, not with control, but with violent rejection. Shade energy flooded his body like a dam collapsing, his aura howling like a beast unchained.

The ground split. The air warped. Even Sythen's grin faltered as she turned to look.

From Kaen's back erupted jagged wings of void, more like broken glass and shadow-stained flame than flesh. His teeth sharpened. His skin cracked with burning glyphs, veins glowing a sickly violet.

Narration:

(Kaen's Forbidden Seal—)

(It channels Shinrei through a corrupted flow. Enhances power, poisons stability. Worse, it sends signals… signals to the things that listen in the dark. The Voidborn.)

(This seal was no accident. It was birthed in the Eclipse Rite—an ancient atrocity by the Suro Clan. Their dream was the ultimate warrior, one who could wield all six affinities: Flame, Wave, Storm, Stone, Bloom… and Shade. The method? The sacrifice of both parents, and the Hollow Vein of a fallen meteorite embedded into their child.)

(It succeeded only once.)

(Kaen survived. But the cost was his soul. His Shinrei fractured, locked beneath a cursed mark that branded him a bridge between Light and Void.)

And now—

That bridge had collapsed.

The cursed mark flared across Kaen's chest, burning black. His scream deepened into a guttural roar as voidlight swallowed his form.

Where Kaen once stood, there was now something else. Something monstrous. His aura lashed like stormfire, his eyes pits of violet flame.

A Voidborn.

Sythen tilted her head, her eyes filled with anxiety. "As expected… that energy I sensed—Shinrei—it was you, brat."

Rael, bloodied but conscious, forced his head up. His voice cracked, horrified.

"Kaen… don't…! You'll—"

But Kaen didn't hear him. Or maybe he couldn't anymore. His gaze burned only with unbridled rage.

He lunged.

The earth exploded under his step.

To be continue