The Extra's Rise

The beast charged, tearing through the undergrowth with the force of a living storm. It was fast, faster than anything its size had any right to be, its muscles rippling with raw power as it lunged straight for me.

I didn't move.

Not out of hesitation, but because I knew—I knew—this was a fight that would be decided in a single moment.

My fingers tightened around my sword's hilt. I inhaled sharply, mana flooding into my body, but instead of channeling it into aura like a swordsman normally would, I did something different.

I used the circle method.

It was an idea I had toyed with but never tested in practice. Something that didn't exist in the novel, something that Lucifer himself had never developed in this world.

But I had seen it in action before.

God Flash.

It was Lucifer's technique in the novel, a movement so fast it became instantaneous, a blade strike so precise it split reality itself.

But in this world, Lucifer hadn't created it yet.

So I would do it first.

I formed four circles in my mind, stacking them within seconds. Lightning mana surged, wrapping around my blade, crackling with the force of barely contained destruction.

This wasn't aura enhancement.

This was pure spellcasting, condensed and refined to a single point—my sword.

The beast lunged.

I stepped forward.

And cut.

Lightning howled as my blade flashed through the air, splitting space in an arc of white-hot energy. For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the beast collapsed, its body splitting cleanly down the middle, the edges of its wound burnt black from the sheer heat of the strike.

A clean, perfect kill.

I exhaled slowly, lowering my sword as the final remnants of lightning flickered and died.

That was it.

That was the kind of strength I needed.

Not just survival. Not just slow improvement. Something greater. Something undeniable.

I glanced at my bracelet. It would have logged the kill, assigning me points, but suddenly, points didn't matter anymore.

I had come here thinking about strategy, about staying ahead, about playing this like a game where every move counted toward my rank.

But I didn't care about rankings.

I cared about getting stronger.

And the fastest way to do that wasn't building a camp or rationing food like a careful survivor.

It was throwing myself into the fire and forging myself into something better.

I sheathed my sword and turned away from the clearing, leaving my would-be camp behind.

No supplies. No safety.

Just me, my blade, and whatever the island had to throw at me.

Let's see how far I could push myself.

The island became my battlefield.

There was no hesitation, no half-measures, no safety nets. Every step I took led me deeper into danger, every breath drawn in the humid air filled with the scent of blood and the electric charge of mana-rich surroundings.

I hunted relentlessly.

Not for points. Not for survival. For strength.

The first beast had been a warm-up. A test of my limits. But now, I wasn't just testing—I was tearing through them.

A mana-infused panther leapt at me from the undergrowth, its movements too fast for an ordinary eye to track, its fur shimmering with protective enchantments.

I moved faster.

My sword flashed once, a white-hot arc of lightning-infused steel cutting through the air.

God Flash.

The panther didn't even have time to react. One second it was alive, the next it was two halves collapsing into the dirt, its enchanted fur split as if it had never been protected in the first place.

I didn't stop to catch my breath.

Another came. Then another.

A boar with steel-plated tusks, charging through the trees like a battering ram. I dodged at the last second, spinning on my heel, sword raised—Tempest Dance Technique in motion.

The boar's momentum made it impossible for it to shift direction fast enough.

I took one step. Then another. Each movement compounded my aura's strength, layering the energy on my blade.

By the time I swung, the pressure in my strike had doubled, and the air itself cracked apart as I bisected the boar cleanly down the middle.

My breathing was heavy now, but not from exhaustion.

I was adapting.

Every fight, every kill, my body responded.

My reflexes sharpened.

My footwork grew more precise.

I could feel it—the way the Tempest Dance Technique was finally clicking into place, no longer something I was just following mechanically, but something that was becoming an extension of me.

God Flash, too.

It had been instinct the first time I used it. A desperate attempt to recreate something I had only read about. But now—now, I was refining it.

A pack of wolf-like creatures surrounded me, their bodies radiating low-level mana fields, their golden eyes flickering with hunger.

One moved.

Then all of them moved.

Too fast to block. Too many to dodge.

I didn't bother dodging.

I stepped forward, sword sheathed.

They lunged.

I drew.

Lightning exploded outward as my blade flashed through the air, cutting not just through the wolves, but through the very space they occupied.

The moment they landed, their bodies collapsed in a single motion, silent, blood spraying into the dirt as they died before they even realized it.

God Flash had become sharper.

Faster.

More lethal.

I rolled my shoulders, my breathing steady despite the carnage around me.

I wasn't just hunting now.

I was ascending.

My mana rank hadn't increased, but my relative strength had skyrocketed.

My body was learning.

My instincts were refining.

I was getting stronger.

And I wasn't done yet.

The island still had more to throw at me.

And I was ready for it.

The mana crackling at my fingertips responded before I even had to think, no longer an unruly force but something tamed, something willing. My sword moved like an extension of my body, cutting through the thick, humid air with the fluidity of wind and the bite of lightning.

Three days in this untamed jungle, and I had changed.

The hesitation I had carried into this trial, that careful wariness of the unknown, had burned away, replaced by something colder, sharper, more instinctive. My spatial ring was already filled with trophies of the fallen—razor-edged spider fangs, iridescent viper scales, the jagged tusks of a boarhound that had been foolish enough to charge at me. They glowed faintly under the starlight, each one a testament to something I had survived, something I had conquered.

I leaned against a moss-covered tree, my body sore but unwilling to rest, staring up at the sky through the gaps in the thick canopy. The stars stretched out in endless constellations, each one a pinprick of light in a world that had never known pollution, never known the dull haze of artificial filth.

'I have changed.'

My hands were steadier, my eyes colder, my steps lighter, quieter, more efficient. Where before I had hesitated, now I moved without thought, each battle another lesson in survival, each hunt another refinement of my instincts.

The jungle whispered secrets in its own language, and I had learned to listen.

Then—movement in the shadows.

My gaze snapped toward it, my body already shifting into a stance that was no longer merely learned technique, but something more visceral, more natural.

There, lurking in the depths of the undergrowth, its massive form barely visible in the shifting moonlight, was the Obsidian Behemoth.

A 5-star beast.

Its black hide gleamed faintly, the natural armor dense with mana, its glowing yellow eyes watching me with the same calculating intelligence I had begun to recognize in the stronger creatures of this island.

This wasn't some mindless predator acting on hunger.

This was something that had survived, that had killed, that had stood atop the food chain for long enough to know when it was looking at something dangerous.

It was deciding.

Sizing me up.

The old me might have waited. Might have hesitated. Might have thought, 'I need to be stronger first.'

But I wasn't waiting anymore.

I wasn't playing it safe.

I was going to kill a 5-star beast before I even reached high Silver-rank.

And I was going to do it now.