The Cursed Extra: Bloodline of Sacrifice-Chapter 164: Cracks Beneath the Surface

(POV: Caspian)

The ground was soaked in a thin film of monster blood, steam rising off the corpses in hazy waves.

Caspian stood in the center of the C-Rank portal, his coat tied around his waist, fists bloody and skin bruised.

Stonebacked tuskers lumbered through the jagged fields ahead, tusks coated with dry blood, their heavy footsteps muffled by thick moss. The terrain stretched unevenly, dotted with dying trees, mud pits, and broken monoliths.

Caspian didn't bother to read.

His knuckles were raw. He hadn't use Bloodmoon this time.

"Fighting with your fists again?" Fianna asked, walking slightly behind him.

'I need the points,' Caspian thought. 'thats why I took in mission of C rank'

Then a low growl rose from the side of a crumbling pillar.

A venomhound, jaw dislocated unnaturally, slithered low from the mist. Its fur was oil-slick and wet, eyes glowing faintly purple.

Caspian moved first.

The hound lunged, but Caspian ducked low, grabbed its front leg mid-pounce, and redirected the momentum into the earth.

The beast let out a gurgled yelp as its spine cracked.

Before it could recover, he stomped its head once—precise, clean.

"You know," Fianna said from a few steps back, "most people don't kill venomhounds barehanded. Their saliva corrodes metal."

"Then good thing I'm not using metal," Caspian said, shaking his hand to clear the blood.

Fianna crouched next to the corpse. "You didn't get any on you. Nice."

He nodded, and they walked again.

She broke the silence after a few minutes. "I've been meaning to ask…"

Caspian didn't stop walking. "Go ahead."

"I noticed your room was…. odd and your clothes were torn," fianna asked.

He paused.

Fianna didn't miss the way his jaw tightened.

"I already reported it to the disciplinary committee," Caspian said. "I assume they've taken action by now."

"You 'assume'?" she repeated, raising a brow. "You didn't follow up?"

"No," he said, flatly.

She blinked. "That's… pretty bleak, even for you."

"Realistic."

They continued walking. A few meters ahead, a pair of tuskers stood grazing near a crater.

Caspian slowed his pace, lowering his center of gravity as he prepared to sprint again.

Fianna stepped beside him. "Do you think it's someone from the upper classes? Who's been messing with your room, I mean?"

"I have a theory," Caspian said quietly, "but theories don't mean anything if I can't prove them. Until then, it's just noise."

She didn't press further, not yet. Instead, she extended her arm.

"Cover me. I want to test something with my fire pressure," she said.

He nodded, darting ahead with a sharp exhale.

Caspian drew the attention of the two tuskers deliberately. He clapped sharply, whistled, and even stomped once. It was crude, but effective. The beasts snorted and charged toward him with thunderous strides.

Fianna stood her ground, lowering into a practiced stance. Her fingers curled loosely as the heat swirled in the air. The grass around her sizzled. A faint, circular shimmer began to form under her feet.

Caspian dodged the first tusker and leapt onto its back, hammering his elbow into its thick neck, then twisting to land near its flank as the second came rushing in.

And then it hit him—not a tusker, but Fianna's voice, just slightly above the roar of her flame:

"Why don't you fight back?"

Caspian twisted to avoid a tusk to the ribs. "I am fighting."

"I mean against them," she clarified. "Whoever's harassing you."

Caspian ducked under the charging tusker and rammed his fist into its eye socket, finally bringing it down with a satisfying crash. His shoulders rose and fell as he caught his breath.

He looked back at her. She was still holding the circle of flame steady, waiting for an answer.

He sighed, wiping sweat from his brow.

"I've fought back before. All it earned me was suspicion, and a deduction of a thousand points. No one asked what happened first."

"And now?" she asked.

"I let the system work," he said. "Or I wait until I find a better angle."

Fianna extinguished the circle and walked toward him.

"Caspian…"

He met her eyes.

She wasn't angry. She wasn't pitying him either. Just… quietly frustrated. The kind of frustration that came from watching someone you care about willingly walk into a storm without asking for an umbrella.

"Maybe you think you're playing the long game," she said softly. "But letting yourself be chipped away, little by little… it adds up. I don't want to watch that happen."

Caspian looked at her, really looked, and for a moment, the usual weight behind his gaze lessened.

"I appreciate it," he said, almost inaudibly. "But some things, I have to do on my own."

She sighed, nodded slowly. "Alright. Then I'll make sure you're not completely on your own."

They stood in silence again, until the rift began to tremble—an alert that the monsters were cleared, and the portal was preparing to close.

Caspian adjusted the straps on his gloves and started walking toward the exit.

"You still didn't answer why you came," he said, not looking back.

"To train," Fianna replied with a small grin. "And to keep an eye on someone who thinks being strong means keeping everyone else at a distance."

Caspian exhaled, his chest rising slowly.

Fianna brushed her hair back, glanced toward the shimmering edge of the portal.

"That should be all of them," she said, her voice light, but her eyes still watching him.

"Yeah."

She waited, just long enough for him to say something more.

But Caspian stayed quiet.

Finally, she gave a soft nod. "Alright. I'll head out first. Don't stay too long."

He turned to her, gave a small, almost imperceptible nod.

"Got something to take care of."

Fianna hesitated for a second—just a second—but then stepped through the portal. Her figure shimmered and disappeared.

Silence returned.

Caspian knelt near the corpse of the venomhound, brushing away ash and dirt from the scorched ground beside it.

Around him lay the remains of his hunt—stonebacked tuskers with caved-in skulls, their thick hides marked by the impact of his fists.

"Evoke," he whispered.

A thin trail of light spiraled from the shard, crawling across the surface of the tusker's corpse like liquid thread. The runes lit up—soft, purple-blue—spreading outward in delicate, almost artistic patterns.

The tusker's body twitched.

Bones snapped back into place, though not with full life. A dull thud echoed through its limbs as something foreign settled inside it—him.

Another pulse.

He moved to the venomhound next. Its eyes were glassed over, but Caspian crouched low, almost respectfully.

"You were fast," he murmured. "Could've torn me apart."

Another shard. Another whisper. The same silent shimmer.

The summoned beasts stirred faintly now—half-alive, bound to him.