In that moment, it was like time had stopped. Everything became so clear, so slow, so obvious. My mind poured over everything like a fresh layer of hell scorching me into pieces.

  The nunchuck wielder was holding his throat, his face a mess, as he laid on the harsh stone. He had puked, stomach already starting to change colors and blood leaking from his mouth. Ragual had hit hard and one of those punches had clearly landed right on his throat. He was choking to death, slowly. His throat had probably collapsed. His eyes looked panicked and his nunchucks lay at his side.

  The sword wielder looked cold and furious, rage bathing his eyes. They reminded me of master’s but somehow filled with less hate. Pig iron to his steel. But still more than enough. He barely showed any damage that I could see, he seemed to practically be in perfect form. At best, his hand seemed damaged slightly and I had no idea how that had happened.

  And Ragual… oh Ragual. His body was sliced to pieces. The armor had clearly helped but it’d been torn and broken off him. He was on his knees, head down, barely moving. Just his back alone showed three puncture marks where the sword had gone right through him and the blood that was pooling around him was horrifying. If even his back looked so slashed up… I was terrified of what I’d see if I could see his front.

  His helmet had been knocked off somehow, a large bloody gash falling across his head. Purple blood was all around him and all of it his. I was surprised he was even alive.

  And the sword.

  The sword was coming, falling down. Like judgment day. I saw it fall, saw as the sands of time slowly fell forward, the inevitable coming down. I tried to move, to make it in time, to stop this. To end this. To save him. I had to. I had to save him. I could do it, I needed to, I couldn’t. I couldn’t bear with this Ragual. I couldn’t live knowing my need to leave was what got you killed. We could’ve waited, we could’ve trained, we could’ve tried harder and harder. We would’ve grown stronger and eventually beat these guys. We wouldn’t have even needed to use armor.

  We could’ve brought weapons, tried our best with them. It would’ve been more effective than our weak fists and kicks. We could’ve tried harder. Been trained by guards even. We could’ve swallowed our pride and arrogance. All we needed to have was patience and courage enough to wait.

  I’d been too arrogant, too prideful, too impatient. I’d seen four people with every advantage possible, including a power level one. Stronger, faster, more well trained, more numbers, better equipment, everything. And I’d forced us to go and try anyway. We had been dealing with assassins and leapt at them like sheep to a slaughter.

  And now my desire to escape was going to get Ragual killed.

  I needed to move. To get there. To help right now. I wouldn’t move, everything was slow, too slow. So slow. Think! Think! What did I have? What could I do?! Could I throw something, burn something? Yell something? Would any of it be faster than a falling sword? Would he even stop? What could I do? I had to save him. I had to. I had-

  The sword was falling, my instincts were silent, my mind was panicking, everything was happening again. Someone was going to die. The light was going to leave Ragual’s eyes. He’d be dead, his village-

  A pain unlike any other screamed from my soul. His village! He’s the strongest one there! What would happen without him? Could they protect themselves? They’d have to send someone weaker out to guard the entrance or try to seal it but, but-

  They’d all die. Sooner or later… something would kill them all without their protector. Even a rat might be able to do it. The turtles might actually go back for revenge after we’d killed two of their brothers. They’d all die. I’d… I’d… I’d have killed them all. I’d have ruined their paradise and killed them all.

  If they’d never met me, if Ragual had never been kind to me, he wouldn’t be dying right now.

  I was no better than Vega.

  Something burned. My flesh felt like kindling as my soul and mind screamed. I wasn’t like Vega. I wasn’t him. I refused. I refused. Even if I had to kill the world, break reality, turn back time itself, I refused.

  Ragual will not die here!

  I stretched out my hand, my mind on fire, my body breaking in ways I couldn’t understand, and I felt it. Something, something beyond me. Beyond everything. Beyond all. It felt like staring at the endless blue skies and stretching on for farther than there was space in the universe. It felt like all of reality and more. It was the Horizon itself, the very concept of it.

  I didn’t care. I’d break it all if I needed to. It didn’t matter. The universe didn’t matter as much as one Battle Toad’s life right now.

  My left arm exploded and a blue beam of energy and light poured out of it, and slammed into the sword.

  And kept going.

  It hit the turtle and it froze as the darkness around us was banished. Moments later, the beam died away and I could see the unbelievable. There was a hole larger than my head going through it’s chest. You could see the rock wall on the other side. His pupils shook, shock the last thing he felt, before the life left his eyes. His pupils were still shaking as he fell backwards and hit the stone, dead.

  I stared but it didn’t matter. He was dead. Dead. Dead. My mind… messy. He was alive, Ragual was alive. He was- my head. Dizzy. I felt so, heavy. Dizzy. My eyes hurt. Why did my eyes hurt? I looked down at my arm, it was gone from the shoulder down. Huh.

  It didn’t hurt.

  That was kinda scary. I couldn’t, stop now. Still… one more… turtle. I turned, only to see terrified eyes staring back at me. I expected… rage. Sorrow. No one… has ever looked at me like that. Huh. I… don’t like it. I’m not scary. I’m Mutai. Just Mutai. Warrior. Martial artist. But… just… Mutai.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  Had to, help Ragual. He was hurt, dying. I had to get him to the village. I had to-

  My legs wouldn’t move. Huh. That was… strange. Was I dying? Weird. That’s so weird. What would Maui say? He’d probably.. Uhhh.. laugh? Nah. He’d, probably be scared huh? So weird. Why would he be… scared too?

