We are

selfish

fickle

things.

We are

centered

on our

rings.

We are

living

for

ourselves.

I am

dying

for no

one

I am

outside

a warm

sun

I am

betting

on this

wealth

We call

healing of

the

self.

Perhaps a god did exist in this fragile world, Emilio Hyphy mused from his perch.

After all, logically speaking, a god could not exist as religion worshipped it. This was due to “God” being a human construct wherein a “God” was defined as some being that was supreme in their existence, and thus that “God” could do anything.

But take “God” and make it actually exist, and that definition of “God” is wrong; instead of a supreme being that exists in all forms and can do anything, one would have a supreme being that exists in all forms and can do anything. The difference would be contained in the fact that if a god existed, the things God could do would become known to humans, thus making God a being capable of finite things observable in our world.

In that scenario, there would no longer be a god capable of doing anything; there would be a higher state of being perceivable by the living and able to do things that affected the living. Since “anything” was an abstract concept spanning all that could and would exist, saying that god could do anything would mean they could accomplish a finite concept spanning all that could and would exist.

“Em… Em!”

Emilio was snapped out of his stupor by someone repeatedly calling his name; glancing only slightly over his shoulder, he observed a blob of platinum hair bobbing behind him on a scarred boy’s face; the light blue eyes of the boy pierced Emilio as though looking past him to something far beyond, the scar running from the boy’s right eye, across the bridge of his nose, and to a spot just under his left eye, leaving a mark as though someone had taken a tan marker and drawn on his pale face, and a black collar just poking into Emilio’s field of vision as he stared a hole through the newcomer’s nose for all of four seconds before returning to scanning the area.

“What is it, you?” Emilio, irritated, asked over his shoulder at the newcomer, though he didn’t even bother to turn and look at the arrival as he examined the area.

“Wanted to check up on you,” the fresh meat muttered quietly as he crept up to Emilio’s left, looking down on the village far below from their perch a quarter of the way up the mountain shadowing the small wooden and stone village. “Spot the target?”

“Maybe if you hadn’t distracted me I could have,” Emilio grumbled as he continued scanning the village, brushing his night-black hair out of his brown eyes as he explored the village with his vision, looking for a specific person…

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“There,” Emilio’s acquaintance pointed. “Northwest of the town, emerging from a granite building.”

And indeed it was, as Emilio’s eyes snapped over to the location and locked onto the target. A bipedal lizard. Five feet eleven inches. Green scales. Exactly as described; the only Bomvu in the entire town.

“Really, you?” Emilio huffed in exasperation, as in his right hand a fireball formulated out of the magical energy coursing through his body, condensed and manipulated into a spell.

Portal Arts: Mark, it was called. Why it was called that way was something beyond Emilio’s comprehension, but he had been taught the move, and thus it would be called that until he thought of something better. Then again, all other names Emilio contemplated sounded stupid and long-winded. Or he just wasn’t creative enough to think of a cool enough name for a spell he’d learned.

Then again, he mused, it would be rude to the founder of the spell to rename the spell such that it was his spell and not the spell of the founder. This wasn’t his spell by any means, and thus he didn’t feel as though it was right to rename the spell. On the other side of the argument, it was he who was using the spell, so he could call it whatever he wanted - there was no argument against him naming it whatever he wanted, since he could actually name it literally whatever he wanted. But the fallout from the old mages from his renaming would be more harsh than a collapsing mountain. All the lectures coming down like the rocks tumbling down the collapsing mountain the mud like the stinging glares he’d get -

“Em!”

Startled back to reality suddenly, Emilio reacted out of reflex, ducking his head down and rotating his right shoulder under his body to lob the fireball at the silver-haired boy who’d called his name. Falling off of the rocky perch he was on with the movement, he let the magic coursing through his body arc out like a lightning bolt, bouncing through the air and ripping apart the fabric of his world to open a rift.

Portal Arts: Portal.

Falling through the portal directly below him, he flew out with all the gravitational momentum from the portal that had opened from the fireball that had burned a marking on the large tree behind him, snapping back to the real world as he did so, and as he hit the ground he rolled, minimizing the impact damage from the fall while maximizing his frictional force from the ground to bring him to a tumbling halt inches from the cliff face.

The silver-haired boy with him clapped slowly from a spot several inches from the large tree that Emilio had portaled out of, and as Emilio closed the rift in time and space the boy shot him a moody glance.

