The cavern walls groaned like a living beast, pulsing faintly with a sinister red light. Toji's boots crunched over broken glass and scattered equipment as he and Frankie advanced deeper into the ancient, rotting laboratory. The eerie glow of runes flickered across the stone, illuminating symbols they'd seen repeated like a mantra throughout the dungeon. Something about the air shifted here—thicker, wrong.
Behind them, the scholar in the robe followed cautiously, his hands raised slightly as if still afraid Toji might turn and obliterate him. His story rang true, or at least convincing enough. A lone survivor of a hunter party, now wandering blindly through forbidden science and forgotten rituals.
But then they reached the final chamber.
And everything changed.
The door slid open with an unnatural hiss, revealing a scene both horrifying and impossible.
Inside were people. No—what used to be people. Strapped to iron slabs, twisted beyond recognition, their limbs contorted as if molded by unseen hands. Flesh fused with wires, skin stretched thin across glowing sigils etched into their bones. One still breathed. Barely. A low wheeze escaped his mouth like a prayer. His eyes fluttered open—empty, lost.
Toji froze.
He took a step forward, then another, and stopped dead in the center of the room. His fists clenched, nails biting into his palm. Something inside him snapped—a dam holding back every suppressed emotion since his reincarnation.
"Who... the fuck... did this?" he whispered, voice trembling with a mixture of fury and pain.
Frankie stood beside him, silent. He didn't know what to say. There were no words.
Toji looked up, eyes glinting with fury. "I serve a God who loves life. Not power, not dominance—life. Every soul, every breath... matters."
He turned slowly toward the walls, toward the runes, the needles, the corrupted instruments of torture dressed up as science. Then he looked skyward, even though the sky was far above the mountain that enclosed them.
"To whoever is watching this," he said, his voice echoing, building in power, like thunder through a canyon, "don't think you're safe. I'm coming for you."
The air turned to frost in an instant.
Frankie backed away as Toji's aura surged, silver-blue energy enveloping his body. The scholar stumbled, eyes wide. Everything slowed—the particles in the air, the drip of blood from a nearby table, even time itself seemed to falter.
Then Toji raised his hand.
A wave of ice erupted outward, seizing everything in its path. The mountain trembled. The lab walls were engulfed in crystalline frost. Metal shattered as it froze beyond its tensile limit. Walls of stone turned to mirrors of ice. And it didn't stop there.
It spread.
Through every tunnel, every corridor, every corrupted corridor of the dungeon, until it reached the heart of the mountain.
Until it became the mountain.
A grotesque monument of frozen vengeance.
Outside, a bird fell mid-flight, its wings encased in frost before it shattered in the wind.
Then Toji breathed.
And the world caught fire.
Flames unlike anything natural surged from his form—black and gold, a divine inferno. It didn't burn wildly; it targeted every trace of the corruption. The ice shattered in a fury of combustion. Roars echoed as the mountain erupted inwards. Rocks exploded outward, lava vaporized mid-flow. It was not just destruction—it was judgment.
And then, silence.
Toji stood alone. Frankie and the scholar shielded their eyes, their bodies pressed to the ground.
And when they rose again—
The mountain was gone.
Only plains remained.
A flat expanse of scorched earth, now cooled by the final breath of Toji's storm. The wind howled, and the world held its breath.
Toji exhaled slowly. His eyes were calm again, but beneath them, something still burned. Resolve. Purpose.
Frankie walked to his side, speechless.
"We should go," Toji said.
But the scholar did not move. He knelt down, pressing a hand to the ground, as if trying to make sense of what had just occurred.
And with that, the three of them began walking away, their shadows stretching long across the new plains where a mountain once stood.
The sun dipped toward the horizon as Toji, Frankie, and the scholar returned to the city, their silhouettes faint against the fading light. They said nothing on the way back.
Toji's mind was locked in quiet fury. Not rage—fury. Cold, deliberate, and burning beneath the surface. He had seen horror before, but nothing quite like what had been concealed in that mountain. Experiments. Sacrifices. Lives, twisted into unrecognizable forms for some twisted ambition. And someone had orchestrated it.
When they reached the inn, the atmosphere was in stark contrast to their grim return. The tavern downstairs was filled with warmth and laughter. Soldiers sat at long tables, mugs clinking, the scent of roasted meat and bread filling the air.
"Toji! Frankie!" a familiar voice called out.
Felaad strode over, a goblet in hand, dressed in lighter, informal armor and smiling like the world hadn't just tried to collapse.
"You made it back. I'd heard there were tremors. Thought it might've been one of those collapsing-type dungeons."
"It's gone," Toji said shortly. "All of it."
Felaad's expression turned serious in an instant. He nodded once. "I figured it was something big when the birds stopped flying."
He glanced between the two of them, noting the new face behind them. "Who's this?"
"A survivor," Frankie answered. "One of the few left of a hunter party that entered that place. He'll speak to the governor."
At the mention of politics, Felaad sighed, then remembered something. "Speaking of officials, Serene isn't here anymore. Word came from the king of Sarfin. He was summoned personally. Something urgent. Left just after sunrise."
Toji barely reacted.
"And," Felaad continued, "the governor of this city—he's asked for you. Seems word's spread of what happened in the mountains. He'd like a private audience."
Toji's eyes narrowed. "I'm not interested in handshakes and empty praise."
"I figured you'd say that." Felaad shrugged. "Still, he's persistent. And powerful."
But Toji had no time for ceremonies. Not until he knew who was behind that hell in the mountain. He wasn't seeking justice anymore—he was seeking answers.
As the night wore on, the inn remained lively. But upstairs, in the privacy of their rented rooms, the scholar explained all he had seen, though his knowledge remained limited. Frankie kept scribbling notes, eyes tense, while Toji stood by the window, staring out at the city.
And far away—somewhere distant and dark—the true hand behind everything stirred.
Beneath the twilight of another world, the man with the horns stood in a chamber carved from black stone. The throne behind him shimmered with divine energy, and a silver sigil glowed on his chest like a pulsating wound.
He was not pleased.
Across from him, kneeling on the reflective obsidian floor, was a robed figure—hooded, masked, trembling only slightly.
"You promised me results," the horned man said, voice echoing through the chamber like thunder behind silk. "You promised me the project would be finished by now."
"My lord…" the masked figure said, bowing deeper. "Unforeseen interference. We didn't expect one of them to show up."
"One of them?" the man asked.
"Power beyond the registered ranks. He melted the entire structure... froze a mountain first, then burned it away. It wasn't normal—"
"Clearly," the horned man interrupted. "You failed."
There was silence.
Then, the masked one dared speak again. "The process will continue. We've relocated to a deeper site. Hidden. We will not be interrupted again."
The horned figure stood, his shadow twisting unnaturally across the walls.
"You will be fast," he said, stepping down from his throne. "Or I will destroy every last one of you."
The robed man flinched but nodded quickly.
"I will avenge my sons," the horned man whispered, turning away. "I will burn every city to the ground until they scream the names of my children in terror. I will turn the gods themselves to ash."
He raised his hand, and the dark sigil on his chest glowed bright red.
"And I will not be patient again."
The masked figure vanished in a swirl of shadows.
Far away, Toji stirred from his restless sleep, a flicker of energy dancing on the edge of his senses. Something had shifted. Something was watching.