The Extra's Rebellion
Chapter 76: I am not a Prop

Chapter 76: I am not a Prop

Earl didn’t move. He stood there with his war fan slung over one shoulder, one foot slightly forward, weight balanced. His eyes—once gleaming with excitement—had narrowed into slits of suspicion. Zephyr could see the calculation flickering behind them.

Earl had noticed the hair too— He wasn’t blind.

But Zephyr wasn’t focused on that.

What consumed him was the weight still lingering in the air. A pressure that didn’t belong to Earl, nor to himself.

It belonged to the fan.

’I need to bait him’. Zephyr thought, cracking his neck as he staggered forward a step, ribs still aching with each breath. ’They’re still distracted by my hair’.

He feinted left—then suddenly blasted right, stumbling as if still disoriented.

Earl didn’t seem to notice that Zephyr was inching closer to his scythe. His gaze was fixed on Zephyr’s hair, thoughts spiraling.

’A white-haired son of Demios?

Impossible—unless... the Ancestor himself?’.

Earl’s overactive imagination surged. Despite his growth, his power, he at the end of the day was still a fourteen years old child— and still prone to wonder.

"Is he dumb?" Zephyr muttered under his breath, fingers finally curling around the familiar curve of his scythe’s handle. His breath slowed. His stance settled.

And then he moved. No warning. No waiting. Just pure motion.

He vanished like a shadow in the wind as space parted for him as easily as butter too a hot knife.

Earl’s eyes widened—not from the sudden speed, but from the direction Zephyr was moving.

Straight toward Vida.

She flinched, instinctively stepping back as Zephyr closed the gap in an instant. One second, he was stumbling—next, he was nearly on top of her.

The scythe’s blade snapped free from the staff, whipping through the air toward her.

Vida twisted, barely dodging in time.

"Sanguis—Needlevine Hair!"

Her murky yellow hair exploded outward, wild strands lashing toward Zephyr like living spears.

Zephyr didn’t engage, he simply dodged, slipping just out of range.

Vida prepared to strike again—when he turned.

Not to her— but to Earl, who had closed in behind him.

"Gotcha."

Boom.

The attack on Vida had been a ruse. Earl had been the true target from the start. He had attacked Vida to draw out Earl desire to fight him.

As Earl raised his war fan for an overhead strike, Zephyr suddenly pivoted and drove a compressed-space-infused kick into Earl’s ribs like a battering ram.

Earl flew backward with a grunt—but his grip on the fan never faltered.

Zephyr gave chase, intent on cutting him down while airborne.

But Earl whispered something under his breath—

—and Zephyr felt it again.

Too late.

The fan pulsed.

A dome of shimmering violet energy erupted outward like a cannon blast— it was shaped like a box. Zephyr barely managed to raise his scythe in time, the force hurling him back across the stone arena, boots carving jagged furrows in the floor.

"What the hell?" he hissed, hands trembling—not from pain, but shock.

That pulse—it was his own locked space, not similar but exactly the same.

No wonder space hadn’t warned him. It thought he’d cast it.

"How did I never think of that?" Zephyr muttered. "The repulsion effect... it’s just like that character...". Zephyr recalled a character from his past life that could also do something similar to this.

’i would have surely caused pain’.

His thoughts were interrupted by a surge of Aether. He turned to see that Vaida was coming. Fast.

She lunged at him like a wildcat, eyes blazing.

Zephyr twisted, letting her chest brush his back as he pivoted.

’Soft’.

As soon as Vida landed and turned, she felt a kick slam into her exposed back.

Bam.

She tumbled across the floor, skipping like a stone before twisting mid-air and sliding to a stop.

She leapt up, ready for Zephyr’s follow-up strike.

But it never came because Zephyr was already back in combat with Earl.

The first attack—she’d thought he was finally acknowledging her.

Now she realized— She’d been a distraction.

Used. Again.

She stood frozen, fists clenched. Her gaze flicked to the spectators.

No one was watching her.

"He... disrespected me. Again." Her voice was a whisper of rage.

She grit her teeth, Aether rising.

Amplification Art—activated.

Meanwhile, Zephyr blocked Earl’s sweeping strike, ducked low to avoid a spinning kick, then slid sideways as Earl used his momentum to somersault overhead.

