The Cursed Extra: Twin Souls Against the World

Xane walked toward the cemetery and looked around the busy place in surprise.

Unlike last time, he saw more than a hundred students, each in different robes, moving around.

The emptiness behind the steel gate had switched to this weird market environment.

He even sensed that the empty city next to the cemetery was already full of people.

Zayn said in his head. [Well, looks like the seniors are already back.]

Xane looked toward the city as he really wanted to see how powerful these seniors who had managed to survive the year-end task were.

But then he shook his head as he understood now was not the time for that.

He quickly walked toward the casket of Hex Master Xenor.

He heard the same mechanical voice that guided him on where to go.

Not wasting a moment, Xane rushed toward the end of the corridor.

Along the way, he saw a couple of doors that no longer had warning signs on them.

As he walked into the white hall, he suddenly froze, as there were already three people present in the lab.

Two of them had red robes, likely from the second year, while the other one had a blue robe.

Zayn said in his mind. [It's the third year.]

The moment they saw him, all of them stopped their discussion and looked up at him in unison.

The one with the blue robe tilted his head and asked, "Who are you?"

Xane bowed to him. "Nice to meet you, Senior. I am a first-year student under Hex Master Xenor."

The blue-robed guy asked in confusion. "First year? Where were you these past few weeks?"

Xane was about to answer when one of the second-year red-robed students clapped his hand. "Wait, so you are the night creep Soren talked about?"

The third-year student looked at the red-robed guy. "What night creep?"

Even Xane squinted his eyes as he was not sure what that guy meant by 'night creep.' Did Soren start spreading lies about him or something?

The red-robed guy shook his head. "Senior, I will tell you some other time."

The blue-haired guy was about to say something, then Xane saw him pause and look toward the back door.

The next moment, the third year waved to Xane. "It's better for you to meet the teacher first."

Xane raised his eyebrow, but then nodded to him.

He wasted no time and rushed toward the back of the white hall.

Zayn said to him. [Hex Master Xenor must have given them some instruction.]

Xane mentally nodded his head and calmly walked into the office.

The very first thing he noticed was the clean floor.

He did not find any scattered papers in the office.

There was even a fresh, soothing smell that made him feel like he was walking in a garden full of flowers.

But Xane soon noticed that the smell was actually coming from a fist-sized green frog statue on the table.

Xane saw that the Hex Master Xenor was studying a book and did not bother to look at him.

Xane stared at him in confusion for a moment, but then he snapped out of it and bowed. "I am happy to see you back, teacher."

Xenor just glanced at Xane and asked in a casual, uninterested tone. "Why even bother to show up here, my dear student?"

Even though the hex master spoke the same way as before, Xane could feel that Xenor did not show much interest in him now.

Xane squinted his eyes as he did not know if Xenor was once again acting, but that did not matter much as he knew that while extra attention on him was bad, the opposite was worse.

He knew there was nothing he could say that would convince this hex master, so he decided not to waste words and took out his ID.

Not wasting a moment, he slid his ID toward the hex master.

Hex Master Xenor raised his eyebrow as he glanced at it.

Next, Xane placed both wrapped food boxes on the table and said, "Hex Master, I want to use all those points for the hex arts."

Hex Master Xenor raised his eyebrow when he saw the two boxes and stared at Xane. "Do you even know what those things are?"

Xane smiled at him. "Isn't it better this way? You don't have to worry about wasting more time with me."

Xenor stared at Xane for a long time and rubbed his forehead in annoyance. "You are really an oddball."

He tapped on the table for a long time and then started scribbling on paper.

Not long after, Xenor handed him six papers with hex arts and then pointed toward the shelf. "If you manage to survive, come ask me for the leftovers."

Xane stared at Xenor for a moment and then bowed again. "Thank you for giving me another chance, hex master."

He wasted no time and picked up the hex arts and the food box and walked toward the shelf.

Not long after, he saw the familiar giant rune. He calmly walked toward the center circle and sat in the middle.

Xane did not rush but closed his eyes to calm himself.

Even Zayn, inside his mind, was doing the same.

Both of them clearly understood the odd number choice of hex arts, that no matter how much they ate, six hex arts was their limit.

If they failed again, Xane wasn't even sure if Xenor would still gamble on him.

After all, he understood there was a limit to greed. Xane stopped thinking about others as he knew that if he failed this, then it might really be over.

He just silently sat there to empty his mind.

Not long after, Zayn said in his head. [I am ready.]

Xane snapped open his eyes, placed all the extra stuff to the side, and picked out the very first hex art.

Not wasting any moment, he ripped the paper in half.

That was the start of the war between fate, which wanted to kill them, and them, who wanted to live.

…

Time continued to pass, and not long after, the smoke pillar disappeared.

Zayn came to his senses and realized they had switched control.

Darkness crept in from the edges of his eyes, threatening to devour him whole. He knew that once this darkness consumed him would be passed out for hours.

This made him desperate as Zayn slammed his palm against the ground.

The raw sting of impact cut through the haze, snapping him back to reality.

He clenched his jaw and dragged his trembling body toward one of the special tier-2 food boxes lying 2 feet away from him.

It was just that even this small distance looked too much in his current situation. Every movement felt as if chains of weakness were attaching to him, trying to pull him back to the darkness.

Zayn struggles to move his limbs.

When his fingers finally scraped the box, he pulled it close with a growl and tore it open.

Without hesitation, he began cramming the stuff into his mouth, chewing until his jaw ached.

The food's essence ignited inside him like a flood of liquid fire. Heat spread through his chest, his muscles, even his bones, chasing away the numbness and exhaustion.

It was like downing the strongest energy draught in existence.

But he hadn't even finished half the portion when his body rebelled.

A scorching sensation rippled across his skin, followed by a violent burn in his veins as if his blood had been replaced by molten metal.

He gasped, clenching his teeth, and he pulled up the second hex art.

Wasting no moment, he ripped it in half.

Once again, the white rune lines all over the metal hall started to pulsate as smoke pillars covered him.

This madness of coming out, eating, and then going back to the projection place continued.

On the second cycle, Xane started bleeding from his nose, but not caring about that, he rushed to the third cycle.

At the end of the third cycle, blood even started seeping out of his ears, yet Zayn pushed them into the fourth cycle.

By the end of the fourth cycle, Xane started bleeding from his mouth. He still stuffed food down his throat while blood continued to seep out of his pores.

By the fifth cycle, their blood had become so thin that they started sweating blood.

While this madness continued outside, inside the projection place, another madness was going on.

Every time Xane and Zayn entered the projection plane, both split up.

While Zayn's projection disappeared into the darkness, Xane's projection started to multiply.

By the third cycle, they had already succeeded in finding the very first high dark-gold grade world.

In the fourth cycle, both of them managed to find multiple dark gold, but it was like they had hit some sort of limit.

No matter where they looked, they still failed to find anything beyond. In the fifth cycle, they finally decided to combine, and this time, not only did the big soul ball start to multiply in number, but the newly formed projection also started to disperse into the darkness.

Once Zayn and Xane combined their efficiency, they finally started to find a super-massive Adamant purity chaos world.

The bad thing was that even those worlds were pale compared to the purity of their soul ball.

As in madness, they continued to rage on there until both Zayn and Xane froze, as they felt this massive suction from the unknown darkness.