I had to give the unknown assailant credit. That hit was nothing short of perfect.

From start to finish, there had not been enough time for a single second to pass. Or even half that. Yet she had already managed to both use a mixture of Enhancer boosts and Projector time and momentum warping abilities to make one utterly lethal charge at my chest. Not to mention how efficiently she'd coated her body in a metallic, liquid substance to protect against my own Shifter abilities. All while setting up her limb to explode like a shrapnel grenade by causing a chemical reaction within her bones.

Yep. A textbook strike.

One that wouldn't have given me enough time to do anything but defend and re-constitute my body.

"Too bad." I whispered to her as I dislodged myself from the barbed claws. "Your time-dilating ability is only on the 6th Tier. Not bad."

I admitted.

"Not great either. Also, while you're clearly on the 10th Tier in one of your Types, Enhancer, you only have the one Tier 10 ability. Same with Shifter and Projector. You only have the one Tier 9 ability."

I looked her up and down as she stood there. Suspended mid-strike.

"That and you are only Tier 7 in Telepath. Tut-tut." I looked around then. Confirming my suspicions.

"The others could cover for your… lacking prowess. I suppose. But they portalled in all the way over there by the mountains. Not the Moving Mountain, who is currently charging up those roots to convert the planet into extensions of her body, but the actual mountains out in the distance."

For someone like Puffin or Vince or Thunder Fist, that distance would have been laughable. So it stood to reason the same would hold true for even greater Masters out in the Labyrinth.

"Still. It is too bad." I reiterated. "I connected very thoroughly with Randall. And this…"

I waved about.

"This is his…" I paused. Correcting myself. "My [World Over Heaven X] And both the Tier and ability level are far… far beyond what you can counter. At a whopping 45."

I paused again to shoot her a pitying look.

"Not that you can hear anything I'm saying of course. But, for what it's worth. I'm sorry it came to this. I really do not hold any kind of grudge."

I shot myself upwards with [Solomon's Unrelenting Force X]. Not stopping until I was flying close to the outer edges of the planet's atmosphere. Where the air, if it could still be called air, was nearly non-existent.

"I never actually took things this far." I spoke to the seven or so enemies below me. Just as the Moving Mountain's own Psy was beginning to surge in the still world. Overpowering the suffocating stillness of stopped time.

"Because I always thinned the Veil for a purpose. Either to boost people or to counter some other threat. Or simply to experiment with what I could do."

I grimaced. Recalling my childhood again. My own sins. The screaming. The pleading. The biting cold of black water rushing in from every direction.

The silence that followed.

"But if it can sink a continent, then it can split a world in two."

I marshalled my Psy and poured it.

All of it.

Into one ability.

In the depths of my mind, [Solomon's Overwhelming Avatar X] answered. Reeling from the shock of the flooding Psy, before adapting.

Within me, something broke.

And I could tell. Even without a Status screen, I could tell. That the ability's level was no longer a measly 49.

"Let the Seas Boil."

I sucked in what I knew would be my last breath for some time

"Let the Skies Burn."

POV: Horulash.

He was gone. I had blinked once. Once. And he was gone. And to make matters worse, the whole valley was gone alongside him.

I was floating then. Going up and up and up. Gravity being turned upside down all of the sudden. I used my own Psy to take control of my own personal gravity, but then it flipped upside down again and again and again. The pull of the world sending me down and to the right and to the left and backwards and forwards. I tried to use [Telekinesis III]. Trying to grab a hold of myself. Trying to keep myself from drifting left and right and everywhere else at once. But the force did not feel solid as I tried to grab hold of it. Instead, the Psy in the air turned into kinetic force that was almost… liquid.

The flow of movement and potential feeling like a hundred watery hands clasping their cold fingers around my throat and dragging me down. Down. Down.

Only, down was up and up was down and left and right and left and left and right all at once and all one after another.

I was spinning, but I could not tell which direction the flow was…

'What flow?' I wondered suddenly. 'What is going on? Where am I? Who am I? What is going on?'

I blinked and then forgot why I had done that. I knew the orbs in my face were attached there for a reason. I knew they had a purpose. I was even almost sure they had been there for a long time.

But I could not figure out what their purpose was or why they were there. In the face.

I flexed the muscles again and forgot why I was even doing that.

'Wait, what even are muscles? What is flexing? What is going on?'

I was putting effort into moving… something. And then that something moved when I wanted it to move. I was pretty sure that was how muscles worked. Only, muscles were supposed to work without me thinking about it. Right?

What other things were muscles?

'There are the eyes.' I thought. 'Whatever they are. I was supposed to have two. I think. Or maybe I had more. I think I had more once. Because of Shifter? Wait, what is Shifter? Someone who shifts? Is it like, moving around? But everyone moves around all the time… how is this… how does this have anything to do with eyes? How does this have anything to do with moving or seeing? Why did I think I ever had more than two eyes? What even is seeing?'

I tried to focus on the feeling. On the memory of the feeling. On what I thought was the memory of the feeling.

I…

I sensed.

I sensed a thing. A long, big thing. Swimming through the black fires all around me.

