I'm an Extra, so What?

Three Days Later – On the Move

Luka and his group rode fast, following the flickers of memory and leyline tremors across the broken surface world.

Snow flew overhead, scanning the skies. Vaelrith thundered behind them, wings folded, massive as a moving cathedral.

They knew what to look for:

The final anchor was alive.

And it had only just begun to awaken.

Snow perched on Luka's shoulder, eyes narrowed.

"It's not just magical resonance. I'm tracking emotional bleed.""Fear. Loneliness. Sudden memory that doesn't belong to a child.""There's only one place near here that fits."

Gregor grunted. "Which?"

Snow turned his head.

"A village on the river's bend."

"Called Kellingroot."

Serene frowned. "That's barely more than a hamlet. Why hide something that important there?"

Luka answered without looking away from the road:

"Because no one ever checks the quiet places."

Kellingroot – Arrival at Dusk

Kellingroot was peaceful.

Too peaceful.

Fields of grain waved quietly in the wind. The river glistened gold in the setting sun. Children laughed near a wooden bridge. Smoke drifted lazily from chimneys.

Nothing seemed wrong.

Which is exactly what made Luka's skin crawl.

They dismounted near the local shrine, where an old man was feeding birds. He looked up, unconcerned by the approach of a glowing dragonling, a mech-dragon, and a woman with a holy shield.

"Evening," he said cheerfully.

Luka nodded. "Have there been… any strange occurrences?"

The man raised a brow. "Strange? We're farmers, lad. 'Strange' here is when a chicken goes missing."

Then a child's scream shattered the calm.

The Awakening

They sprinted toward the sound—toward a cottage on the river's edge. Villagers backed away in confusion and fear, staring at the roof.

A little girl stood atop it.

Eyes glowing.

Floating.

Not just hovering—levitating without effort, her hair billowing in unnatural wind. Around her, the air warped faintly, like a mirage.

Serene gasped. "She's a conduit!"

Snow's eyes widened. "No. Worse."

"She is the anchor."

The girl looked down at Luka.

Her voice was quiet, but layered.

As though dozens of people were speaking at once, through her.

"You're… not the one from the cell."

"You're the first."

"The original memory."

Gregor blinked. "Did that kid just call you a memory?"

Luka didn't answer.

Because he recognized the pressure in the air.

Arthur was coming.

Arthur's Arrival

The clouds split.

Arthur descended not on foot—but atop a corrupted skybeast, cloaked in gray wind and gleaming with jagged, crystal teeth. His armor pulsed with void-fire, his smile too wide.

He landed with a crash, sending villagers running in every direction.

"Well," Arthur drawled, "isn't this quaint."

He looked at Luka.

Then at the girl.

"Hello, little candle. Ready to burn?"

The girl stepped back, trembling.

Snow moved first—flaring his wings and launching upward to intercept.

Arthur flicked a finger.

A rune exploded in the air—and Snow hit the ground with a painful yelp.

Luka roared, blades already drawn. "You're done, Arthur!"

Arthur laughed. "Wrong. I'm finally beginning."

The Battle Begins

Vaelrith launched himself forward, his roar splitting the sky. Arthur didn't flinch—he leapt onto a rooftop and loosed a blast of inverted flame, shadowy and cold, that sheared the corner off a barn.

Serene summoned a ward around the girl.

Gregor met a void-touched knight Arthur had brought with him—one of many. A silent, masked warrior that moved too fast, blocking the axe with bone-silver blades.

Snow limped up to Luka's side. "He's after her. He doesn't need the Obelisks anymore."

"She's the last key."

Luka didn't hesitate.

He charged.

They met in the center of Kellingroot, the world twisting around them as spells collided with steel.

Arthur's blade was jagged and hungry—it drank mana from the very ground.

Luka's were alive with memory.

Each clash sent echoes rippling through the village. Lanterns shattered. Water floated upward. The girl cried out—and the sky cracked.

Reality was unraveling.

Arthur laughed through it all.

"You don't get it, Luka! She's not just an anchor—she's a seed! She can remake the world! And I'm going to be its first king!"

Luka parried, barely.

"She's a child!"

"She's a core!" Arthur screamed. "And I will break her open if I have to!"

The girl screamed again.

This time, it wasn't in fear.

It was a pulse.

A wave of memory shattered outward, sending Arthur flying, Luka staggering, and everyone else freezing in place.

For a moment…

The village remembered.

All of it.

The First Flame. The First Fall. The war. The lies. The dragons. The earth. The silence. The cost.

And the girl…

She hovered at the center of it, eyes glowing like a dying star.

Snow whispered in awe:

"She's not a vessel."

"She's the First Memory's daughter."

Arthur's Defeat

Arthur rose to his feet slowly, fury twisting his face.

