The Extra's Rebellion
Chapter 110: Limbo Creatures

Chapter 110: Limbo Creatures

During his time in Limbo, Zephyr had come to realize several unsettling truths. First among them— Limbo didn’t obey time.

Or perhaps more accurately— it played with it.

Days didn’t pass here the way they did outside. He couldn’t tell if hours were slipping by or if mere moments had stretched into eternities. His body told him one thing, but the shifting stars overhead told another.

One moment they were in one position, and the next they were in another, sleep came and went like tides— when it came at all. Hunger was more memory than need.

And then there was the way Aether behaved.

In some regions, refinement was effortless. The spatial Aether around him would surge into his core like floodwaters— refining, nourishing, expanding his hearth at impossible speeds. His pathways pulsed with clarity, and his limbs buzzed with power. He could feel himself ascending.

But then he’d take a step too far— just a step, and it would all stop.

Like a hand yanking the plug from a socket, the flow would cease. He could stand for hours— meditate, concentrate, breathe— but nothing would come. There was no energy, no response. Just blank silence that weighed on his skin like dust.

Sometimes, the transitions were subtle. A few paces could make the difference between a breakthrough and stagnation. Other times, it was violent— his entire body locking up as if Limbo itself had judged him unworthy of progress in that space.

He marked such places in his mind.

But it was all useless, even if he stood in one of such places that Improved the speed of his Aether refinement, it would still shift. Just like ever shifting realm around him, so did time.

And it wasn’t just time or energy that fluctuated.

Even himself.

His emotions his thoughts, they would rise and fall without warning. Some regions left him hollow and numb, unable to focus. Others sharpened his mind to a blade’s edge, granting him insights into his Art he couldn’t have imagined back in the real world.

Limbo was a like forge— but a wild, uncaring one.

Sometimes, it tempered you, and other times, it tried to shatter you.

And perhaps the most unsettling truth of all—

He was alone.

In all his wandering, he hadn’t seen a single living thing. Not a beast, not a flicker of aura. Nothing. The expanse was vast, endless, shifting—yet utterly still.

And that, more than anything, disturbed him.

According to Merin, the DuskFall Clan had once tried to explore Limbo. They’d sent an expedition—trained elites, handpicked. But the mission was a failure. The entire team was wiped out, devoured by something the survivor described as a twisted game of a Limbo creature.

And yet here he was— alone. No creatures. No threats. No signs of life at all.

There were only two explanations.

Either he had wandered into the territory of something so powerful that nothing else dared enter...

Or he had stumbled into a place unlike any other—a sanctuary, or a trap.

And he had no way of knowing which it was.

Until yesterday. Or was it earlier today?

Time had long since abandoned meaning here.

"Almost there". Zephyr muttered to himself, breathing hard. Despite the biting chill that lingered in the Limbo air, sweat slicked his back.

The slope he was climbing wasn’t natural. It looked like a ridge carved into existence by something ancient— a jagged, towering incline of pale stone that folded like stairs but wasn’t built for feet. Each step required effort, his limbs dragging with a strange weariness that wasn’t entirely physical.

Something was waiting at the top.

He’d felt it hours ago— or what felt like hours— a pressure that could only be Aether. It was massive, foreign and still. It had stirred his curiosity and the gnawing boredom urged him to go.

Zephyr reached the edge, his fingers tightening on a rocky ledge. He didn’t rise. Instead, he crouched low, breath held, body tensed, peering just over the lip.

Then his breath caught.

There, lying across the cracked terrain like a collapsed monument, was a thing.

No— a corpse.

It had once been alive. Of that, Zephyr was sure. But now, it lay still. Horribly still. The kind of stillness only death could give.

It was massive— easily the size of a warship— and vaguely humanoid, but horribly warped. Its limbs were long and fingers too many. Arms bent in unnatural directions, joints bulging in the wrong places, skin stretched taut like leather pulled over splintered wood.

Its body was draped in tattered remnants of some material Zephyr couldn’t name— flesh-colored but moving like silk. Its face, if it had one, was missing. In its place was a smear. No eyes. No mouth. Just a melted patch of flesh.

Zephyr’s mouth went dry.

He didn’t know what it was. He didn’t want to know. But a word came to his mind— Skin Walker. A very powerful one.

