Aetheric Chronicles: Reborn As An Extra

The black eye hanging in the dissolving form of Evangeline's body pulsed once, then began to change. Darkness gathered around it like smoke being pulled into a vortex, condensing into massive, bat-like wings that unfurled with an ancient malevolence.

Each membrane stretched wider than a house, blocking what little light remained in the ruined domain. The darkness wasn't just absence of light—it was something alive, something hungry, something that had waited eons for this moment.

Kalin's presence rose above the carnage, those terrible wings beating slowly as it savored its handiwork. Each movement sent ripples through the air, distorting the very fabric of reality.

The eye swept across the field of broken bodies, drinking in the destruction with palpable satisfaction. Its gaze lingered on each fallen form, each shattered barrier, each final expression of defiance or terror. Then, like ink dispersing in water, everything faded to black.

"..."

Adrian blinked.

Reality crashed back into focus with nauseating suddenness. The transition was jarring, like being yanked from the depths of a nightmare into waking life—except the nightmare had followed him back.

His vision swam, struggling to reconcile the present with the horror he'd just witnessed. The others still stood around him—alive, whole, untouched. Ceil's stance remained ready, her blade catching what little light remained.

Elara's fingers still sparked with power, tiny arcs of aether dancing between her digits. Lloyd's shadows coiled restlessly at his feet, writhing like agitated serpents in the growing darkness.

But Adrian couldn't hear them. Nor the sound of the ongoing battle. Nothing.

His ears refused to process sound, as if his mind was still trapped between vision and reality. The silence was absolute, pressing against his eardrums like a physical weight. Cold sweat trickled down his spine as his eyes fixed on Evangeline's possessed form. The black eye stared back, and in its depths, Adrian saw knowledge—saw purpose. Saw the end of everything.

His hands began to tremble.

'No.'

'No way.'

The thought struck him like a physical blow as pieces clicked into place with terrible clarity. His mind raced, connecting fragments of lore he'd studied, tactical patterns he'd analyzed in battles, and the gory scenes he read in the novel that suddenly made horrifying sense. Each piece of knowledge felt like a burning coal in his mind, searing together into an unavoidable conclusion.

'The vision.'

'The deaths.'

'The void that consumed everything.'

Adrian's legs nearly buckled as understanding thundered through him. His face, already pale from the vision, drained of its remaining color until he looked like a corpse still walking.

The trembling in his hands spread until his whole body shook with the force of his realization. His enhanced senses, usually a blessing, became a curse as they picked up every subtle wrongness in the air around them.

"Domain Explosion." The words left his mouth on their own, each syllable falling like lead into the unnatural silence.

The term surfaced in his mind like a demon clawing its way from the depths of forbidden knowledge. It wasn't just a theory scrawled in ancient warnings. It wasn't just a forbidden technique whispered about in dark corners. It was an apocalypse in waiting, and Kalin—Kalin was just about to do that.

Adrian's breath came in short, sharp gasps as his thoughts spiraled out of control. The vision hadn't been a threat. It hadn't been meant to frighten or intimidate. It had been a preview.

A promise.

Even now, he could feel the wrongness building in the air around them, the same distortion that had preceded the devastation in his vision. Reality itself seemed to shiver, like a reflection in water moments before the surface shattered.

His mind fractured into parallel tracks of panic, each thought cutting deeper than the last:

'Have to warn them—'

'Can't let it happen—'

'No time—'

'Everyone dies—'

'Can't stop it—'

'My fault—'

'Should have seen—'

'Too late—'

'Why here—'

'Why now—'

'How many will die—'

'Can't save them—'

'Not again—'

'Not like this—'

A hysterical laugh threatened to bubble up from his chest as the full implications hammered home. The vision hadn't been meant to frighten him. It had been meant to paralyze him. To ensure that when the moment came, he would understand exactly what was about to happen—and know there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Not even those three.

_____ __ _

"Domain Explosion."

The words had barely left Adrian's lips when he caught the change in Lloyd's posture. Even from across the battlefield, he saw the shadow wielder's entire body go rigid, his shadows freezing mid-motion like black ice.

The darkness around Lloyd crystallized, losing its fluid grace, becoming sharp and jagged with fear. Besides him, Elara's hands dropped to her sides, the sparks at her fingertips dying instantly, as if even her power recognized the futility of resistance.

Their eyes met his across the distance.

In that moment of shared recognition, Adrian saw his own horror reflected in their faces. Lloyd's usually stoic expression cracked, revealing something raw and primal beneath the carefully maintained mask of control.

Elara's face drained of color, her lips parting in silent denial even as understanding blazed in her eyes. The reality of their situation hit them like a physical blow.

They knew.

Of course they knew.

Every high-tier Awakener learned of Domain Explosion—the ultimate taboo, the final sacrifice. The complete annihilation of everything within a Domain's boundaries, reducing all to less than ash, less than memory.

A technique that demanded the ultimate price: the user's own existence, scattered like stardust in an infinite void. It was the kind of knowledge that changed you, that haunted your dreams, that made you look at every Domain user differently, wondering if they might one day...

Domain was a power that only Solar Tier Awakeners could wield. Or in the rarest cases, those who had reached the peak of Stellar.

Domain Explosion's sheer energy would tear apart anything less, would shred a lesser being before they could even begin the process.

So, one could only imagine the destruction it would cause when properly executed.

The wrongness in the air thickened, reality beginning to ripple like heat waves rising from summer ground. The same distortion that had preceded the devastation in his vision now pulsed around them, each wave stronger than the last. The very air seemed to cry out in protest as its fundamental nature was twisted and warped.

The black eye gleamed with terrible satisfaction.

Adrian's mind raced through calculations he wished he couldn't make. The Domain's boundaries stretched far beyond what he could see, encompassing more area than he dared to contemplate.

How many people were still inside?

How many people would be caught up in this?

His thoughts splintered against numbers too large to comprehend, against consequences too vast to accept. Each possibility, each potential death, felt like a knife in his mind.

His enhanced senses screamed warnings at him, picking up distortions that shouldn't exist in any reality. The very fabric of space seemed to hiccup, small sections freezing while others accelerated randomly.

Time itself began to break down in patches, creating pockets where movement became impossible or accelerated to blur. The air tasted like metal and ozone, charged with an energy that set his teeth on edge and made his bones vibrate with warning.

He watched Lloyd's shadows writhe with newfound urgency, saw Elara's stance shift toward the caster. They'd start moving any second now, rushing to Kalin. But what could they do?

What could anyone do against something that erased existence itself? Even their considerable power would be nothing against this—like trying to stop an ocean with bare hands.

The black eye's satisfaction morphed into something darker—anticipation. It had waited for this moment, planned for it, orchestrated every event leading to this point. And now, finally, it would have what it wanted.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

A sound like cracking glass filled the air, but it wasn't glass breaking. It was reality itself beginning to fracture. The sound resonated at a frequency that made Adrian's soul want to flee his body, a sound that shouldn't exist in any sane universe.

They were out of time.