But the girl turned to him and spoke a single word:

"Enough."

And the ground opened beneath him.

Stone hands—formed of mourning, formed of justice—reached up from the deep.

Mourntide's justice.

Arthur screamed as the earth swallowed him.

Gone.

For now.

The girl floated down gently into Luka's arms.

The light in her eyes faded.

She looked up, just a child again. Barely seven. Confused. Afraid.

"Am I bad?"

Luka shook his head and held her close.

"No," he whispered.

"You're what's left."

Kellingroot – Nightfall After the Battle

The village was quiet now.

Snow curled around the girl—Auri—keeping watch as she slept beside a smoldering hearth. Her small fingers clutched a ribbon of light that pulsed in sync with the leylines beneath the earth.

Serene stood at the doorway of the cottage, staring out into the night.

"She shouldn't exist," she murmured.

Luka said nothing.

He sat beside Auri, watching the flame-streaked curls of her hair move with each breath. "No one should," he finally replied. "And yet here we are."

Gregor entered, bloody but alive. "The locals are safe. Scared out of their minds, but no casualties. Vaelrith's watching the skies."

"Good," Luka said.

Then Snow looked up suddenly.

And said: "It's open."

Everyone froze.

Serene turned sharply. "What is?"

Snow looked toward the horizon—toward the Stone Veins far to the east.

"The seal under the lowest anchor."

"The one Mourntide said must never be touched."

"It just cracked."

Far Away – Cradle of Silence

Deep beneath where even Mourntide dared not walk, past layers of petrified leyroot and broken time, the seal split like an eggshell.

From within stirred breath.

Not warm. Not cold.

Something else.

A claw touched the edge of the cracked wall.

And an eye—neither beast nor god—opened.

It saw everything.

And it remembered Luka.

Returning to the Stone City

They moved quickly.

Luka, Serene, Gregor, Vaelrith, Snow, and Auri—who refused to be left behind.

The deeper they went, the more the world tilted sideways. Stone wept light. Water ran uphill. Insects whispered prophecies. The Hollow Root had bled into the waking world, and the leak was growing worse.

When they reached Mourntide's throne again…

It was empty.

Snow flew ahead and hovered over a collapsed spiral gate. "He knew," the dragonling said. "He opened the way."

Serene shivered. "Why would he do that?"

Luka's voice was quiet. "Because only I can follow."

The Descent – Into the Cradle

They passed runes that had no translation.

Structures built from silence.

Paintings made with absence.

No one spoke.

Even Gregor stopped swearing.

Then the air changed.

And the cavern opened.

It wasn't natural.

It wasn't unnatural.

It was before natural.

The Vault of the Forgotten Flame

It was shaped like a heart turned inside out.

Spikes of silver obsidian. A lake of black glass. Floating motes of time—glimpses of ancient creatures before dragons, before elves. Echoes that watched, unblinking.

At the center, suspended in a column of still air, was a coffin.

Luka stepped forward, every part of him screaming not to.

Auri followed.

Snow hovered protectively between them.

A single symbol glowed on the coffin lid.

Serene translated it slowly.

"…It says: 'He who remembers too much.'"

Snow flared his wings. "It's not a corpse."

Luka closed his eyes.

"No."

"It's the first god."

The First God Wakes

The lid began to rise.

A pulse shook the chamber.

Not like a quake—but like a drumbeat from another age.

And the being inside opened its eyes.

It wasn't human.

It wasn't a dragon.

It wasn't anything that should fit in language.

But it smiled.

"So," it said, in a voice older than gravity,"you brought the child."

Auri stepped back behind Luka.

"Who are you?" Luka asked.

The god tilted its head.

"The others named me many things. Flamefather. Leyborn. Echothirst."

"But you'll know me best by what I did."

"I made magic."

The god walked forward, barefoot on nothing.

Time unraveled in its footsteps. Snow shrank, then aged, then returned to normal. Gregor coughed and saw his own birth. Serene knelt, hand over her chest as if her heartbeat was being rewritten.

And Luka?

He met the god's gaze.

"I saw your work in the memory fields," Luka said.

"You didn't just make magic."

"You tethered it to memory. To pain. To blood."

The god smiled wider. "And now you've brought me my anchor."

Auri blinked. "I'm not yours."

He tilted his head.

"You're everyone's."

"You are the lock."

"And I…"

He raised a hand of burning glass.

"…am the key."

Luka's Stand

"No."

Luka stepped between them.

"You gave up your right to this world when you let it burn."

The god's smile faded.

And the chamber roared.

"I never left, Luka Flamebearer.""I was sealed.""By dragons. By stone. By the lies of the Flame."

"And now I am free."

Snow shouted, "He's going to override her soul!"

The god reached for Auri—

And Luka struck.