“Good job, Em… you just tried to murder your teammate,” he sarcastically remarked, pacing slowly towards Emilio with a frown on his face. “What are we going to do with you…”

“What are we going to do with you, you?” Emilio responded with a half-chuckle, calmly forming another fireball out of his magical energy, turning around, and casually lobbing it down towards the town.

“Not you, you,” the other man sighed as he sat down to Emilio’s left, maybe four feet away, brushing down the black overcoat he was wearing over a simple iron breastplate, designed for limited protection of the heart and other vital internal organs in the stomach area.

“Shut up, Yuu,” Emilio huffed as he sat down and quickly focused his magical energy to force open the dimensions to his fireball that he’d lobbed earlier; glancing through this, he saw that the portal had opened on a rooftop. Two stories tall and made out of stone and wood, roofing of thatch and straw.

And walking on the street a block away… the target. Wearing a sweeping brown coat and thick trousers. Probably armored underneath the suit.

But that was alright.

Because as a thud reverberated from the ground to his left, a flutter of air whispered past his right ear; a projectile shot through the air at four hundred and fifty feet per second.

And with barely a shudder, the little point flickered through the Bomvu’s neck. A small blade, so precisely thrown as to sever the second and third vertebrae in the spine, so sharp as to cut through the tough Bomvu skin, sever the major arteries and veins in the neck, and pierce the spinal cord.

A little spray of blood emanated from the poor soul’s neck as he reached up to scratch his neck; and as Emilio closed his portal, he saw the target fall forward, dead on the spot from a wound that no mage could heal fast enough to save his life.

At the very least, the Bomvu would wake up paralyzed for life and compliant with the demands of Emilio’s employers.

Which worked for him fine.

“Mission complete,” Emilio smiled, turning back to the unconscious body of Yuu, who was stirring fast. “But I say, you need to find a spell that doesn’t knock you out.”

Yuu groaned as he pushed himself up to one arm, rubbing his head with his free hand. “Em… don’t go knocking Death Arts now… that man could kill you in two seconds,” he complains as he sits fully upright.

“Keep telling yourself that, Yuu,” Emilio brushes off the comment as he slowly pushes himself up to his feet, Yuu following suit as Emilio channeled magical energy once again.

In a location several days away by dogback, the rift in time and space forced its merry way open in front of Emilio, showcasing a hearty and thriving room. Twelve feet tall, eighteen long, and twenty-two wide, the room was occupied by a bright chandelier swinging from the ceiling, magnificent tapestries of great battles adorning the walls, and a stone table in the middle where four feasted; the smell of fresh-cooked meat wafting through the portal tickled Emilio’s taste buds.

And as the rift tore itself open, the four figures looked up in surprise.

“You done yet?” an amber-haired woman asks Emilio, standing up and glaring past Emilio with bronze eyes. Though he could not see behind him, Emilio swore he could see Yuu cringing.

“We’re done, Anki,” Emilio laughed in response as he hopped through the portal, not bothering to check to see if Yuu followed but taking the utmost care not to, snapping the portal shut approximately four seconds after he came through.

“So? Prevent any civil wars yet?” Anki inquired as Emilio wandered to his left, finding a wooden stool just stable enough for him to sit on.

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe it!” Emilio responded with feigned enthusiasm, pulling his stool up to the table as Yuu took a seat to his right. “N here tried to murder me!”

“Oh?” a male voice down the table piped up as Emilio thumbed at Yuu. “You didn’t try hard enough, then, Enyuu. Try again next time!”

The speaker, sporting light brown hair in a fade and brilliant amber eyes, laughed, his hearty voice ringing loud and true through the room, joined by the quiet snickers of Anki and the other two, much to Yuu’s resentment.

“Oi,” Yuu yelled down the table, his voice tinged with frustration. “All I did was try to talk to the guy. Em’s too jumpy.”

“I am not,” Em retorted with a slight smirk. “I’m great at keeping my -”

It was at this moment that the air in the room was suddenly rattled by the sound of something exploding. The noise caught poor Em completely off guard, and he fell over backwards in his chair scrambling to get out of it, until he was made aware of the uproarious laughter of the gathered group.

“Yeah, yeah, very funny,” Em retorted as he dusted himself off, stood his chair back up, and sat down again.

“For a bunch of cold-hearted assassins for hire? Very funny,” Yuu chuckled, giving him a teasing smirk.

A bunch of cold-hearted assassins indeed.