*SCREEEECH!!!*

Nightmare fuel.

That is the only way to describe this giant monster as it loomed over the entirety of the destroyed village.

The segments of its body ground against one another with the sound of tectonic plates shifting. It reared up, covering out the afternoon sun, and unleashed an ear-piercing screech that shattered the remaining windows of whatever houses that still stood.

Then, its many eyes fixed on Isabel.

The maid stood paralyzed. Her mind was fractured; she couldn’t stop seeing the faces of the children as the earth swallowed them whole. The injustice of it, the sheer, senseless horror of an entire village being harvested like wheat, had locked her joints.

*SCREEEECH!!!*

The monster lunged and launched itself like a massive, chitinous spear.

"Isabel, move!" Kurt roared.

He didn’t wait for her to react. He sprinted and tackled her just as the monster’s mandibles snapped shut on the air where she had been a millisecond before and tumbled across the dirt as the beast collided with a nearby house.

BOOOM!

The structure exploded into splinters and stone dust. Without losing momentum, the centipede dived, its massive head boring into the foundation and vanished underground.

The ground began to thrum in a low-frequency vibration that rattled Kurt’s teeth.

"Gracie!" Kurt yelled, feeling her body shift on his back. "How did you kill the ones in the forest? Give me a weakness, a soft spot, anything!"

"Ha, are you kidding me!? Firstly, those were the size of dogs compared to this fucking mountain! And secondly... I just hit them really, really hard until they stopped moving!"

"Wow! Fantastic! How incredibly helpful! Truly, a tactical genius!"

"You’re welcome, cyclops!"

Tingle

Kurt’s body screamed at him as he felt death approaching from directly below.

"Isabel, get back!"

"Y-Yes, Master!"

As she scrambled away, Kurt crouched low as he channeled mana into his quads and calves. Then, he shot up high in the sky.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" Gracie screamed, her hair whipping wildly as they soared upward.

Below them, the earth erupted. The centipede burst from the ground like a volcanic eruption, rising straight for them in the mid-air.

Gracie began to thrash on his back as panic began settling in. "I didn’t sign up for this! I’m not dying as a backpack!"

"Just shut up and watch!"

Kurt drew his black blade with his free hand. He flooded the steel with a shimmering blue coat of mana that made the blade hum with a predatory hunger.

"What? Is that... mana coating?" Gracie’s eyes widened.

Kurt brought the blade down to block – or strike – the monster’s ascending strike. But as the massive head neared, he realised his error. The sheer mass of the beast was far too great to parry. It wasn’t just going to bite him; it was going to vacuum them both up.

"Shit! Gracie! Push me away! Now!"

Understanding his intent, Gracie planted her bare feet against his lower back and shoved with a desperate, explosive kick. The momentum sent Kurt spinning through the air to the left, while Gracie was propelled to the right.

The monster’s head sailed just past them. Kurt slammed into a pile of rubble from a collapsed tavern, the wind knocked out of him, and Gracie landed in a massive hay pile near the stables, disappearing into the straw with a muffled curse under her breath.

"Master Rossana!" Isabel cried, rushing toward the rubble and began tossing aside heavy beams of wood.

The monster landed back on the ground with the force of a meteor, causing a tremor so violent it knocked Isabel off her feet. It turned and fixed its gaze on the hay pile, hissing as its many legs scuttled. It was preparing to finish off the easier target.

Gracie crawled out of the hay, her shoulder bleeding again, looking up at the approaching wall of death. "Oh fuck, you’ve got to be kidding me..."

"GRACIE!" Isabel screamed. She then turned back to Kurt, looking for help, but he wasn’t moving.

He managed to sit up, but his blade was limp in his hand. He was staring at the destruction – the sunken holes where the villagers had been, the blood-slicked wheat and the monstrosity that defied every law of nature.

"Master! Snap out of it! We have to help her!"

Isabel’s voice reached him, but it sounded like she was underwater. Because of Kurt’s mind, the walls were closing in.

’Dammit! I thought I had this. I lived a life of absolute cruelty and horror – hell I revelled in it. I saw the syndicate, the torture chambers, the back-alley butcheries. I came to this ’world’ and fought the Cult, saw their twisted experiments, I saw the goblins, the women and the pain they’ve endured... I thought I was hardened. But this...’

This was a scale of horror he couldn’t process.

An entire community erased in minutes by the very ground they walked on. The sheer helplessness of the villagers, the way the earth had swallowed the children.

There had to have been better ways to handle the Elder. It felt like a personal failure.

His "cheat" abilities, his sword, his mana... What good were they against this massive being that simply opened its mouth and ate you? Kurt was spiraling.

"Fuck..ou! I’m no..dyi..until I..ind Austin!"

*SCEEEEECH!!!*

BOOOM!

In the distance, Gracie dived out of the way as the monster’s head smashed into a house, pulverizing the stone. She was losing steam. Isabel was crying, her voice cracking as she begged Kurt to wake up, but he remained a statue of despair.

