Andihar stared at the message glowing on his arm. What the hell was this?

  [Initiation into the court of the Monarch of Toxin possible — Accept?]

  He glanced up at Gul, allowing him to see the text, just to see if the writing was something conjured up by his battered brain but the tattooed, old man’s wide eyes told him that it wasn’t just a trick of his mind. “Are you seeing that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you think I should d—”

  “I think that’s obvious, Andihar,” Gul said, his attention already back on the fight in the distance. They were enveloped in Eik’s toxic mist so realistically, Gul was slinging out bolts blindly. He was using his ears to aim in the vicinity of the fight but not directly at the fighters for fear of striking Eik. It was a token effort to keep as much pressure on the beast as they could. His shadow soldiers could make actual attacks in his stead.

  “Yeah… You’re right. How’s it looking?”

  Gul hesitated to answer. “My summons are being beaten back so effortlessly that it’s like they’re not even there. Eik’s toxin is having an effect, but I don’t know how long the boy can last, Andihar. It’s not good. If whatever he did to you can help turn this battle in our favor, we need it, and we need it now.”

  “Right,” the elf said, groaning in pain as he pushed himself onto his elbows. Coughing, he made his choice and took a page from Eik’s phrase book. “Let’s fuck shit up, boys.”

  [Successfully initiated into the court of the Monarch of Toxin. Altering S-rank title]

  [Reached Colossal Royal Guard of the Monarch of Toxin — XII]

  [Acquired Azure Aegis — Lv. 1]

  “What the hell?” Andihar gasped.

  “What?” Gul asked and leaned back down. Andihar held up his arm. “Why am I not surprised? I did think it was about time that he pulled his next ridiculous thing out of his ass.

  Wasting no more time, Andihar pushed himself to his knees and looked down at the terrible injury.

  What had been a gaping hole in his chest was now completely sealed over with an ultra hard blue crystal. The pain had disappeared entirely and when he tapped it with a knuckle, it clinked as if it was made of glass. “I’m going,” he said.

  Gul nodded. “I’ll position myself on the edge of the mist so I can stay close to the others and still put some ranged pressure on the bastard.”

  “Sounds good,” Andihar agreed and took off, displacing snow with his launch.

  “What about us, sir?” Kalavax asked as he hefted both of the massive shields. The rest of them, with the exception of Sireal the cartographer, had the same steel in their eyes. They were ready to do what was necessary. “We want to be of assistance too!”

  Gul wrinkled his nose. “I understand your desire to be of help right now—trust me, I do, but the fact of the matter is, that as A-rankers you are nothing against the thing out there, much like I myself seem to be. You saw how it specifically targeted us before.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. That’s an order, Kalavax. Having you out there would only distract Eik from the strongest opponent he had ever faced. The best you can do for the safety of us all is to stay put here and protect each other. Your strength will be needed again, many times, just not now.”

  The tank clenched his teeth but nodded in the affirmative. “We’ll stay here then, sir…”

  “Good man,” Gul said, already moving toward the edge of the mist. “It’s important to not only know when to move but also when to wait,” he said as he disappeared into the blue haze.

  “Yes, sir,” Kalavax muttered and turned to bark an order. “Reinforce the barrier. We’re hunkering down here until the danger’s passed.” He slammed both shield in the frozen earth, an energy field rippling into existence between them.

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  “Will we be okay?” Sireal asked.

  The fact that Kalavax’s good humor had faded completely already put a heavy stone of anxiety in the cartographer’s stomach, and his answer only added to its weight. “I don’t know.”

  Sireal looked around at the others, for some reason hoping to find similar feelings of worry painted on their faces. He wanted to not be alone in it.

  But their eyes were hard, anger and frustration taking the front seat. How anyone could get used to this kind of terrifying situation was beyond him. “Will we really just wait here? Shouldn’t we, I don’t know, run away?”

  “It may seem counterintuitive, but it’s safer if we stay close,” Kalavax said as he gazed intensely into the mist, just waiting for something to happen. “All we can do is wait for Eik and Andihar to beat the fucker. It’s a matter of time. We have to believe that they can d—”

  The barrier that had kept Sireal safe from the dangerous pressure of the atmosphere on this planet that was so close to the Chasm flickered dangerous as a deafening detonation swept across the land. With each flicker, jolts of extreme force razed Sireal’s body, leaving him alive only because of how briefly the barrier stuttered each time. He would have screamed in horror if he could have drawn a proper breath.

