The Manaless Extra (A Progression Fantasy Story)

Volume 03, Chapter 123
Guzman vs Dominic [5]

Dominic lies on the cracked stones of the plaza, his entire body shaking with pain. Dark veins spread quickly across his skin, each second letting the corruption seep deeper.

"Ugh—gah!" he gasps, struggling to breathe, his voice hoarse and desperate.

Guzman stands over him, outlined by the fading smoke of plague magic. His eyes are hidden in shadow, making it impossible to tell what he is thinking.

"It's useless to resist," Guzman says, his tone flat, almost weary. "Pandemic Genesis isn't just a spell. It's a curse I perfected—one hundred percent lethal. Even [SS] ranked Magicians couldn't survive it. There's no one left who can save you."

He kneels beside Dominic, then grabs him by the throat and drags him upright, forcing Dominic to meet his eyes.

"You, of all people—a Manaless with more support than I ever had. My biological father hated me. My mother died. Do you know what it's like to be born with magic and never know a moment of love?" Guzman's voice breaks, bitterness and sorrow wrestling for dominance.

"Gah… ngh—!" Dominic struggles in his grip, vision blurring with pain and tears.

Guzman presses on, his voice trembling. "The only time I ever felt like I mattered was with my uncle, running his mafia. And now that's gone. Torn away because Umbrascourge wants you and Célestin dead."

But Dominic cannot process the words. His mind is drowning in pain, his soul fraying at the edges.

Suddenly, a huge wave of Mana surges through the square.

Guzman flinches, instantly alert. He hurls Dominic aside and leaps away just as a dark beam blasts down from above, scorching the ground where he had just been.

He looks up, his eyes widening.

Another Dominic—a clone, shrouded in black wings—hovers above, outside the reach of the deadly mist.

"Another Dominic, huh…" Guzman mutters, wariness creeping into his voice.

The clone sweeps his arms wide, gathering Mana. Dark winds howl in his palms.

"Umbra Wind Blast!"

A tornado of shadow surges forward, tearing at the black plague mist and forcing it back. For a moment, the air clears.

"You'll pay for what you did to the Original!" the clone yells, barreling toward Guzman.

He gathers a torrent of Mana in his palm, forming a crackling dark orb. He points it straight at Guzman.

Guzman's gaze narrows, his lips curling into a grim smirk. "Trying to finish me with a point-blank Dark Beam? Not bad. But you don't know the full extent of my abilities."

He thrusts out his hand, and the black mist abruptly stops retreating. Then, with a sickening swirl, it coils back, racing toward the airborne clone.

The clone's eyes widen in alarm. He beats his wings hard, spiraling upward to escape, but the mist follows, snaking after him like a living shadow.

On the ground, the Original Dominic barely clings to consciousness. His vision is a haze of color and pain, but through the blur, he sees his clone darting through the sky, hunted by the very mist he had conjured.

'Is this… it? Am I going to die here? I failed. I can't even avenge Celine… Mum…'

Through the pain, Dominic barely registers the System's words. 'A new attribute? How…?'

But another wave of agony crashes over him, tearing at his very soul. He feels himself slipping, his spirit dissolving, his grip on life fraying thread by thread. Each heartbeat grows fainter, his memories leaking away into the darkness.

'I'm… losing myself… Even my soul can't fight this.'

"AH!"

A distant, familiar scream pierces his fugue.

He strains to focus, just in time to see his clone plummet from the sky, skin blackening as the plague overtakes him. The clone shatters into black smoke, erased, as if he had never existed.

'This… this is the end…' Dominic realizes, despair pressing in. 'But if I die… I'll bring him down with me. Sorry, Dominic… I couldn't keep my promise…'

Wracked by agony, Dominic's mind seizes on a single, desperate idea. If this is his end, he will ensure it is a cataclysmic one.

Through the haze of pain, he forces himself upright, every muscle screaming, vision swimming. He closes his eyes, pushing his will inward, gathering every shred of Mana remaining in his fractured soul, Umbran darkness swirling with the new, crackling surge of lightning deep inside him.

