Extra's Perfect Ending

Chapter 115: The lord’s stirke

It was hard for Reeva to find a grip on the door; the bottom was too smooth. On the other hand, the archway was decorated with patterns perfect for climbing.

"If death isn’t a problem here, does that mean Sir Raphael is still alive in that state?" Reeva asked while climbing up the side of the castle door. It had just dawned on him that if he couldn’t die in this place, then surely one of the guardians couldn’t either. But from what he had seen, the skeleton looked pretty dead.

"That…" Hommka paused, looking shocked by Reeva’s question. "…I’m truly ignorant, great one..."

Reeva couldn’t see Hommka, but he could sense the one-eyed man’s shame; he didn’t know most of the answers to Reeva’s questions.

"However," Hommka continued, "this lowly one knows that the Creed of Death has always been removed from this place. In ancient times, it was used to denote whether a place could cause death or not. The Creed stops creatures from truly dying."

"The Creed of Death? It stops you from dying?"

"Not just that. It removes the concept of death altogether, making people less likely to kill and be killed," Hommka explained.

"…Wait, then how did you know about it?" Reeva asked, furrowing his brow.

"In the later years of Heaven, before it fell to this state, there was a plague that could kill souls," Hommka replied. "We panicked and didn’t know what to do since we were unfamiliar with such an event. Later, the god decreed that the concept should be instilled and spread around to prevent the plague’s spread."

"What did the plague even do? How did it bypass the Creed of Death?" Reeva asked, still confused. If the concept of death was prohibited, it shouldn’t have been possible to die at all.

"It did… I don’t know how, but the plague did kill people…" Hommka murmured.

"How did it kill people exactly?" Reeva pressed, still suspecting that they had found some way around the Creed.

"It was a horrific sight, great one," Hommka replied, his voice trembling. "Nothing like I’ve ever seen before. My people melted into unidentifiable pools of flesh. They couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. They lost themselves completely. If that’s not death, I don’t know what is."

"…"

That doesn’t sound like death… it’s worse

Reeva couldn’t help but think that what Hommka described was more like the plague transforming its victims in some horrific way. But for someone who didn’t understand the concept of death, it must have seemed like it.

And Reeva could see why. Those people weren’t themselves anymore. In a way, that could be considered death, just not in the organic sense. He decided not to challenge Hommka’s belief—it would only cause further shock, and he didn’t have the means to explain or convince him otherwise.

Eventually, Reeva reached a sufficient height. He noticed some carvings higher up on the door, but they were too high to reach directly. His plan was to jump from the archway and grab onto the carvings.

Looking down, he saw that the door’s carvings were less sophisticated than those on the archway, almost as if they were hastily completed at the top and left unfinished elsewhere.

"Great one, are you sure about this?" Hommka asked, concern in his voice.

"We can’t die here anyway, so we might as well try, right?" Reeva replied.

"…" Hommka didn’t argue further, but doubt lingered in his mind. The state of this place, Raphael stuck in that state, and the absence of anyone else—all pointed to the unsettling possibility that the Creed of Death might be in effect.

Yet, he still believed in the might of god. If Sir Raphael was still moving, even in his skeletal state, perhaps there was some sign that the Creed of Death was absolute, right?

Hommka wouldn’t know. And even if he did, he was in no position to do anything about it. A soup monster had long eaten his body. His fate was now in the hands of the great one.

Reeva took one last look around, breathing in the crisp air from his elevated position, and then made his move.

The scale of the castle was much grander than anywhere he had ever been. As his body flew across the gap, it didn’t seem like much from a distance. But in reality, he had managed to reach the carving on the door.

His hand grasped the white carving, and he pulled himself up. Finally, he had a vantage point from which he could see parts of the city, as gray and dead as he had imagined.

Reeva carefully walked along the carving, with Hommack’s head stuffed inside his clothes to free both his hands for climbing. He moved slowly, trying to find the perfect spot near what he thought was a door knob. At least, that’s what he assumed it was since he couldn’t see the details from afar.

"Be ready," Reeva warned the head, preparing himself.

He spread his coldness throughout his body, channeling it into the yellow circle. Instantly, mystic power was released. Reeva struggled to keep it under control but knew he couldn’t hold it for long. He needed Sir Raphael to come quickly.

The skeleton guardian answered his call. A loud footstep echoed from afar like a mountain sliding with every step. This time, however, Raphael didn’t just walk—he sprinted. He crossed the vast distance in under a minute, a distance that would have taken Reeva weeks to traverse.

Raphael’s skeletal form arrived at the door. The guardian’s sword pulled back into a striking stance and, in a split second, lunged forward like a snake snapping at its prey. His precision was impressive, striking accurately at Reeva, who was much smaller.

At the last second, Reeva dodged the attack. He had anticipated the strike and begun to move even before the attack came.

The sword struck the door hard, producing a deafening sound of metal against the marble. At that moment, the massive door swung wide open.

Reeva caught a glimpse inside and, in an instant, understood why there was a door there. His body was instantly vaporized.