The Extra's Rebellion
Chapter 74: The Heart (GT bonus)

Chapter 74: The Heart (GT bonus)

Irritation.

That was all Zephyr felt as he stared at the crowd. But his irritation wasn’t directed at them—instead, it clawed at the side of his face, thumping in sync with every pulse of his heart beat was his right eye.

It was maddening.

Like a second heartbeat had taken residence behind the bandages.

Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

He exhaled slowly, trying to force calm. But it was like trying to quiet a drum by glaring at it.

How would anyone feel waking up to find their eye beating?

At first, he thought it was phantom pain or nerves. Then the sensation had grown—steady, rhythmic, alive. Merin, ever her calm self, had only offered a nod and muttered something about "Heaven fragment"— whatever that means, and how she’d reinforce the seal.

She did. She even added two more coils of Aether seal that was laced with sigil ash. Promised that the thumping would dull.

And it did.

Until he stepped away from her, until his fingers curled around the scythe’s hilt, the moment he gripped it, the heartbeat doubled—Ba-dump-ba-dump. Faster. Fiercer. Hungrier.

He gritted his teeth.

"Darn it," he muttered under his breath, the syllables tight and sharp.

The sensation wasn’t just uncomfortable now—it was distracting. It felt like something beneath the surface of his eyelid was stirring, no he knew that his right eye was watching. Reacting. And every time the crowd gasped, every time someone’s gaze fell upon him, the thumping responded like it knew.

He hated it, not the attention, not the whispers, not even the judgment— he stopped caring about those a long time ago.

Just the sense that something inside him was... waiting. Watching. Testing.

Zephyr’s gaze lifted slowly across the coliseum stands. Dozens of familiar faces, clan children wrapped in vanity and legacy, stared down at him with varying degrees of disbelief. They all saw the same thing— a boy wrapped in bandages, with one exposed eye and an aura that burned like a sun— no a dying sun. His aura despite raging was also waning, like a candle light about to be flicked out due to the wind. It was paradoxical.

They didn’t understand, but someone did. Across from the field, Earl Demios was trembling—not with fear, but anticipation.

Their eyes met.

Earl smiled—feral and bright, like a wolf who’d caught a scent he’d been chasing for years.

And Zephyr? He blinked once.

The irritation from his eye didn’t fade. It grew stronger.

It responded to Earl.

And suddenly, Zephyr understood. It wasn’t reacting to the scythe. It wasn’t reacting to the crowd. It was reacting to battle. To danger. To desire. The desire to kill.

The bandaged boy lowered his head slightly, the ruby blade of his scythe glinting under the violet sky. His aura, already wild, began to twist—not in size, but in texture. It grew heavier. Sharper. Like invisible razors dancing through the air.

Across from him, Earl laughed, he could see it, he could see Zephyr’s pale amethyst coloured Aura grow in quantity and quality as it wraps around the figure of Zephyr. His own aura—an eclipse-colored blaze—thrashing around him like a living storm.

"You can feel it, can’t you?" Earl said, locking fingers around his war fan. "Bloodline resonance."

_ _ _ _ _ _

"Shut up". Zephyr growled under his breath, others like Merin may think that it was just a mistake, he was trying to heal his eye and then he had mutated it by accident. But he knew better, due to one of the abilities bestowed by the eye.

He didn’t know much about it—only that the strange new eyeball instinctively called itself The Heart.

How he knew that? He didn’t know.

But he also knew that if it didn’t stop beating soon, he was going to rip it out and throw it far, far away.

Into Nightshore.

"Nightshore? What the hell is that?". He nearly clawed at his hair. That was the other thing—it wasn’t just the heartbeat. Words slipped into his thoughts. Random. Unfamiliar.

Alien.

"Proceed to the podium. The battle begins in twenty seconds."

Zephyr took a breath and raised his head. He walked calmly toward the podium, mental preparing to battle his opponent as the thumping behind his eyelid grew more agitated.

It wasn’t until he saw his opponents in front of him that he really looked—more specifically, at Earl.

