OLD-WORLD EXTRA

{Sword Of God}

It ended with a sword.

A massive, divine blade descending from the heavens, cleaving the Hanged Man's Tree in two.

The roots, twisted by suffering, the branches, sagging under the weight of countless nooses—split clean apart. The force of it sent a shockwave through the realm, a judgment, a final decree.

The loop was broken.

Lyra stood there, bloodied, exhausted, but victorious.

She had slain the prince.

Emir remained.

But there was no time to rest.

Because Emir wasn't there.

{Hope's Kingdom}

He went alone.

The others needed time to recover. Time to heal.

Time to piece themselves back together after what the tree had done to them.

But Emir—he didn't have that luxury.

So he walked. Through realms still fractured by the laws of the trial. Through the forgotten paths, the broken roads. Until finally, he arrived at a city untouched by corruption. A beacon in the darkness.

The Kingdom of Hope.

A place of sanctuary.

But there was no sanctuary for him.

Because hope was a word that didn't belong to the damned.

And Emir was about to learn just how much hope could be ripped away.

{Death}

The moment he returned, he knew something was wrong.

The air was too still. The camp, where laughter once rang, was silent.

Then he saw them.

Bodies.

His people.

Scattered like discarded dolls.

One by one, he searched. His boots dragged through the dirt, past collapsed tents, past blood-soaked ground. He opened a door—

And a woman slumped into his arms.

Her arms curled around a girl, smaller than her, shielding her even in death.

Ragnar was with them.

Dead.

Emir's breath came shallow, rapid. His hands trembled as he searched for the only name left in his mind.

Lyra.

Where was she?

She had to be alive.

She had to be—

He found her just as the Depraved raised its blade.

Emir lunged.

He fought.

And he lost.

His attacks did nothing.

Every strike was dismissed like it was weightless.

Every movement countered before it even began.

And then—the laughter.

Mocking. Taunting.

A voice that dripped with amusement as the spirit turned to Lyra.

It didn't kill her.

It played with her.

Took her apart piece by piece.

Her arms. Her legs. Her mechanical spine.

Every crack, every snap echoed in Emir's ears like thunder.

She never screamed.

Not once.

And when the Depraved was finally done, it tossed her aside like a broken toy.

It turned back to Emir. Stared at him. And smirked.

"You're lucky... I don't like to kill things twice."

Then it was gone.

And all that was left was Lyra.

Dying.

He crawled to her.

Dragged himself through blood and dirt until he could cradle her against his chest.

She smiled at him.

"I love you."

Lyra was gone.

{Judgment}

The world blurred.

Emir couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't move.

She was too heavy.

He tried. He tried so hard to lift her, to carry her back to the camp, to bury her with the others.

But as he staggered forward, something shifted.

The air grew thick.

The ground shook.

A shadow loomed over him.

He turned and saw it.

A Behemoth.

A monster of such strength that reality itself seemed to bend around it.

It stared at him, its gaze slow.

Then it spoke:

"You've failed her."

Emir blinked.

The weight of exhaustion pulled at him.

The world spun.

And then—

"...Sleep."

His vision went black.

His head rolled from his shoulders.

The mark—the only thing keeping him alive...

Vanished.

{A True Evil}

The thing that killed Lyra wasn't just a monster.

It was a spirit. A whisper in the dark. A nightmare that haunted the realm, passed down through terrified prayers.

The local boogeyman.

People spoke of him in riddles.

In half-truths. In warnings meant to keep children from wandering too far.

But Emir had seen him. Had faced him.

And now he knew.

He wasn't just a myth.

He was real.

And he was insane.

A maniac, spewing gibberish, rambling nonsense that twisted and turned in circles, always coming back to one thing—

The wisps.

The way he spoke of them, like they were the only thing that mattered, like they held some great, unspeakable truth.

But buried beneath his madness, his words carried weight.

They weren't just delusions. They meant something.

And then there was his power.

People thought he could only control bodies with blood.

That as long as you bled, he could twist you, break you, ruin you.

But that wasn't the truth.

The truth was far, far worse.

He didn't just control blood.

He controlled iron.

Like Alex. But deeper. So much deeper.

Deep enough that even a single drop of blood was all he needed.

And... everything made sense.

How he could twist Lyra apart. How he made her bones snap like twigs.

Because her blood was his puppet strings.

And now—Emir was next.

{The Stranger Of Wisps}

Emir led Lyra away from the TombGrounds, away from the rot and decay, away from the whispers of the dead that clung to the air like fog.

He took her to Crimson Lake—a lake that bubbled, not with water, but blood. Thick, sluggish, alive. The shore pulsed with an eerie rhythm, the scent of iron sharp enough to taste.

A single boat waited at the dock.