  Ragual. Had to help him. He needed my help. The village… the village could save him. Just had, to get up. Get up. Come on legs, please? Please get up? I needed you to do that so I could help my buddy. I needed you right now. Come on, move already. Legs? Are you even listening?

  Sorry Ragual, my legs, they aren’t talking to me right now.

  My head feels weird.

  Huh. Things are darker. Oh, my eyes are closed. When did that happen? The turtle is gone. Weird. So many weird things are going on.

  A shadow falls over me. Oh. Am I going to die now?

  I look up and-

  I gasp.

  “Ragual.”

  He’s bloody. So bloody. Wow, that’s a lot of blood Ragual. Why are you so bloody? You’ve been torn and opened up. That’s horrible. Awful. I think I can see your heart beating. That’s crazy. Are you even alive right now? It’s like you were dissected. Ew. You look really gross Ragual. You gotta look better for the ladies. Or do you like men? That’s okay if you like men. I-

  How are you standing?

  “Wow. You’re so strong. You’re so much stronger than me Ragual. I wanna be like you when I grow up. That’s so cool. You’re so cool.”

  The light fades as a hand reaches for me.

  *****

  The dream…

  It returns.

  Vega stares, hauntingly without skin or eyes. The depiction of ultimate evil, inhuman, a monster made flesh but long has it lost any sort of morality.

  The stars collide, explosions reign, as power suffuses me.

  All is white, all is gold, but now there’s an atom, a literal atom, of a new color in the world. Blue. It exists, below notice, but it exists. I can feel it, the horizon dyed.

  Evil pours down around the world. I can see it, sense it, feel it. The golden road brightens and flows, rainbow along its edges.

  Figures of wrong flow and exist, dyeing things a color that can not be named. Their silhouettes like the lightning scream of colors. All and none.

  An eye stares down at me, looking for me. It is death beyond all I know and it must not find you.

  I’m afraid. So afraid. Fear unlike death floats towards me. It is beyond death, it is worse than death, it is the unmaking.

  A fist of panic is thrown and the universe breaks.

  *****

  I wake up screaming. I don’t stop. Nothing but the dream in my head exists. The unmaking. It is, it can’t be, I can’t, it can’t, I can’t, I can’t, no no no no. No. No no. Make it go away. Go away! Make it go away! I can’t be, I won’t be unmade! Make it go away!

  Time stretches like an eternal band of horror, before blessed darkness takes me again.

  Even in my dreams, I scream again and again.

  My very soul cries and wails like a toddler with a tiger about to eat it. It doesn’t understand, it doesn’t know, but it can feel it. Something with things it can’t understand yet staring at it, the feeling like a heat or a sickness, baring down on you. It doesn’t know the tiger hungers, it doesn’t understand the tiger's malice, it only knows that it's scared. That it’s going to die. It doesn’t understand that either. It only knows it's in danger.

  Danger.

  I’m in danger. I’m in danger.

  Like a lock clicking into place, the memory begins to fade. The dream pulls away, farther and farther away from me, till only like gaps in a board does it fit. The silhouettes, the unmaking, the pure scale of it all, dies away. All that I am left with is fear and worry about something beyond me.

  My soul screams in the residual terror.

  I will not be unmade!

  *****

  I open my eyes. And immediately regret it.

  “Fuck.”

  White and black agony coil around my whole body. I cringe and shake and cry and scream a little. Everything hurts and I can’t even understand the pain. It’s so intense, so dull, and so much more than anything I’d ever felt. I try to move parts of my body and I do, and that worries the deepest pits of my psyche more than anything else.

  I can’t see, eyes wide open but unable to see. I’m not blind but my focus is so shattered that I might as well be and I can’t pull it together. My eyes hurt. They hurt so damn much. Did I somehow burn them? Did someone take out my eyes? No, I can still see.

  I can feel, so much. There’s no loving numbness like before. That's the final thought that brings panic to my mind.

  Did I not make it?

  Are we not in the village?

  I focus, hard, and finally see herbs dangling above me. My fears only relax slightly. I should be immobile and numb, why aren’t I?

  Sitting up, I finally notice something I couldn’t before. Three different frogs are yelling at me, croaking loudly, trying to hold me down. They’re failing. My mind wars. I need to, to, what does it need to do? I can’t… why, the pain is making it hard to think.

  Having had enough, one of the frogs takes a risk and grabs my head, trying to push it down with all her strength. I resist and in that resistance… finally give up. My body lands back with an oomph.

  The healer sighs in croak, before going back to administering her healing. It hurts. It shouldn’t hurt, why does it hurt now?

  “Ragual.” I spit out. I have to know, I need to know-

  The healer points to the right with a grave look.

  I turn, my eyes trying their best to stop working and-

  Ragual. He’s covered in bandages, his whole damn body, with enough different plants and, are those needles? Stabbing into him. He looks like he was abducted, mummified, covered in strange alien plants like a piece of dirt, and then stabbed with hundreds of very, very long needles.

  It’s horrifying.

  But this is a healer's house. Healer. So that means-

  “Oh. He’s alive.”

  The relief hits me so hard that I’m out before I can even blink.

  Patreon (20 Advanced Chapters)

  Discord (Get notified via ping when a new chapter comes out!)