Zephyr rose from his slide and caught Earl’s next kick on his forearm, pushing him back.

’Darn it, this is taking far too long’.

He readied for a counterattack—when space whispered to him— A massive surge of Aether was emanating from behind him.

He disengaged and spun around—

Only to see Vida’s murky yellow hair flooding the arena like a wave. Too fast.

He moved— but not fast enough.

The hair engulfed him, wrapping around like a living net.

Earl launched himself upward, escaping just in time. With a blow from his war fan, he rode the gust like a hawk diving for prey, aiming straight for Vida.

She was focused—intent on crushing Zephyr beneath her Art.

Earl’s goal was to distabilize her, long enough for Zephyr to escape. As Earl neared Zephyr previous position, his instincts screamed danger, but it was too late.

A figure burst from the flood of hair like a cannonball—foots raised high.

Bang!

Earl was struck at his exposed chest mid-air, launched backward like a ragdoll.

He tumbled, gasping for breath, vision spinning, through the haze, he caught a glimpse of the figure.

The left part of his shinning white hair soaked with blood from his previous fall, a grin splitting his face.

’Zephyr? How...?

The spectators’ stands warped—emergency enchantments activated the moment the two figures crossed the boundary. The seats with people vanished only to appear in different locations, leaving a sleek, reinforced platform just in time for the impact.

BOOM.

Zephyr and Earl slammed into the platform, a sharp shockwave cracking through the air. Earl hit first—Zephyr landed atop him, knees pinning down his arms as his fists rained down like pistons. Each blow thundered, shaking the platform beneath them.

Zephyr quickly brought his hand to his back to take his Scythe shackled there, but that little window was all it took for Earl to gather his bearing.

Earl snarled, his vision red from pain. His ribs screamed, but he gritted his teeth and spat a red fireball from a hollow Art engraved in his tongue at point-blank.

’Shit’.

Fwoosh!

Zephyr kicked off just in time, the flame scorching past his side—but Earl wasn’t done. He shot up after him, war fan spinning.

Zephyr didn’t fight back, with a grin he didn’t know was on his face he just kept tapping the air, each contact igniting a burst of locked space beneath his feet.

Step. Step. Step.

He rose higher and higher, each step upward effortless.

Earl swung his war fan and missed as gravity took hold. He began to fall.

And that’s when Zephyr’s eyes gleamed, he spun mid-air, diving down like a spear.

Clang!

Earl barely raised his war fan just in time, to block the overhead scythe attack.

But the force sent cracks spidering through the air itself. That wasn’t the real hit, it was just a feint.

The real hit— it came from above

A delayed strike— Zephyr’s fist like a comet falling from orbit.

BANG!

Earl slammed into the arena floor, a crater forming beneath him.

Zephyr descended, scythe raised, ready to end it—when it all vanished in a flood of yellow.

Hair.

Vida’s hair.

It swallowed the region, shooting out like divine punishment, tangling through stone and sky.

"I am not a prop!". She screamed, voice cracking with rage and humiliation.

Three seconds of silence.

She stood in the middle of the golden web she’d unleashed, chest heaving. "Where are you, bastard? Come out!"

Puti.

A sickening sound, soft but final rang out as her eyes widened.

Then she heard a whisper coming from behind her.

"I’m right here."

She looked down slowly— A hand was piercing through her chest from behind— the direct position of her Hearth, blood spilling from her lips.

Zephyr’s voice was calm, teasing and close.

"Never expose your back in battle. I love exposed backs".

Vida’s body trembled. Her hands, once balled in fury, now hung limp as blood dripped steadily from the wound.

She tried to turn her head, to say something—anything.

But all she could say was. "You".

But Zephyr had already let go.

She crumpled forward, hair unraveling like frayed rope, her knees hitting the floor with a hollow thud before her body slumped sideways in a pool of red and yellow.

She was an Elpison and had already formed a second Hearth in her ribs, but it was still an infant, and only from rank Delta and above could survive if one of their Hearth got destroyed.

’This art sure is handy’. Zephyr was genuinely happy about his new art, his new art was cal—

Space whispered as Zephyr moved away from his previous position.

"Can’t someone have a break". Zephyr mumbled under his breath as he moved away from his previous Position to stare at the newcomer.

Selene finally decided to show up.