Small. Frail. Barely more than a driftwood coffin floating atop the red.

Emir stepped in first, offering his hand. Lyra took it without a word. He rowed them out, pushing further and further into the lake, until the land was nothing but a distant blur.

Silence stretched between them, the only sound the slow churning of the lake beneath them.

Then, Lyra finally asked.

"...What is this about?"

Emir didn't answer right away.

Instead, he let go of the paddles. Let the boat drift.

Then he knelt—one knee down—in front of her.

She stiffened.

Emir reached out, took her hand in his, measured her finger. His own fingers twitched, and a faint glow formed—a construct of pure Aether, a ring taking shape around her finger, soft silver light against her skin.

"It'll make do for now..."

Then, he looked up—

"Will you marry me… again?"

For the first time in his life, Emir blushed.

It was faint, just a dusting of color, but it was there.

Lyra didn't comment. She couldn't.

She just stared, her face frozen in absolute shock.

Then, slowly, she lowered herself.

Her lips pressed gently against his forehead.

She didn't say yes. Not yet. Instead, she started listing—her faults, her flaws, her regrets. Every mistake she had ever made. Every reason why she wasn't good enough.

And every time, Emir only had one answer.

"It's fine."

Again and again.

"It's fine."

"It's fine."

This content is taken from freeweɓnovel.cѳm.

"It's fine."

By the end, she was trembling. Her breath hitched, her fingers clenched.

Finally, she let the tears fall.

And when she spoke, her voice was barely a whisper.

"I'll kill myself if you leave me."

{Killing The Villain}

After the lake, after the proposal, after a little bit of... fun—they returned to camp.

The reunion was brief. There was no time for rest.

Emir gathered the group, standing before them with that same calculating gaze.

"This is how we kill him."

The plan was simple. Brutal. Absolute.

Everything had led to this moment. Every fight, every loop, every failure. It was time.

They prepared, moving in controlled silence. There was no room for error.

And then, Emir did something insane.

He emptied his body of blood. Completely.

He let every drop drain, his skin turning pale as death, his heart coming to a halt.

And then—he moved.

Aether. That was all he had left.

He used it to animate himself, forcing his heart to pump, spreading Aether through his veins like a false lifeblood. His lungs expanded and contracted through sheer force of will. His limbs, his muscles, his very bones—all guided by a power beyond flesh.

His body was a corpse.

But Emir refused to stop moving.

He wasn't flying metal poles like Alex. No, his Aether wasn't a weapon—it was a lifeline. A bridge between life and death, controlled to the last millimeter. Every movement precise. Every action deliberate.

An undead puppet, held together by his own willpower alone.

...They won.

Emir and Lyra had won.

{True Name}

After the fight, the rest was easy.

The Depraved were wiped out, slaughtered without mercy. The rest—the ones in the middle, the things that weren't quite monsters but weren't quite gods—they left them alone. Some things you just don't fight. Not at their Rank.

It was over.

The trial was over.

And so Emir stood before the Sultan of The Sands.

The weight of everything, every battle, every death, every step he'd taken to get here—it all led to this moment.

And the Sultan spoke.

"You are an Extra of The Old World…""You are Haydar's son…""You are Unbound, Unshackled, Untethered…""Just Limitless.""A Vagabond.""And Destiny's Bane.""A piece that disrupted the ruling of fate.""A bug in the universal game."

And then—

"I give you, the Prince of The Fallen, my blessing.""And Three Divine Sparks.""Do get excited about your path's true name."

☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅STARLESS⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽

Starless.

That word hit different. It wasn't just a title. It was him.

Think about the night sky—an endless void scattered with stars. Stars that guide. Stars that symbolize fate. Stars that show you exactly where you're meant to go.

But Emir?

He was Starless.

No guiding lights. No predetermined path. No cosmic hand leading him forward. His future wasn't written in the stars because he had stepped away from them entirely.

A night sky without stars wasn't lost.

It was free.

And yet… that's the paradox.

He was a star.

Born into the Eternal Star Clan. His people weren't just tied to fate—they were fate. A lineage of celestial order, of destiny's architects. Their existence alone was proof that the stars controlled all things.

And he rejected it.

A star that refused to shine. A cosmic glitch. A paradox in motion.

That's what made him dangerous.

To be a guiding light and yet refuse to guide? To be bound to destiny and still find a way to slip through its grip? That wasn't just rebellion—it was proof.

Proof that fate wasn't absolute.

That even the stars—the so-called eternal symbols of destiny—weren't unbreakable.

So what did that make him?

A contradiction?A mistake?A legend waiting to be written?

No one knew.

But that was the beauty of it.

Neither did he.

And for the first time in his bloodline's long, unbroken history—

He was truly free.

{End Of Volume 5: Forgotten Stranger In Lands of Wisps}