The Extra's Rebellion
Chapter 100: Oliver

Chapter 100: Oliver

Oliver stood beside Camila, her hand nestled in his like a quiet promise. She leaned into him slightly, the edges of her smile soft and real. He ran his thumb along her fingers, savoring the quiet warmth in the gesture.

He was happy that they happened, he had always liked her, even before they got promoted to Red Sphinx district, when the entire class were just strangers living together.

She would be the one to call him over to hunt together with them when they were broke. Although they didn’t talk much, all these simple actions make him feel good about himself.

Until that incident when he almost killed someone in a duel, at that time Magnus was still recovering, so his domain weren’t available.

But the deed was already done, the boy was handicapped.

He was even the main reason Magnus had to cover the entire school in his domain to avoid any mistake that led to death or a state whereby the students could no longer fight.

Then the vermilion clan instructor that led the clan barated him in front of the entire class, telling him that he could never fight again with his cursed powers.

But he tried to rebel, why would he not fight again, this was his power hand he would learn to control it. But the news came, the boy was handicapped and couldn’t continue in school, so he dropped out, luckily the boy was a commoner and he couldn’t take any action against him.

Two months after the boy went back home, he couldn’t cope and.... Committed suicide.

The guilt was what made him stop using his powers that was until Camila came along.

She looked up at him. "You’re thinking about me... Aren’t you?".

He chuckled. "Can’t help it. You’re the best thing that’s happened to me". Especially since his parents casted him away saying his art was corrupted.

Her smile widened, a faint blush in her cheeks.

Till now he still didn’t know how it happened, it all kind of blurred in his mind, from she teasing him subtly to then siding with him at friendly jabs.

And to openly showing him affection, and under the relentless assault from Joe, he gave in and approached her.

He first started by subtly asking her if she liked Zephyr, but she always brushed it off, until one day she said.

"I can’t say I like him... Although I am attracted to him".

He was so happy that after gathering courage he approached her and said he knew she liked him, and in her ever teasing voice she said.

"What gave me away". He started to excitedly speak on how he caught up on her subtle hint and all that. Before he confidently took her he liked her

"Has it occurred to you that I might be jocking". His brain blanked out, as he couldn’t forthom the level of embarrassment, but he didn’t think far before he felt a soft wet pat on his left cheek.

As he recalled these memories he couldn’t help but hold her tighter to his body, and for a moment, everything else faded—until the doors opened.

Zephyr stepped into the hall.

Combat gear, a mix of black - white and form-fitting, clung to his lean frame like shadowed armor. A scythe, tall and reaper-like, was strapped diagonally across his back. A sleek katana rested on his hip, the black hilt marked with silver etchings like veins of moonlight.

The moment he walked in, the air shifted.

People gave way like ripples in water.

His presence wasn’t loud—but it was heavy. A kind of quiet, terrifying gravity leaked from him, suffocating the noise in the room. Oliver instinctively straightened. His hand stayed with Camila’s, but his body tensed.

He almost called out—almost. But the look on Zephyr’s face silenced the urge. Detached. Unreadable. He didn’t seem to be in a good mood.

Then—his his perspective flashed white, Oliver didn’t panic, he’d experienced it before.

He quickly turned to look at Camila one more time but she had gone in white. And then—

Oliver regained awareness in a white world, snowflakes drifted like ash.

Oliver stood in silence. Towering trees—gnarled and ancient—stretched high above him, their bark bleached and cracking. Snow blanketed the forest floor, soft and untouched, except for the space around his boots.

Raising his left wrist, he tapped the side of his watch—a translucent device that flickered briefly. It’s only purpose was to lead the way to the leaders position.

Nothing else.

Only the team leader locator flashed to life. A single pulse pointed west.

Without a word, Oliver moved.

Oliver sprinted across thick branches of snow-laden trees. His body moved with calculated ease, each step measured to conserve breath, regulate pace. So that he wouldn’t be out of breath if he was to suddenly face an enemy.

Then—a roar split the sky.

Oliver’s body reacted before thought could catch up. He ducked under a low branch, changed direction, and muted his Aether signature. His boots barely made a sound as he slowed, approaching the noise.

’Please don’t be a human Shade’

He peeked over a ridge—and there it was.

A monster of snow. No. A Shade.

Shades were not born—they were granted.

Reanimated not by humans, but by the world itself, whenever a sentient creature died with unresolved grief, rage, or a grudge so deep it anchored it’s to the fabric of reality. The soul—or what remained of it—lingered like a splinter. And in its twisted mercy, the world gave it form.

The shape it took varied.