The oppressive, deathly still Aura leaking from it told him enough, but whatever it had been, it was dead now.

And then he heard the deep groaning sound again, but this time he knew where it was coming from.

The sound came out of the faceless entity.

’so that’s how it is’. Zephyr was sure now, it was this corpse that was responsible for the groaning sound, it was resisting the change in position brought by Limbo.

Then he looked ahead from the corpse and then he saw them— movement, just beyond the corpse.

Figures.

Crouched near the far side of the carcass were creatures. Alive, multiple, about a dozen, maybe more. They moved with jerking motions, hunched yet tall enough to dwarf Zephyr himself.

Frogs.

No— not frogs, but frog-like.

Massive, bulbous bodies stood upright on thick hind legs. Their skin glistened with a mucus sheen, pale green and dappled like mold-covered stone. Their arms were long, and their fingers webbed, tipped with hooked claws.

Each wore only a simple loincloth of faded hide around their waist.

They were speaking.

Their words were guttural, throaty, strung with clicks and groans— yet there was rhythm in their speech, like crude language shaped by long, primal use. Zephyr didn’t understand the words, but he recognized the intent behind the noise— Communication.

And among them were females.

He could tell not just by posture or gait— but by the presence of sagging, exposed breasts that hung from several of the creatures, their chests rising and falling with labored breath. They didn’t wear anything to cover themselves, unlike the males who had wrapped simple loincloths over their groins.

They were gathered in a sunken space—one Zephyr realized had been depressed into the earth either by sheer weight or violence, but he could tell that the corpse of the skin-walker was the cause.

The massive body had crushed the terrain when it fell, leaving behind a jagged basin. Zephyr had climbed the steep edge of that depression—so now, crouched low, he looked down into the strange gathering.

And what he saw churned his stomach.

Some of them were mating.

Right there— half-hidden in the shadows of the warped corpse, in low croaking rhythm and disturbing fluidity. Females mounted by males, their croaks rising in pitch, echoing through the ruined pit. Others simply watched, eyes flicking toward the corpse and back at the mating scene, clearly waiting for their turn.

Zephyr felt bile crawl up his throat, but he didn’t move. He barely breathed.

He tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

He needed to decide— observe longer, or get out before one of them glanced too far up and saw a pale-haired outsider crouched above their ritual.

Then it happened.

One of the frog-like creatures threw its grotesque head upward with what Zephyr could tell was exhilaration— and it’s pleasure filled eyes caught sight of Zephyr.

Their gazes locked.

It croaked— loud and sharp, a sound that echoed off the basin walls— then immediately ducked its head and hid behind the female it had been mating with, pressing its bulbous face into her sagging chest.

Zephyr blinked.

’What?’

He didn’t know what reaction he expected... but it wasn’t that. His thoughts short-circuited.

’Who wants to see your disgusting body anyway?’. He muttered mentally, brow twitching with confused revulsion.

Another one— bigger, bulkier, with knotted muscle bulging beneath slick skin— turned toward the cowering one. It said something in that guttural, croaking tongue. The smaller one pointed upward with a trembling claw, straight at Zephyr.

The big one looked up.

And smiled.

No— grinned. A massive, toothy grin. Its lips pulled back too far, revealing rows of glistening, strangely white teeth that didn’t fit its face. It looked... eager.

Then it crouched.

Zephyr’s instincts screamed. ’No—no way it can—’.

It leapt.

The creature soared— actually soared— across the massive corpse that laid on the floor, clearing the twisted body with a terrifying grace that belied its bulk.

Midway through the leap, its form began to distort. Limbs stretched unnaturally, skin peeled back into black lines, and for a heartbeat, it became something not quite solid. It because blurred lines.

Zephyr barely had time to curse.

BOOM.

It crashed into the slope below where Zephyr had been crouching— just feet beneath him. The stone buckled under its landing, cracks spider-webbing out beneath clawed feet.

Then he felt it.

Aura.

A wave of pressure rolled over him, slamming into his chest like a steel wall. It was thick, noxious, twisted— it reeked of malevolence.

Delta-ranked.

Zephyr’s eyes went wide.

He turned without hesitation— and ran, and behind him, there was laughter— if it could be called that.

A grotesque, wet gargle of sound.

The creature’s massive feet slapped against the stone as it gave chase, a rhythm building behind him like a funeral drum.