  In that same moment, the toxic cloud Eik had left to obscure them was blown away entirely, finally allowing them to see the fight. For the entire time they had been able to hear the bangs and booms of the clashes between Eik and the monster and judging by how loud it had been, Sireal had expected them to be a hundred meters away at the most.

  In reality they were at least a kilometer away, barely visible to his low-ranked eyes. Just what kind of force did those impacts have to be so audible at this distance?

  “What the hell was that?” Sireal gasped, his voice barely able to penetrate the storm.

  “I don’t know! It didn’t feel like Eik’s!” Kalavax answered but then froze as his eyes widened. “You feel that?” he asked the others, getting concerned nods.

  “What?”

  “That beast. I can feel its aura from here. It’s changed completely…”

  ***

  “Eik!”

  Eik climbed to his feet as dust and snow blown up by the energy release settled around him. Head spinning, he searched for the enemy. He could already feel the change in its aura. This was bad. With a grunt as he shook his head to clear it, he broke into a sprint.

  “Eik!”

  Without stopping, he glanced in the direction of the voice. It was Andihar. “What the hell are you doing here? I thought we agreed you would stay away from this one!” he shouted as the S-ranked elf joined him. “Something’s happening! We have to get there before it finishes whatever’s going on.”

  Ahead the monster was writhing and twisting as if every bone in its body was breaking over and over. A high-pitched screech seemed to be coming from everywhere at once, piercing the ear like needles.

  Before Andihar had even realized he had conjured it, Eik hurled a ten meter long spear, another appearing in his hand as he wound up for one more throw. By the time they made it to the monster, four large spears were buried in its chest. The macabre undulation as it changed spun and forced the weapons out but Eik made them melt and flow into the monster but the wounds closed up immediately after.

  Before its transformation had begun, discoloration from the terrifying effects of Profound Toxin had covered its skin nearly completely, but now it was as if it was rolling out new, healthy flesh. It was a disgusting sight.

  Andihar joined the Earthling in hacking away at the monster. Each of Eik’s swings sunk deep and melted into bastard, delivering ever more toxin and causing the unhealthy discoloration to return before the transformation was even complete. Andihar’s, on the other hand, connected well enough but healed over immediately, making him feel completely useless.

  Out of nowhere, it began to revolve around itself like a dishrag wrung beyond its limits. Andihar saw the moment a crooked arm popped out, sporting a metallic clump in place of a hand, and before he had even registered it consciously, he threw up his shield in front of himself and leaped in front of Eik who remained wholly focused on his reckless assault.

  Andihar nearly threw his shield aside in shock when Eik’s blue Profound Toxin erupted from his hand, forearm, and upper arm to wrap itself around it but even if he had tried, it crystallized in an instant, essentially adhering the shield to his arm as surely as if it had fused to his bones.

  With clenched teeth, he received the massive blow and in that moment, more Profound Toxin flowed out from the shield to grasp the attacking monster, slithering up the limb like a creeping vine. He was pulled off his feet by the force and spun around like a rag doll.

  Eik had to duck to avoid being hit by both the monster and his elven friend’s body but he never stopped applying more toxin, blade after blade of crystal biting into the writhing flesh

  How the hell was Andihar doing what he was doing? That was Profound Toxin enveloping his shield, all right. He could feel it and there was no doubt about it. But he hadn’t been the one to make it.

  As a matter of fact, the sensation of Profound Toxin’s presence was emanating from Andihar’s entire body, albeit somewhat… different from always. Was this what Toxic Initiation? Some kind of borrowed power? It would be a lie to say that he wasn’t a little disappointed that it wasn’t a power to make him stronger but this would certainly be a boon to their overall fighting power.

  Andihar seemed to finally figure out how to operate his new skill because the gooey toxin released the flailing limb and retreated back into the crystallized shield, allowing the muscular elf to be hurled into the ground where his body skipped like a smooth, flat stone along the surface of a tranquil lake.

  At this, the monster slowly began to slow its revolutions and grow upward as more and more fleshy limbs sprouted from its body. By the time it stopped elongating, it had reached a height of about eight meter and become as slender as one of its legs.

  The many limbs were long, bony, and crooked like the branches of a sickly tree. Pale and smooth, the discoloration of Eik’s newly applied toxin made it look absolutely abhorrent. In the center of the crown, its head still stuck out like a grotesque tumor with a face warped into something that could barely be called such.

  With a series of wet squelches, each of the fleshy branches came apart at the tips and spurted a black miasma high into the air where it rapidly began to cover the sky, spreading ever further toward the horizon on all sides.

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