The Cursed Extra: Twin Souls Against the World

Inside the projection plane during the 5th cycle.

Zayn and Xane suddenly froze as they looked at the empty darkness above their soul projections.

What was strange was that this was the first time since they had come to the projection plane that they had come across a scene where there was no dot in one part of the space.

No matter how hard Zayn and Xane tried, they failed to see even a single colored dot.

Xane asked, full of confusion. <Did we reach the end of the projection plane or something?>

Zayn just closed off his senses as he once again started merging with the surrounding void.

This not only increased his ability to travel around fast but also made him ultra-sensitive toward the forces from the surrounding worlds.

It was this ability, combined with Xane's multiplication, that allowed them to almost scan everything around them in the projection plane.

After a long time, Zayn came out of the void and said in confusion, [It's strange that I could feel a very faint pull from the empty direction. Hey, combine all the clones.]

Xane wasted no time as he called out all the clones.

Soon, thousands of faint dark grey balls scattered throughout the projection plane rushed to the original direction.

What was bizarre about these clones was that all of them had ethereal bodies that could pass through any world.

It was as if these copies were nothing but illusions. But each of them still retained the ability to sense the pull from the grey world.

Zayn truly found them bizarre, but it was this, combined with the sensitivity of void merging, that allowed them to look at all the hidden worlds behind other worlds.

Not long after, Zayn saw hundreds of faint clones all standing next to him.

With all of their clones gathered, one after another, all of them merged with the void.

Not long after, Zayn once again reappeared and said with certainty. [There's definitely a pulling force hidden in the darkness.]

Xane looked at the empty projection plane with interest.

First, it was already bizarre as to why this area was empty, but then a pulling force from a world beyond the range of their sight was another thing entirely.

It wasn't like they hadn't felt hidden worlds before. It was just that in those cases, those worlds were still within the range of their observation, only hidden behind other obstacles.

But now, with no obstacle in front of them hiding anything, it truly meant that whatever was pulling them was out of their observation range.

Both Zayn and Xane grew quiet, as this was the first time for them.

Even with the top-quality Adamant worlds, they could still see faint dots within their observation space.

Anything beyond that, and even the adamant world's pulling force won't reach them.

It hit them both that this had to be something greater than an Adamant-level world.

Not wasting any time, both of them started to move toward the emptiness, but no matter how far they traveled, they still saw nothing.

Even on the other side, they felt the pull from the dots behind them already starting to weaken.

They were already moving far beyond the range of most of the smaller worlds' range of pulls and pushes.

As they continued in the direction, even the last bit of the surrounding push vanished.

Just then, to Zayn's shock, the pulling force from the darkness increased almost tenfold, and it continued to grow.

It was like some kind of black hole was sucking them in.

Not long after, Zayn finally spotted a faint grey dot in the distant sky.

It was just that he was moving at such a fast speed that in vision the dot looked blurred.

The blur continued to grow until it became massive.

Not long after, all he saw before him was a giant dark grey plain expanding endlessly.

The projection of this world was so massive that he could not even see the round shape.

What shocked Zayn even more was that this world was actually a shade bit darker than his soul projection.

Zayn cursed as he knew if he were to make a connection with such a world, there was a chance his plan would actually backfire in reverse.

He could not imagine that something like that was also possible.

Zayn tried to stop, but to his shock, he realized he had lost control over the soul projection.

What was even stranger was that, for some reason, Xane wasn't saying or doing anything either.

Zayn checked his body only to realize they were moving at such a fast speed that he hadn't noticed when, but his soul projection had changed into a long, thin stick.

He could still feel that Xane was connected to him, but in this strange state, he could not sense any of his thoughts.

Zayn panicked and thought of using different ways to exhaust all his mental energy.

But just as he thought of that, the pressure on him suddenly spiked a thousandfold.

Before he could understand anything, he felt a tremendous impact.

The very next moment, he blacked out.

…

At the same time, inside the rune hall, the smoke pillar was operating normally when suddenly a wisp of grey fog started appearing within the smoke.

The grey fog, like drops of ink in water, tainted the inner pillar until the smoke pillar itself turned into grey mist.

Not only that, but even the white rune lines suddenly started changing to grey.

It was as if some ancient beast had begun to awaken within the rune circle.

Things seemed normal for a second, when suddenly an intense pressure rushed out of Xane's body.

So much so that the metal plates beneath Xane's feet started bending downward.

But those plates had barely sunk a few centimeters when time seemed to stop.

In the next moment, it was like someone had rewound time, and all the pressure rushed back into Xane's floating body.

Even the grey element absorbed by the rune started flowing back. Soon, everything returned to how it had been, as if nothing had happened.

The only remaining evidence of what occurred was the few metal plates that had sunk a centimeter deeper into the ground.

Then, the smoke fog burst apart, and Xane, who was still covered in his own blood, appeared, floating a few inches above the ground.

There was a thin layer of gray energy encapsulating all around him. The thick layers of gray energy started pulsating in a rhythm, all while Xane continued to float with no consciousness.

With a snap, the grey energy rushed into Xane's body. It symbolized that he had finally succeeded in leaving his mark on the unknown world.

Not long after, Xane opened his eyes and looked toward the platform.

But before he could say anything, darkness enveloped him, and he collapsed onto the circle, losing his consciousness.

…

After a long time, Xane opened his eyes in confusion.

He looked around and realized he had fainted inside the rune circle.

Not only that, he even saw a massive amount of his blood splattered across the platform.

Afraid that this might lead to his death from blood loss, he struggled to push himself up.

But to his surprise, he felt no discomfort at all.

Just then, he heard Zayn's groggy voice in his head. [Ah, what happened?]

Xane recalled the last bizarre feeling of them slamming into something and said in an uncertain tone. <It looks like we have formed a link to that bizarre world.>

The moment Xane mentioned that, Zayn snapped back to alertness as he scanned the surroundings.

But to his surprise, except for the excessive blood around him, he sensed nothing else. [Ah, it's weird. After looking at that Soren guy, I always thought our link formation would be more explosive.]

Xane mentally nodded his head, as even he was confused. But more than that, he was concerned about his current condition.

He moved his frail hands around.

Zayn noticed this movement and asked in confusion. [Wait, how come we're not on the verge of death?]

Xane rubbed the sticky, dried-up blood from his hand and then stood up.

It was only then that he realized that, even though he still felt a slight heaviness from the aftereffects of recovery, other than that, there were no wounds left on his body.

As he continued to rub off the dried blood covering him, he said in realization to Zayn. <You know, that food actually thinned our blood. I think the energy from forming the mark countered the side effects of that special food.>

As Zayn thought about the special food, even he gulped. [Damn, I never knew that thing was so dangerous.]

<Yeah, I think Miss Luna must have also used some other method to help Liam counter the side effects.>

Zayn thought for a bit, as he didn't remember anything like that being mentioned in the novel. Was it something hinted at in the novel at some later time?

As he thought for a long time, a possibility emerged in his mind. [Wait, Xane, I think Liam's connection with the cursed Land of Order might come into play here!]

Xane paused his self-cleaning a bit, then shrugged his shoulders. <It could be, but I think it's better if we don't try these random methods in the future. Who knows what might lead to our death?>

Zayn sighed, [I understand.]

Then he looked at Xane, removing the clot of dried blood. As he saw the massive amount of blood, he reminded Xane. [Xane, it's better not to leave so much blood here. I don't want it to be used in some messed-up experiment.]

Xane looked around, then at the now-empty food box, and nodded his head.

After cleaning himself a bit, he started scraping the blood layer off the metal floor and placing it back into the boxes.