It was above, below and beside me. It was near me and far away from me. It was outside of me, in front of me. And in me.

I blinked, flexing those strange muscles.

And then I saw the thing entering and leaving a part of me at the same time. My whole right side having been gone.

Or maybe it had been gone before this? Or maybe it was never there?

It was so hard to think. It was so hard to remember.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

I was feeling pain then. Numbness. But I could not remember if I should have been alarmed. I could not remember what my reaction could have been. Should have been. I could not… I could not….

'What is pain?' I wondered. 'I feel like something is wrong? I feel something working to undo the wrong. But now I feel like the thing trying to undo the wrong went too far. What is going on? What does it mean to go too far to fix the wrong?'

I tried to use the… eyes? Yes. The eyes.

I tried to use the eyes and saw black smoke and… other things squirming on my wrong side. The parts of me having grown back wrong. Eyes and teeth and hair and more teeth and more tongues having grown in place of the… scales? Yes. The scales and the claws that used to be there.

The other things were not supposed to be there. But now they were there. And now they were turning to face me. And now the teeth were biting into me and the tongues were slobbering over me and the saliva was burning a pitch-black flame over me and inside me and all around me.

It hurt. But I could not figure out why that was.

'Who am I?' I wondered. 'What am I doing here? Is this normal?'

I did not know.

Some part of me told me this was wrong and that the insides of me were supposed to be solid and stable. But I could feel living things burning and wriggling inside of me. Eating me up and combusting within me before being born again and combusting all over again. And when some strange part of me tried to fix it, I felt myself growing back wrong, and then there were more strange things within me. More eyes. More mouths. More tongues. More teeth.

I could see through them and I could taste through them. I could taste me.

I tasted wrong. I did not like it. I tasted sour. I did not taste good. I did not taste right.

How is this normal?

Wait, how is not normal? Was there anything else but this?

Who am I? What am I doing here?

What is pain?

I sense things, but sensation is normal, right?

So why do these sensations not feel normal?

I stopped to think about it.

Sensing my body turning itself inside out. Sensing the insides growing more fangs than I thought were normal and sensing those very same fangs biting the other parts of me. The parts of me that I did not recognize as being new.

I was disappearing, but I could not think about it. My mind went blank whenever I tried.

Then it became harder and harder to think at all.

I was falling still and then I realized there was nothing but the squirming masses around me.

But they were odd, in ways I could not place.

I tried to think about why I thought they were odd. I tried to think about it for so long.

'Ah. That's it.' I realized. 'They aren't breathing. Normal living things are supposed to breathe. But they aren't breathing. They just… pop in and out of existence. Here one moment, gone the next. They keep coming and going so fast that none of them need to breathe. But why is it that they can get away with that and not me? How is it that I need to breathe? Wait. Do I need to breathe?'

I thought about it and recalled that breathing was important. It was something I was supposed to have been doing without even thinking about it. But I could not do it now. Even with me thinking about it. It was odd, but I could not recall why it was odd.

Then I tried to do it.

I tried to breathe.

Then I smelled, flowers. The scent of green grasses wet with morning dew and the burning smells of incense sticks. I smelled flowers and the colors on those flowers. But I could not see flowers. I saw simian faces. Monkey faces, or rather, gnomish faces.

I thought they looked odd for gnomes. Less conical in shape. Their heads that is. Their heads were less conical in shape.

They were all smiling. All of them were smiling.

And in their little hands…

The daggers…

POV: The Moving Mountain.

Thirteen Masters had come into the uninhabited planet. Including myself and Vanarath. All waiting to kill the interloper. All laying in wait to put him down. Like shadow-cats among the tall grasses in my home.

I recalled those shadow-cats now. Recalled the way the elders among the tribe had warned of them. How our eyes, the eyes of my people, bereft of color or even the concept of color, could not make them out among the flowing grasses on the plains or the ridges along the mountain passes or even the flowing reeds along the river banks.

The shadow-cats were like disease or childbirth. A fact of life all of us had to deal with. And among my people, they had been the symbol of the gods of death. The wardens to the afterlife who guided the honored fallen past the great valley of white sands and into the river-lands beyond. Where all the dead could live out their lives in a land of plenty and prosperity.

We had come to this place to be the shadow-cats this day. To remove a dishonorable warrior from the world.

But Vanarath…

'Vanarath betrayed us.' I thought bitterly. 'She betrayed Hazimon. Her master. Her mentor. Her progenitor who found her among the rest of her species and taught her what it meant to be a Savant. To be an Enhancer. Vanarath was a false friend. A traitor. How she did it is a mystery. How she could stand to do something like that is a mystery. How she could stomach herself after backing down from a baby's threats is a mystery.'

But the mysteries did not change what had happened. Vanarath had betrayed us. Me. And thus, thirteen became twelve and then the child stopped time and vanished.

And then twelve became six. Became three. Became two. Became one.

And I was all that was left. After all the others were turned inside out and disemboweled by their own intestines-turned-monster.

I would have said that the air was suffused with Psy, but in truth, there was more Psy around me than there were air particles.

If I tried to breathe, I would not be taking in air molecules, but rather, the foreign Psy of this wayward child.