"GAAH–!"

BOOM!

Gracie was sent flying and crashing into a stone house as the centipede monster knocked her off her feet.

It then turned its massive head toward the two people standing in the open. It coiled its body, preparing for a final, crushing charge.

Isabel saw death approaching. She saw Kurt’s glazed eye and realised he wasn’t coming back. However, she didn’t run. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling his head into her chest, closing her eyes to shield him – even if it was a futile gesture against a creature that size.

The monster let out a final, triumphant screech and lunged.

Suddenly, the world slowed.

The sound of the screech stretched into a low, droning hum. The debris falling from the sky stopped mid-air. Isabel’s tears stayed frozen on her cheeks. The monster’s open maw, dripping with green venom, was nearly inches away, frozen like a statue in a museum.

Tap

Kurt felt a light weight perch itself on his shoulder.

He turned his head slowly, his mind still sluggish. There, licking its paw was a small, pristine white cat.

"Ki..tty?"

Thinking perhaps he had finally lost his mind, he reached up with a finger intending to pet the small creature. The cat’s ears flattened and with a lightning-fast motion, it swatted his hand away, its claws leaving three distinct red welts on Kurt’s finger.

"Ow! What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"What the hell is wrong with me???" Kitty snapped back.

The voice was smooth like a proper Englishman, cultured, and currently very annoyed. "You’re the one standing there like a decorative garden gnome while a World Ender tries to eat you. Are you suicidal, or just exceptionally stupid? Goddess above, where’s Emelie when you need her?"

Kurt stared, his jaw dropping. "You’re... you’re talking. A cat is talking to me. Okay. I’m dead. And this is the afterlife. Got it."

"So, suicidal, huh?" the cat sighed, shaking its head.

"I’m not!" Kurt yelled, the absurdity of the situation finally jarring him out of his spiral. "I’m just... I’m overwhelmed by everything that’s happening! And how the hell are you talking? You’ve been following me all this time and you never said a word!"

"There was never a need. But listen, in case you forgot, time hasn’t actually stopped. It just slowed your perception down to the limits of your soul’s processing power. If you don’t move in the next ten seconds, that World Ender is going to finish its last bite."

Kurt looked at the monster. It was moving, albeit imperceptibly slow, and its mandibles trembled as they closed in.

With the fog in his mind now cleared and the sheer weirdness of a talking cat giving him a handhold to pull himself out of the pit, he grabbed Isabel, jumped, and rolled to the side.

Time resumed with a violent CRACK.

*SCREEEEEECH!!!*

BOOOM!

The monster’s head slammed into the dirt where they had been standing, the impact sending a spray of earth at least fifty feet into the air.

Isabel gasped, looking up to see Kurt standing over her, his eye sharp and glowing with a dangerous, blue light.

"Master! You’re back!"

The centipede turned around and prepared for another lunge.

"W-What are we going to do?" Isabel asked, clutching his shirt.

"I... might have a plan."

Isabel looked up and saw the white cat. Her jaw dropped. "Where did that come from?!"

Kitty raised a paw and gave a tiny, innocent wave. "Hi."

"It... it talked."

*SCREEEEEECH!!!*

"Focus, Isabel!" Kurt said as the monster charged again.

"But what’s your plan?!"

Kurt didn’t move. He stood his ground, spreading his arms wide as if welcoming the monster’s maw. "This!"

"MASTER, NO!" Isabel shrieked, throwing herself in front of him again, shielding him with her body as the monster’s mouth opened wide enough to encompass them both.

Time stopped again.

"You really are suicidal," Kitty sighed from his shoulder.

"I told you, I’m not."

In this slowed-down world, Kurt moved with agonizing precision. He tightened his grip on Isabel, ensuring she was tucked safely under his arm, and raised his mana coated black blade.

He didn’t just swing once. He moved like a ghost, his blade flickering a dozen times in the span of a single, slowed down heartbeat. He carved deep wounds into the monster’s soft under-palate and sliced through the clusters of eyes on the left side of its head.

Then, he leapt backward, clearing the splash zone.

Time resumed.

The monster didn’t finish its lunge. Instead, it let out a sound like a steam engine exploding. Green, venomous blood sprayed from a dozen deep wounds, drenching the area.

It screeched in genuine agony as its massive body coiled and began thrashing when it crashed into the ground, writhing like a worm on a hook. The tremors were so violent they threatened to knock down the remaining standing buildings.

Isabel looked up from Kurt’s chest, her eyes wide with bewilderment. One second they were about to be eaten – the next, the monster was fifty feet away, bleeding and screaming in pain.

"How... how did you...?"

Kurt looked at the blade in his hand, then at the cat on his shoulder. He felt a rush of adrenaline that drowned out the last of his fear.

"Hahaha, maybe this isn’t so impossible after all," he said as his smile widened. "Now, let’s finish this bug."