(The Time-Stilled World, Dumpy's POV)
Dumpy sat silently on top of a small hill, his twin swords beside him, as he overlooked a vast clearing of untamed wilderness where the Cult's soldiers worked tirelessly to carve order from chaos.
Below him, hundreds of men and women toiled beneath the still gray sky, their shouts faint but steady as they chopped through stubborn tree stubs, burned roots that refused to die, and rolled away fallen trunks to make way for the next stretch of land that would someday house another city.
At the center of the clearing stood a single Refining Pole, its slender structure vibrating in rhythmic intervals, each pulse releasing invisible waves that drifted quietly through the air to purge the corrupted mana surrounding the area.
The soldiers called it the "breathing tower," because when it pulsed, the air itself seemed to sigh with relief, as if the world could finally exhale after centuries of suffocation.
It had been Dumpy's duty to protect places like this for nearly a year now, ever since he first arrived in the Time-Stilled World.
While others managed supply lines and contributed through building efforts, his task was simple: slaughter the monsters that the normal soldiers could not take care of, as he was given the role of the 'Ultimate Muscle'.
It was a lonely kind of purpose, one that left him with too much time to think.
"If you were here sitting beside me, you would probably be smoking a cigarette, wouldn't you, smoking man?"
He murmured, as he sadly reminisced about Charles, who he had recently learned had passed away.
At first, he had ignored the soldiers' whispers, telling himself that they were mistaken, that Charles could not possibly be gone.
After all, the smoking man had always seemed too stubborn to die. He scolded too loudly, fought too fiercely, lived too vividly. Someone like that didn't just disappear.
But as days turned into weeks and weeks into months, reality became impossible to deny.
Charles was gone.
And with him, something within Dumpy had changed as well.
He no longer cracked jokes during missions or croaked in amusement when he scared the younger recruits.
He no longer pretended to sleep through meetings or snuck into supply camps for food.
The childish frog who once laughed his way through chaos had been buried in silence, leaving behind a creature of stillness, shaped entirely by duty.
Yet the emptiness in his chest refused to fade.
He missed the old man's voice, that mix of irritation and reluctant care, the way he called him lazy even when he trained until his body trembled.
He missed the smell of smoke that clung to his coat, the calm authority that made even Leo obey without question.
"You're not human," Charles had told him during their final sparring session, his tone equal parts harsh and patient. "So stop fighting like one. You have your own strengths. Use them. Find your rhythm. Leap. Crash. Expand. Contract. Spit Acid.... That's how you win."
Back then, those words had sounded like an insult, another one of Charles's endless corrections. But now, as the silence stretched around him, they were all he had left.
And so he trained.
Day after day, he fought against monsters twisted by centuries of stagnant mana, testing his body, refining his instincts, as he shaped them into a fighting style that belonged to him alone.
With time, his strikes became cleaner, his leaps sharper, his control absolute. He learned to turn his natural weight into momentum, his flexibility into speed, and his resilience into a weapon that few creatures in this corrupted world could withstand.
For although he lost the smoking man, he vowed to never lose his Lord Father, which became his singular motivation to grow stronger no matter what.
---
(Later, At the clearing site, a normal Cult soldiers' POV)
*Crack*
*Rustle*
*Thump*
The wind howled through the half-cleared forest as a small team of Cult soldiers hacked away at thick vines that refused to die, their boots sinking into soft earth laced with mana roots that shimmered faintly beneath the soil.
"Careful around that side," one of them called out. "The sensors say residual corruption's still high near the ridge."
Another groaned as he wiped sweat from his brow. "I swear, this whole place is cursed. Can't even dig a pit without the ground trying to kill us."
"Relax," a third voice replied, grinning faintly. "The Big Green's in this sector. If something nasty pops out, we won't even have time to scream before he turns it to mush."
The others laughed nervously.
"I heard he killed three Transcendent-tier Cerebri alone last week," one said. "Flattened them with a single jump."
"That's nothing," another added. "My cousin in the western unit said he saw him slice a whole corrupted wyvern in half. Said the air itself shook when he landed."
"Ha. Guess the stories weren't lying then. The Big Green's real, and he's a damn monster."
Their laughter faded when the ground beneath them suddenly shuddered.
*Rumble*
*Rumble*
*CRACK!*
The soil split apart, and from the gaping fissure emerged a hulking, serpentine creature with four arms and scales that shimmered like oil under the Gray Sky.
Its eyes glowed yellow, its roar vibrating through their bones.
"Contact! Contact! Deploy defensive shields" one soldier shouted as panic spread like fire.
Mana shields flared, blades were drawn, spells began to form, yet before any of it could connect, the beast lunged, its massive tail sweeping across the clearing and throwing half the squad into the air.
"We can't take this thing, it's a high Transcendent Tier!" someone yelled. "Fall back! FALL—"
*BOOM!*
Just as the soldiers began to panic, a green blur crashed into the battlefield like a meteor, the ground trembling under its weight, as even the corrupted serpent paused its assault for a moment in confusion.
"Is that…?"
A Cult soldier began, his words dying inside his throat, as Dumpy walked out with twin blades in hand, his body a massive fifty feet tall.
"THAT'S BIG GREEN!"
"GUYS WE ARE SAVED! LORD BIG GREEN IS HERE!"
They shouted, as Dumpy stood between them and the Serpent, his towering figure wrapped in faint traces of vapor that rippled outward like liquid energy.
*SWOOSH*
Without a word, Dumpy leapt forward, his twin blades slashing against the Serpents rock like skin.
*SHING*
*SLASH*
*THUD*
In just two strokes, the monster's arms were gone, and in the next attack its head followed, as the corpse fell with a thunderous crash, kicking up dust that billowed around him like fog.
For a long moment, no one moved.
Then the soldiers began to breathe again, their awe breaking into hushed whispers.
"He did it! The Big Green saved us again..." one muttered, his voice trembling.
"Lord Big Green," another said softly, his eyes wide with reverence. "The guardian angel of the frontier."
But Dumpy did not stay to bask in their admiration.
He simply wiped the blood off his blades, slid them across his back, and jumped off into the horizon, leaving the grateful soldiers behind to further boost his legend.
The legend of the Big Green Frog!
The Cult's Strongest Guardian!
(More chapters in Buyers club for TMT in discord.gg/EbbDXMKbYQ)