The Retired Hero is an Extra

As if to fulfill his wish, a bunch of daggers came flying at Jash in the next second as his eyes tracked their trajectories.

Falling into an unknown state of flow, he swung his sword with his wrist, moving at speeds that mimicked a shield.

Unknowingly, the fluidity of his wrists allowed him to move the sword easily and parry the flying daggers in one go.

Yet he didn't stop, moving his feet to turn around, carrying forward the momentum from his sword to continue his offense.

His sword slashed through a bunch of weapons aiming for his neck, chest, stomach, and thigh before swiftly cutting through the undead wielding them.

He completed the set of actions in one swift motion as if nothing could impede his moments while his eyes became unfocused.

He didn't realize his situation resembled an enlightenment his father, Carcel, had described.

In a twist of foot, another undead fell with a thud, colliding with other bones littering the ground.

For the next few seconds, Jash seamlessly blended in with the fight, moving in its flow.

His sword aimed for the openings through the rusty armor worn by the undead while deflecting their weapons.

The angle of deflection resulted in their weapons clashing against each other, getting tangled and stalling them.

Using that moment of opening, Jash easily took care of the undead one by one until he ended up taking down the last one.

—Swish!

His sword swung vertically downwards, slashing its skull through its broken helmet as its body staggered back.

Jash didn't follow the turn of events and ended up plunging his sword into the ground.

Only when he failed to continue his natural set of moments did he come to his senses, feeling a sense of euphoria wash over him.

However, the euphoric sensation of reaching the intermediate realm of sword mastery didn't last long as his fatigue caught up.

"Huff... huff..." he gasped deeply, panting for breath as lungs ached from the excessive movements his body had undergone in a short period.

'Is it over?' he asked internally, his eyes crinkling in pain from being hyper focused while a few drops of blood leaked from his nose.

His hand inadvertently reached above his lips at the warm sensation as he brought his fingers to see what it was.

"Blo...od...?" he muttered in confusion before his head cleared up.

'Mana deviation...' he realized, checking his mana reserves to find them utterly empty.

It seemed his body had overexerted himself in the exchange of upgrading his sword mastery, but a smile soon blossomed on his face.

"This is just an illus–ahhhh," he mumbled, before his facial muscles ached due to the smile on his face.

It was not just his mana reserves, but also his body suffered from pushing his limits, though he wasn't aware of it.

Nevertheless, his internal satisfaction remained as he combated the pain, awaiting the illusion's end as he believed its goal must have been achieved.

Unfortunately, it was just what Jash believed...

—Neigh!

The sound of hooves cracking against the floor echoed all around him as the hair at his neck rose in fear.

"IS HE FREAKING CRAZY!?" Jash screamed at his loudest despite the pain accompanying his exclamation.

Another wave of the undead, one stronger than the previous one, was coming with higher grades of Undead this time.

'This illusion wasn't created to be fought and won,' Jash concluded without wasting his time on anger.

He just added a few more points to Rui's revenge and how to exaggerate it to a certain someone.

His expression turned frosty as he continued to run his thoughts while being mentally fatigued as he still had to break the illusion.

Unfortunately, he didn't have a cheat-like system like Amael or the protagonist.

But he didn't want something like that either, it was way too binding and there was no need for it.

'There it is,' he noticed at the place where he appeared after entering the illusion as he dragged his body towards it.

'This darned Rui! He really made the core of the illusion at the same place one appears,' Jash cursed inwardly.

In essence, any illusion was just a formation that worked on the brain, manipulating it into believing that something is real or unreal.

Both types of illusions exist and various factors like the creator's element, ability, mastery and many more affect it.

The most important factor is who it is going to impact as two people could indeed have entirely different reactions to the same illusion.

Either way, the core of the illusion, or the formation per se, was what brought it into effect, so it was also a weakness.

Usually, the cores were well-hidden or the formation master would play another trick on it.

There could also be formations with sub-cores or other substitutes, but it wasn't something Jash had to deal with.

The illusion he was inside was merely a simple trick, something not even comparable to what the Imperial Family played with.

If he could crack that illusion, then how difficult would this one be?

In fact, it was time for Rui to be surprised as Jash dealt with something he deemed to be luck-based.

The only reason the undead hordes were so big and so many was because the core was present in plain sight.

It was to create a sense of pseudo-balance in case he were accused of malicious intentions.

Only Jash knew that Rui was in no way stupid and that's why he was able to come up with the correct answer so quickly.

Still, he had been fighting for nearly an hour with his concentration at its peak alongside the trance-like state.

It was more than enough to drag him down as he tried to break the core, and the illusion as a result of that.

Unfortunately, the Undead could care less.

They were fast approaching with great momentum to eliminate the living from their Realm of Bones.

'Shit!' Jash cursed inwardly at their sight, increasing his pace despite the pain coursing through him.

Even though it was an illusion, it was extremely real or breaking through the next realm of sword master wouldn't be possible in the first place.

If it were so easy, everyone would be using illusions to get past any walls in their life as a hunter and no one would be scorned.

However, that was just an idiot's dream.

Whereas Jash was trying to reach the core before the Undead caught up to him and he tried his best despite the challenge ahead—behind him.

Thankfully, the Undead failed as Jash ended up breaking the core and the illusion shattered like a glass.

A relieved smile appeared on his face before his illusion too broke apart.

He woke up with a start in a dark area, unable to guess his location before a grunt escaped his lips, "Arghhh..."

In the next second, his mental fatigue caught up to him as he fell unconscious on his back.

Oblivious to him, a small chest appeared next to him mysteriously as if to reward his efforts inside the illusion.

Meanwhile, the initiator, Rui, was messing around with other examinees when he realized one of them completed his test.

"Oh? Which one?" he mumbled excitedly, eager to see which examinee surpassed his expectations.

"Huh? It's him? How? Impossible!" he exclaimed in surprise, unable to believe the outcome.