The Extra's Rebellion
Chapter 109: Limbo

Chapter 109: Limbo

The first thing that came to Zephyr’s mind when he thought about Limbo was darkness— an infinite black void. A place devoid of rules. A space between Spaces.

But what greeted him was far from what he’d imagined.

He stood adrift in a sea of stars.

Not the cold, dead stars of night skies back home— but living ones. Pulsing. Breathing. Moving in impossible patterns that only the cosmos could understand. Some floated slowly like lanterns through still air; others remained anchored in place, unmoving, as if they were watching.

There was no horizon. Or perhaps, there were too many. Space curled around itself like a living tapestry— folding inward, spiraling sideways, distorting light. North bled into west, up into behind. Yet his feet remained firm.

Zephyr exhaled.

Then inhaled again, sharper— his body loosening like tension slipping from drawn wires. He felt it now— pure, unfiltered spatial Aether hanging thick in the air, wrapping around his limbs like silk.

His pores opened.

His Aether hearth throbbed once. Then again, deeper. The starved thing inside him drank greedily.

There was no pain. No resistance.

Just— home.

He was in his source element. And it welcomed him.

"This is... comfortable," he murmured.

His eyelids drooped, warmth beginning to slip into his bones. His body was too light. His thoughts too soft. He nearly forgot why he came—

Then, from the corner of his perception, something shifted.

Below him— if "below" had any meaning here— was land.

An island drifting in the void. A vast, cracked expanse of terrain, where mountains floated sideways and rivers spun like helixes. Forests clung to the undersides of cliffs that twisted in impossible angles, blooming and vanishing in flickering loops, as if time stuttered here.

Structures drifted upward from the ground like released paper, slabs of earth. Pillars twisted into Möbius loops, reshaping themselves mid-air.

Beautiful. Impossible.

Then came the sound— a low, rumbling groan, deep and ancient.

And the stars shifted.

Suddenly, Zephyr was no longer standing— he was falling sideways.

His feet remained planted on the invisible plane below, but his body tilted sharply, as if a god had twisted the entire realm ninety degrees. Gravity obeyed no rules here.

He almost screamed but he was forced to swallow it when he saw a massive cube-shaped landmass barreling toward him, rotating with silent menace.

Panic snapped through his relaxed state like lightning.

Limbo—Border Jail.

He activated the First Art in a heartbeat, encasing himself in a hardened cocoon of space— his body suspended in a spatial bubble. But—

Crack.

The harden space around him flickered.

The overwhelming saturation of pure spatial energy in Limbo was disrupting his control. He gritted his teeth and poured more Aether in, forcing the structure into stability just in time—

BOOM.

He hit the edge of the rock— shattering through stone, slicing clean through— and burst out the opposite side, still falling.

Still falling.

"Arrggg". This time he screamed.

Eyes wild, he pushed his palms down and invoked Border Jail again— this time beneath his feet, locking space like a platform.

The hardened space reacted violently, trembling as it stabilized against the current of Limbo. Zephyr launched himself sideways, racing toward the spinning edge of the massive cube.

In one swift motion, he pulled his scythe from his back and swung it downward.

Clang!

The blade bounced off the rock, failing to find purchase. He growled, spun it again— and this time, coated it in his Aether.

SHUNK.

It bit into the surface.

But his momentum yanked him down regardless. The scythe bent, his body sliding, legs scraping stone as he struggled to hold on.

He dragged downward, fighting gravity— until, finally, it slowed.

Just at the edge.

Half his calf dangled over the abyss. The groaning returned— louder this time.

The cube twisted.

Reality folded again—and suddenly Zephyr was crouching on top of the cube, his orientation having flipped with the structure.

He didn’t question it.

He just ran— sprinting toward the center of the landmass where it was stable, knowing if it twisted again, he’d need the extra distance.

He didn’t breathe until he reached the heart of the rock and dropped to one knee.

"Damn you Zephyr". Zephyr immediately cursed himself. Barely seconds after reaching Limbo he had almost died.

His mind raced to the dagger in his waist band. But.

’I am already here, going back would be a waste’. He rationalized, after calming his rapidly beating heart his mind settled on a new problem.

