As A Mafia Boss, I Refuse To Be An Extra - Chapter 255: Despair III
Chapter 255: Despair III
[The Collapsing Circle – Damian’s POV]
Lightning flashed overhead, illuminating scenes of carnage in stark clarity – students dying screaming, the defensive circle contracting meter by meter as exhaustion claimed even the strongest among them.
And in the center of it all, surrounded by chaos and despair and the dying screams of humanity’s finest young awakeners, Damian stood with his gun raised, his face completely calm.
His gun fired with mechanical precision.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
Each crimson bullet curved through rain and fog, finding targets that were about to kill students who’d frozen or fallen or made critical mistakes.
A creature lunging at a girl’s exposed back – BAM – dropped with a hole through its skull.
Another about to tear through a boy’s throat – BAM – collapsed mid-strike.
A third climbing over corpses to reach a student who’d lost his weapon – BAM – hit the mud before it could complete the kill.
His face remained completely calm.
It was not the artificial calm of someone forcing composure, but genuine tranquility in the midst of absolute chaos, like he was observing everything from outside rather than being part of it.
His crimson eyes scanned the battlefield with clinical detachment, processing information with the same analytical precision Edrin used for tactics.
Every student’s Aura signature was visible to him – the colors dimming, flickering, threatening to extinguish completely as reserves ran dry.
The shield bearers at the front had almost nothing left, their defensive skills powered by willpower alone rather than actual energy.
The ranged attackers in the center were firing with physical weapons now, their Aura-enhanced attacks reduced to normal arrows and basic skills.
Even the heavy weapon holders who’d been maintaining the formation were slowing, their swings becoming predictable, their footwork sloppy from exhaustion.
And the morale…
Damian could see it collapsing like a physical thing.
Students crying openly now, no longer trying to hide their terror.
Others had stopped fighting entirely, just standing with weapons lowered, waiting for death.
Some were begging – incoherent pleas to gods or parents or anyone who might save them from this nightmare.
The formation had contracted to barely ten meters across, corpses marking where the perimeter had been, seventy dead in less than two hours.
Everyone around Damian was filled with despair.
The kind of absolute, soul-crushing hopelessness that came when all options had been exhausted, when every strategy had failed, when death wasn’t just possible but inevitable.
’So… this is true despair.’
Damian’s thought emerged with almost academic interest, his mind analyzing the emotion like a researcher studying a fascinating specimen.
’When all hope is lost. When survival becomes impossible no matter what choices are made. When the only question remaining is how much it will hurt before the end comes.’
His understanding of the essence of despair was deepening with every passing second, the concept that had been abstract becoming visceral and real as he watched two hundred fifty students reduced to one hundred eighty terrified children waiting to die.
His gun fired again – BAM – saving another student who’d slipped in blood-soaked mud.
’Human lives are so worthless.’
The thought carried no emotion, just cold observation of reality as he perceived it.
’I’m paranoid about my life being controlled, about being some beggar’s tool in a game I don’t understand.
But what about these students dying here? Aren’t they the same? At least I know I’m probably being manipulated. At least I have awareness of my situation.’
BAM! BAM!
Two more creatures dropped, two more students given a few additional seconds of life.
’But these students? They’re not even worth being tools. They’re just… worthless. Pieces on a board that nobody’s actually playing with. They live, they die, and reality doesn’t even pause to acknowledge their passing.’
Even though it didn’t seem like Damian was making much of an impact compared to the Imperial heirs who’d killed hundreds, he had saved more than one hundred students by now through precise intervention at critical moments.
While the Imperials were slaughtering enemies in massive waves, Damian was focused on a different objective entirely – trying to save as many people as possible.
Not because he cared about them as individuals.
Not because of some heroic impulse or noble desire to protect the weak.
But because he knew with absolute certainty that they needed as many survivors as possible if anyone was going to make it out of this portal alive.
’All these students are suffering and seeing what the reality of portals truly is for the first time.’
His eyes tracked another student going down screaming, watched creatures begin the process of eating him alive, fired a bullet that ended the boy’s suffering rather than prolonging it.
’These Nobles are also seeing that their privilege means nothing when our enemies see all of us as just humans. Just meat. Just prey to be consumed.’
Then Damian’s eyes became colder as he witnessed another scene unfold – a Noble boy grabbing a commoner girl and literally throwing her at approaching creatures to buy himself three additional seconds of survival.
The girl’s scream of betrayal cut through even the rain and thunder.
BAM!
Damian’s bullet killed the creature that had grabbed her, but three more replaced it immediately, dragging her down, her screams for her mother mixing with wet tearing sounds.
’And yet, when our survival depends on each other, when cooperation is the only thing that could possibly save us, they still behave the same. Still sacrifice the “lesser” to save themselves.’
His jaw clenched slightly – the first real emotion he’d shown since the battle began.
’I guess I wasn’t wrong to be cautious of them. To never fully trust Noble intentions no matter how friendly they seemed.’
His crimson eyes shifted to the Imperial heirs, studying them with the same analytical detachment he used for everything else.
’Even though the Imperials haven’t actively betrayed us yet, even though they’ve been fighting alongside everyone else without obvious discrimination…
when their lives truly come into danger, when they have no options left, when choosing between their survival and ours becomes necessary… would they still behave the same?’
The question had no immediate answer, but Damian didn’t care.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
More creatures dropped as his Omega Point weapon art continued its mechanical precision, each shot calculated for maximum life-saving efficiency.
Then he saw his own team struggling in ways they’d never struggled before.
Zavier was still laughing – that high, manic sound that made everyone uncomfortable – but his movements were becoming slower, his spear finding fewer vulnerable points, his protection of Lysa requiring more effort than before.
The creepy smile remained fixed on his face like a mask, but Damian could see the exhaustion in his eyes, the way his legs were starting to tremble from constant exertion.
Ronan’s face was showing strain that suggested he was running on fumes.
Lysa’s hands were shaking.
Her arrows were becoming less frequent.
Her Aura was dimming with every shot.
And Edrin…
Edrin’s tactical coordination had been what kept the formation functional this long, his orders preventing complete collapse, his analytical mind processing battlefield information faster than anyone present.
But now he was just looking around with an expression Damian had never seen on his face before.
No hope.
Just acceptance of inevitable death.
His glasses were cracked, rain and blood mixing on the lenses, his twin swords held loosely like he’d forgotten they were weapons rather than just metal sticks.
Their eyes met across the chaos.
Edrin’s voice emerged as barely a whisper, more to himself than to Damian, but carrying clearly enough through a momentary lull in the screaming.
“Are we… are we about to die here?”
’Are you also experiencing despair, Edrin?’