'I underestimated him.' I realized. 'He was young, and stupid enough to make an enemy of master. Refusing to die as he should have. I thought he was lucky to have fooled Master. And then I thought he was clever to have fooled Vanarath. But I see now. I was the foolish one. This much power must be respected.'

It would have to be a lesson for the next attempt however.

The planet below me, the planet I had been absorbing, had all but crumbled to dust and flown away in all directions. Or else teleported elsewhere. To places unseen and planes unknown.

I was left with roots. Many roots. Half-formed and half tuned to tectonic plates and volcanic undertows that were no longer there.

Limbs clinging to nothingness and scrambling to reach into said nothingness. Being bitten by hordes of Intruders from all sides, all the time.

A legion of little pests swarming all around me like a plague of Greshi sticking to the body of a dying Brack. The little insects swarming around the giant in preparation of the mighty being's death. While carrion birds flew above.

'Fool. Impertinent fool.'

I gathered my own Psy and sent a wave of it outside my body. Wrangling the foreign Psy and forcing it into my colors.

The Intruders were banished, or else weakened. The ethereal flames eating away at the edges of my body vanishing as empty space replaced the bleeding edges of reality.

'Fool.' I thought again.

'The difference between a Tier 9 Master and a Tier 10 Master is like the difference between heaven and earth. Where I stand, my Psy stands with me. Where I walk, my Psy moves the Psy of the very world around me. The very dimension around me. Being a Shifter instead of a Telepath makes no matter. My Psy is my own and my Psy is an energy that heals and changes and empowers. My Psy is the origin of life and the progenitor of adaptation. My Psy finds the order within the chaos. My Psy will not be snuffed out.'

It was a shame that the others had not been able to keep up, but there was nothing more I could do for them. Their Titles had been… insufficient. Just as their total amount of Psy had been insufficient.

They had been overwhelmed in a fraction of a second by the sheer weight of the assault. The foreign, corrupting, chaotic influence of this Sully Carter falling atop them like the weight of a continent upon a single ant.

I felt bad for them. Pitied them and their sacrifice.

If they had at least managed to kill him, then their deaths would have meant something.

But as things stood, there had been eleven deaths, the deaths of those who stood a good chance at becoming divine within the next few million years, for no good reason.

'And she knew that.' I thought bitterly. 'She knew they would all be doomed without her. But she chose her own advancement over their lives. She chose the sliver of hope that she could become Divine, over the hopes of people who had struggled much longer and much harder than her. She took the easy way out.'

I should have seen it coming. I should have brought others with me.

'I should have reached out to the Frigid Bloodline. Or to the Veiled Assassin. I should have put our differences aside and reached out to them. They would have seen the threat for what it was. They would not have been bought so easily.'

I felt pain and sent another wave of Psy to my surroundings.

Taking hold of the foreign energies and the unnatural things swimming in the raw stuff of chaos and bending them to my will. To my mold.

Until they resembled mine and mine alone.

I turned my body, all of my body. Growing eyes and ears of all shapes and sizes to try and discern the damage to the world.

It was bad.

The earth below me had been completely obliterated.

The tectonic plates had not only been teleported away, but they had been sundered into streams of flowing space dust within a fraction of a heartbeat. So too had the oceans and skies and the rivers of magma below the thick layers of bedrock.

The very core of the planet had been changed into a single eyeball. A squirming, fleshy thing with many outlying tentacles of bright, black fire that continuously birthed more unnatural things from beyond the Veil.

'A monster birthing monsters.' I thought at once, before the tides of chaos returned with a vengeance from all directions and covered the eye once more. Intruders manifesting in the empty space as easily as if it were the water of a spawning pool.

'And he had the nerve to call my children horrors.' I contemplated with some amusement.

'While he tears planets apart and sets the firmament afire. What a hypocrite.'

But then again, young Savants were always like that.

Always so sure that their way was best.

That they and only they were the best.

'Hubris. The bane of all geniuses. A slow and insidious killer.'

I thought of her again.

'She was a fool to betray me. She should have been old enough to know better.'

I felt the foreign, strange Psy coiling around me. I gathered my own might and sent it away once more. Only, it took more effort this time. The pressure growing in intensity from all sides.

I sent an additional wave of Psy to dispel the foreign, unnatural powers.

It worked, but only for a second. And then space was ripping itself open all over again. All around me.

I could feel a breeze in the empty void of space. I could feel the wetness of a body of water and the feeling of a sandy lakebed brushing up against my outer, stony shell.

It should not have been possible. It was not possible.

I sent another wave of Psy outwards. Willing the energy to bend to my shape. To my will.

But it did not work, and the unreal matter generated more of the unreality.

Sapping my reserves for the first time while turning my own energies against me the second the flow left my body.

And then I took stock of what I actually had. Of my remaining Psy. The pool that was not regenerating.

And then I noted the ocean of unreal black, burning water surrounding me from all sides. A blanket of black diamonds lit by the fires of distant stars. A bubble of unreality where a world had once been.

Instinctively, without needing to but pressed by some long-forgotten urge, I tried to breathe.

And then I started drowning.

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