’that would be troublesome’. He had an inkling of why his Art didn’t work here, his mind raced back to a few seconds ago. The Border Jail— his First Art— had failed. Not because he lacked focus or because he was slow.

But because Limbo was too rich.

The density of spatial Aether here— unrefined, raw, divine— was overwhelming his Aether pathways. His Art hadn’t failed out of weakness, it had failed from oversaturation.

His body and art weren’t calibrated to this level of purity. But the good news is that, his body was evolving, ever since his hearth started to suck in the pure Aether it hasn’t stopped, instead it was drawing in ever larger sum of it.

From the moment he stepped foot into Limbo, his body had already begun to evolve, he had started his ascension to Delta rank. So stopping halfway by leaving now would be detrimental to him.

But something else was happening too.

Ever since his hearth began absorbing this Aether, it hadn’t stopped. It was expanding evolving.

He was evolving.

From the moment he arrived, he had begun ascending. His body adapting to match the plane. His hearth pulsing wider, stronger.

A quick internal check confirmed it— only 2% of his Aether had converted into this higher quality Spatial Aether. But every beat of his core drew more. His path to Delta had begun. To leave now would be to cripple that growth.

"This is going to take a while..."

Zephyr planted his scythe firmly into the rock and adjusted his stance, just in case the landmass shifted again.

His gaze swept the void.

Not far from him, a larger floating slab of land drifted in place— stable, unmoved by the shifts of Limbo. It was the same mass he’d seen earlier while falling.

’That’s my next foothold’. But he didn’t charge immediately he waited, breath held, until the next groan echoed across the realm.

The rock beneath him flattened, like dough.

’Now’.

Zephyr sprinted— crossing the span toward the larger mass. A small stream carved across the terrain ahead, shimmering with mirrored light. He didn’t slow.

Didn’t stop to think about the possibility of malevolent creatures residing in the river.

Jump.

But halfway through, a sudden pull yanked at him— like a reverse waterfall.

The outer current was calm, but beneath it, chaos reigned.

Zephyr hit the surface and vanished below.

The moment he entered, the river turned savage. The inner current flowed backwards, then twisted sideways. His body slammed into submerged stone. He bit down a groan.

He flared his Aether— tried to plant his scythe against the river wall, and the pressure helped press him it in, anchoring him—

— until it changed again.

The flow reversed, dragging him away.

The scythe began to slip— t6hen, the current curved.

His body slammed into a rock outcrop. His fingers nearly slipped.

He grunted in pain, tightening his grip. The scythe held. Barely.

He looked up.

The river— now slanted— ran like a tilted mirror, calm and silent. A false serenity.

Zephyr forced his aching limbs upward, crawling, clawing toward the bank.

His hand breached the surface, and then—he was out.

He collapsed onto solid ground, face-first, soaked and gasping.

A beat passed.

Then panic lanced through him— he patted himself quickly.

His fingers found it.

The dagger— it was still at his waist, he let out a long, shaking breath of relief, then pain.

His hand glided softly across his ribs, the force with which he had hit the rock with had fractured his ribs.

’Damn it, I should have listened to Keal’. The thought struck louder than the pain. He wouldn’t be experiencing this pain if he had listenined to Keal, he wouldn’t have been in this mess.

But the deed was already done, he had screwed up. And there was nothing he could do other then waiting for his Aether to evolve.

’thinking of Aether, how much has been converted’.

He ran a quick check and what he saw stunned him.

The previous two percent had been reduced to zero, he couldn’t sense an iota of evolved Aether atop his veins.

’What the hell happened, it was already two percent till I crossed the river. How come it had changed". It didn’t make sense, even thing had reversed back to zero, even the slight increase in the size of his Aether hearth had been reduced back to the previous size.

’When did this happen? Was it before crossing the river or after that’. He thought through his previous actions, apart from the river incident nothing Noteworthy had happened.

Then an idea formed in his mind. He turned to stare at the serene waterfall, the more he thought about it, the more it made sense.

’it had to be because of the river, everything was normal until I sank into the river’. Zephyr stood up in anger, his hand crossed over his ribcage.

"Damn you". Zephyr cursed as he kicked a pebble straight at the waterfall. The waterfall suddenly changed back to it’s previous flowing position, causing Zephyr to sharply back up and trip on a pebble and fell on his backside.

"Damn it".