He knew him.

Not personally. But the memories... he had seen him before, when he was four.

His memory was unnaturally sharp now, as if it had just happened seconds ago. And there was something else— He could ’see’.

From the moment he was born, to now. All of it. One of the eye’s abilities he assumed.

When he first woke up four months ago, barely able to control the eye, it had activated. Briefly. Before Merin sealed it, it had shown him. His life. Up until the night in the bathhouse. Dagger in hand. Princess staring at him.

That was when he realized how dangerous this world really was.

He hadn’t been reborn after being killed.

No.

He’d awakened in the moment he met the princess. Before he was killed in the dungeon.

Dagger raised. Breath held. Dagger falling from his hand. Princess s—

"Battle begins in ten seconds."

The voice of Elden yanked Zephyr from the spiral of memory.

He blinked, everyone else had moved. He was the only one still standing in their original spot.

But he didn’t bother to adjust back like the rest of them, he softly exhaled as the grip around his Scythe tighten. Staying at the center of the podium was opening declaring that he would take all of the on.

He didn’t know this and frankly he wouldn’t care, he gazed at the birthmark on the back of his palm. Two of the runes were lit up.

JAILER

SPECTOR

He was finally at Elpison, which means he now had access to another Art which was called—

"Begin".

As soon as the words fell down. Earl’s voice rang out.

Zephyr was tight as a steel wire, ready to move the instant an attack came.

He wasn’t the only one. The two girls were also tense, poised to pounce at the first flicker of opportunity.

"I know this might sound rude," Earl said, "but I was hoping you’d give us space."

Zephyr arched a brow.

’What’s this about?’. Earl wasn’t looking at the girls. He was looking at him, eyes full of wildfire.

"And how would we do that?" came Vida’s voice.

She wasn’t against the idea. Not really. Her mind was already playing it out— ’let them fight, wear each other down, then finish what’s left’.

Still, she had pride, and pride needed a voice.

"Hm. How about... leaving the podium?"

Vida’s eyes widened.

’Isn’t that too much?’.

"And why would we do that?" Selene’s voice was calm, but there was steel behind it.

She hadn’t spoken before— probably because she was an introvert by nature or because she tried to give him respect seeing he was at grade 3 of Eplision. But his request were unreasonable.

Directly asking them to forfeit the fight? It was too much, their pride wouldn’t allow it. So as their clan.

The prospect of failing this tournament was akin to failing the entire clan, and now he was talking about them forfeiting— this was even more embarrassing.

"A fight between sons of Demios would be .... Catastrophe". Earl replied in a bland tone that carried a matter of fact edge

"Don’t mock me". Selene hissed at him.

Earl then sighed said something beneath his breath as he spoke out. "Then step aside".

Vida was happy with the outcome but she felt strange over it. She watched at Earl poised in preparation for battle with a barely interested Zephyr. Maybe it was how he had dismissed them, the belittlement, the light burn on her cheek due to shame.

She felt degraded, she didn’t even catch their eyes, she was barely an afterthought. And this was the feeling she hated the most. The feeling of not being wanted, of not being needed. She craved the attention she got when she had defeated Zephyr back at the entrance exam. The flattering smile, the look of respect and reverence the commoner’s gave her. She craved the spot light.

But they had snatched it away from her as easily as an adult stealing candy from a child. No one paid attention to her anymore, all eyes were focused on Zephyr and Earl. The battle between behemoth. Demios vs Demios.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _

’i will make them pay’. They refusal to take her seriously had rubbed her off in the wrong way. How could there brush aside the daughter of a crownkin. Her father was the sovereign favorite brother and they had cast her aside. She Selene the child of the crownkin had naturally fallen under the grace of the sovereign.

’Demios just you wait. You days are numbered, enjoy your little fame while it lasts. Solmyr clan would not back down. You all are walking on thin ice. Your fall will be sudden but slow. Enough for Solmyr clan to savour it.

Selene edges backwards as she readied herself for a to stab someone in the back.