"Why is the circle of emerald light getting bigger?"
What Light didn't know was that a change had occurred to the illusory eye that hung high in the air.
The eye had been rotating at an increasing angle to make its beam revolve around the pirate ship. But the area it illuminated at the moment wasn't big enough to .
So Ter decided to fix that.
Following his command, the pupil of the illusory eye dilated as much as it could.
The hazel iris surrounding it receded to the point of resembling a mere outline around the pupil.
By extension, the beam of light careening out of the pupil widened too, which in turn increased the diameter of the illuminated area exponentially, reaching over a hundred meters.
Light saw it all happen with his own eyes. The circle of emerald hue was now too large to avoid; it was impossible not to come in contact with it while crossing its path.
He ground his teeth at the sight.
For the first time in a while, he was lost for words.
'What do I do now?' he thought.
But his lack of composure didn't last long—he wasn't the kind to lose it easily.
Within a second, he made a life-or-death decision.
All was already clear to him; the only thing he lacked was conviction.
So he willed it into reality.
'Fleeing isn't ideal, so I must fight.'
Whatever happens after the circle of light hits him, he'll just have to deal with it.
He turned around and looked at his lieutenant, who stood still in shock, watching their plan to escape undetected crumble into pieces.
"Lieutenant!" Light snapped him back to reality.
Scarn flinched at his call, then shook his head and regained composure.
"No time to think. You get the barrel, I'll prepare the cannons." Light's voice tore through the chaos.
Scarn lingered for a moment, then nodded strongly and hastily got to work.
Light followed his own words and moved into action. He had already prepared the cannons and cannonballs. He just needed to be ready to light them up when the time came.
And the time was going to come soon.
Scarn crawled into the storage space and pulled out the barrel full of rum bottles.
It took some effort, especially after the exhaustion of paddling.
He lifted the barrel and carefully placed it beside the cannons.
While he did that, Light finished preparing the two cannons.
He looked ahead and saw the circle of light, now much larger than before, curving in its path and heading straight for them. Collision was inevitable.
Even if they tried paddling backward, it would be wasted effort. The momentum they had built from paddling—and the wind pushing the sails—worked against them. They couldn't slow down or turn back fast enough to avoid the revolving circle of emerald light.
So they didn't try to. Instead, they got back to their effort of sailing towards the pirate ship as fast as possible.
If they couldn't avoid the green spotlight, they were going to speed through it.
So after Scarn finished his barrel chore, and Light finished his cannon chore, both returned to paddling.
At this point, the resurgence of wind created by the explosion was dying down, and so was their speed, so they didn't hold back.
Both of them gripped the paddles attached to the ship's edge and sat down. After a momentary pause, they started.
They paddled, and they paddled some more.
Their muscles bulged, their bodies ached, yet their minds were sharp.
The boat sped up. Light was doing his best to contribute, but most of the power came from his senior.
'This dude definitely got exposed to gamma rays as a kid. And probably becomes stronger the older he gets, too. Well, I'm grateful he's on my side at least.'
They kept moving forward, and the revolving emerald spotlight moved too.
At this point, there was no curve in the spotlight's motion. It was heading straight at the pitch-black ship.
Looking at it made the two tense up, but they pushed aside their anxiety and focused on paddling as fast as they could.
The pitch-black ship and the spotlight of emerald green hue moved closer and closer—yet neither slowed down.
When they came face to face, it was as if time slowed.
The pitch-black ship entered the orbit, and the spotlight lay directly to their right, closing the distance by a fraction of a moment.
Light turned his head in horror to gaze at the tumultuous waters moving chaotically under viridescent illumination.
The light that fell upon the ocean's surface reflected onto the ship and its two passengers, painting them green in an ocean of terror.
Then, it all happened in an instant.
The two careening entities intersected in their paths.
For a moment, Light froze under the illumination, doused in an emerald hue.
Then something happened that Light couldn't understand, nor could he comprehend.
The ship came to a sudden halt.
Not just the ship, but everything that the light touched stopped in its tracks, for the most fundamental unit of time.
And then, Light felt as if he had crashed into a wall.
His skin remained still, but his inner body—his organs, bones, everything beneath the surface—kept moving forward and slammed into the front of his being from within.
Light and Scarn's faces grew more defined. It looked as if their skeletons were trying to escape the skin that imprisoned them.
But in the next fundamental unit of time, it all changed—
No, it didn't just change; it inverted.
The surface of the ocean, the ship, the sails, and the two passengers it carried all careened backward.
Without turning, they returned their momentum in the direction they came from—their speed about half the original.
It was as if the viridescent hue had reversed time itself…
The boat continued careening backward, engulfed in green. But the spotlight didn't budge in its momentum and kept traveling along the curve of its orbit.
In less than a moment, the spotlight left the boat behind and continued on its path forward.
The emerald hue released its grasp on the pitch-black ship, but the vessel continued traveling backward.
The passengers finally managed to breathe again as their bodies adjusted, somewhat, to the sudden reversal.
But they weren't fine.
Scarn fell down and held his head in place, as if fearing it might fall off. The saliva in his mouth grew frothy.
Behind him, Light wasn't doing much better. In fact, he was faring much worse.
He fell down and gagged.
Clasping his mouth with one hand, he pushed himself to his knees. He crawled forward and somehow reached the ship's right edge.
He dropped his hand and threw his limp body over the railing.
His lips parted, and puke—mixed with blood—came pouring out…
This continued for a while.
Scarn lay flat, showing symptoms of a massive concussion, while Light leaned against the deck railing like a corpse.
He threw up everything in his guts. After a few rounds of puking, his stomach was empty, but blood kept coming, albeit in lower quantity than before.
His eyes were half-closed. His vision tapered and grew blurry.
His consciousness was slowly fading away…
But even through blurred vision and his half-awake state, he saw the unmistakable sight that made him forget his pain for a moment.
The demonic circle of viridescent light was somehow coming back, right in their direction.
…