'A spell for pure destruction… One last miracle. The ultimate convergence: darkness and lightning, twin storms. If I compress all of it, every ounce of Mana, every fragment of my soul… maybe I can annihilate everything in a single, unstoppable burst…'

His hands shake as he draws in power, the air around him trembling and sparking with unstable arcs of black lightning. Shadows billow, converging at his heart, swirling faster, growing denser and more furious with every second.

Guzman, halfway through the ruined plaza, feels the shift in the world itself. The pressure hits him first, like standing before a storm about to break the sky. He looks back, eyes wide, suddenly aware that the tables have turned.

'He's… going to unleash everything…'

He turns and runs, boots pounding broken stone, but he knows, instinctively, deeply, that there will be no escape.

Through blurred vision, Dominic watches Guzman's silhouette fleeing, a phantom in the burning gloom.

"You're… not getting away," he rasps, voice thick with blood and vengeance.

He raises both trembling arms, unleashing all the Mana he has gathered, the spell burning into his mind, raw, untested, explosive.

With the last of his strength, he roars: "UMBRA LIGHTNING MAGICAL FLARE!"

The world splits open.

A pillar of darkness and lightning erupts from Dominic's body, lancing skyward, then detonating outward in a ring of annihilation. Dark lightning tears through the plaza, vaporizing stone, shattering the night, and swallowing Guzman in a blinding inferno of shadow and electricity.

Guzman feels the surge catch him, a force so absolute it freezes even thought. For one fleeting instant, as his body begins to dissolve in the storm, he is somewhere else.

He sees his uncle, stern and silent, yet proud. He sees the loyal mafia members, their faces shadowed by time, and Jelena's small, earnest smile.

"Uncle… guys… did I do well?" he whispers, his voice lost in the roar. "Did I deserve to lead, even if some died… even if some became monsters?"

The vision shifts, and Jelena's face hovers in his mind. Confusion tangles with sorrow.

'Why am I so conflicted over her? So many have died by my hand, but her… why does her fate hurt most?'

And then the truth blooms in the final moments of his soul, simple, human, piercing.

"Ah… was it because… you were kind to me? You called me handsome, not out of fear, but genuine warmth. Outside of my uncle and the mafia… you saw me."

He manages a faint, almost boyish smile. "That's… pretty shallow, isn't it? I thought my reason would be deeper. But… kindness is enough."

The storm consumes him, body and soul burning away to ash, scattered on the winds of Dominic's final, furious spell.

And with that, the nightmare ends, one leader, one legacy, lost to the darkness.

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High above the world, the five Dominic clones struggle to lift a colossal dark sphere packed with deadly poison gas, pushing it higher and higher toward the sky.

"Ugh! Why are we not in outer space yet?" one clone groans, sweat beading on his brow.

"First of all, maintaining the integrity of this sphere takes constant focus. If we rush and lose control, the gas could leak and rain death all over Sylvestria. Secondly," another clone replies, his tone sharp with exasperation, "you seem to forget that Sylvestria is massive—a planet the size of Jupiter. It takes a lot longer to leave the atmosphere than it would on Earth."

"Tch! Whatever, nerd."

"We're clones of the same original. You just insulted yourself, genius," the other retorts.

"Ugh, shut the hel—"

"Both of you, shut up!" snaps a third, cutting through the bickering.

The first two sulk, exchanging half-hearted glares, their exasperation only making their similarity more apparent.

But suddenly, all their irritation vanishes.

A tidal wave of Mana explodes from the world below, a force so immense it makes their hair stand on end. Instinctively, all five Dominics glance down, eyes wide.

A massive pillar of darkness and lightning shoots upward from the earth, a cataclysmic blast tearing sky from land.

"WHAT THE—?!"

There is no time to react. The magical explosion roars toward them, engulfing the five clones in a cascade of dark lightning. They vanish, consumed in a heartbeat, sphere, clones, and all obliterated by the power of Dominic's final spell.

The beam does not stop. It surges upward, punching through the atmosphere, trailing black thunderbolts until it finally pierces the boundary of Sylvestria itself, vanishing into the cold silence of space.

Below, the world trembles. Above, nothing remains but the fading echoes of destruction and the memory of five clones, gone in a flash, having carried their burden as high as they could.