If the corpse remained, the Shade wore it like armor—a zombie, crude and shambling, but deadly.

If the body was gone, it shaped itself from what the soul loved, or what it desired most— a possessed teddy bear, a twisted clock, a vengeful doll, even the likeness of a loved one.

But in rarer, more terrifying cases—like the one now standing before Oliver—the grief was so massive, so consuming, that the Shade wasn’t reborn in a single object, but in forces of nature themselves.

Entire sandstorms, graveyards, hurricanes, even blizzards could take on sentience, becoming monsters that carried sorrow in their winds and death in their breath.

And the one in front of Oliver was exactly that.

A snowborn Shade—a mountain of ice and fury.

It had seen him.

Stealth was no longer an option.

Oliver’s stance shifted. Calmly. He let the data flood in as he analyzed the creature with the same discipline he always had.

"Elpison Grade 2... doable."

Shades and riftsprawn were always stronger than humans of the same rank. But Oliver was Grade 3.

This would be a fight—but it was winnable.

The monster roared, eyes glowing like dying stars.

Massive. Hulking. Built like a nightmare given muscle. Its body resembled a body builder— only this was worse. Icy muscle cords bulged beneath translucent white skin, veins glowing with an unearthly blue shimmer. Frosted steam hissed from its shoulders. Jagged antler-like horns jutted from its head, and its eyes—two sunken pits of molten yellow—drilled hatred into the world around it.

Its body groaned as it moved, muscles crunching under the pressure of the cold. One of its hands had fused into a jagged snowplow of ice, the other crackled with glacial crystals that reformed as quickly as they shattered.

It charged.

Oliver breathed in—and invoked his Art.

"Senguis—Dominion of Frenzy."

Heat slammed through his chest. Then rage—searing, acidic—coursed through his limbs, clouding his mind in white-hot fog.

Then the artifact flared, a soft cooling pulse, and the rage thinned—just enough for him to be able to think. But the clarity wasn’t enough to curb the murderous intent.

The Shade roared as it swung it’s paw at Oliver.

Oliver ducked, locked his arms around its outstretched limb, and jumped—twisting violently mid-air. The arm snapped with a sickening—

CRACK.

A shard of white bone burst from its shoulder, and the monster howled.

It thrashed.

Oliver was thrown like a ragdoll. He tore past trees, only managing to hook his gauntlet claws deep into one trunk. His momentum flipped, and he twisted midair—landing boots-first on another tree.

He didn’t wait.

"Senguis—Chariot of Madness!"

His legs compressed, and his skin flushed crimson, the rage boiling anew in his chest.

He unleashed it.

The tree behind him imploded, bark and snow blasted into the air. Oliver blurred forward. The Shade’s massive arm swung—

He dodged.

And then—his gauntlet punched straight through its chest.

Right into its Aether Hearth.

With a violent jolt of energy, the organ shattered. Ice splintered like glass. The Shade let out a final, garbled roar—

Then collapsed.

Dead.

Oliver gasped as he revoked the Art, heart hammering like war drums. His clarity was coming back. Rage still lingered but it was cooling now.

His art had deviated. Twisted into something else. The elders of Vermilion clan called it corruption.

They said he was a blasphemy to the name Vermilion. He had no idea why his art mutated, all he knew was that he blacked out on a certain day and when he woke up his art had changed.

He had begun to believe he was cursed, but his instructor called it evolution.

She’d helped him craft the Artifact of Temperance, and even in its incomplete state, it let him keep his mind.

For now.

His Art had changed and anything he activated it, hot searing rage would flow through his mind and reasoning to the extent of attacking friends and foe.

But other times, he would go entirely Mad.

He stood there, chest rising and falling, eyes distant. Then his watch blinked.

Team leader—now north.

He turned and began to run again, snow crunching beneath his boots.

****

After some minutes he finally arrived where the marker on the wrist watch had stopped. It was like a conversion of cliffs, cliffs were jolting out everywhere.

He was on a cliff and looking down, he saw a lot of people standing, and with a quick look around he saw Camila.

After letting of a breath of relief, he looked at the grim situation, with a quick count he could see that all the squad were here and they were all in a stand off.

But before he could announce his position or think of how to get his team out of the sticky situation.

The cliff on the other side suddenly collapsed, with snow falling down in anger. Then suddenly the snow fall suddenly had a cubical shape jotting from it and then Zephyr burst out of it with Noctis.

Noctis was airborne and despite his position his eyesight was able to see that he alongside Zephyr was bloodied.

The blade of Zephyr’s scythe detached as it dug into Noctis back leg, and with a brutal tug, his back leg opened up with blood splashing out dyeing the snow red.