For the first time, Gih the Madman seemed to be at a loss for words. "You… You're lying… You're lying!" he screamed, struggling and squirming uselessly within his prison. "You're lying! You're lying! You're lying!"

"Am I? Maybe I am, maybe I'm not…" Eik chuckled, pumping Backflow to its maximum as he bent his knees and began to pull on Gih's helmet while the man continued to scream mindlessly.

His world was really coming down around him, huh? Sucks to be him.

Meaty thuds sounded every time a new bit of the helmet loosen from the cultist's head, blood dripping into the ravaged garden soil. What kind of weird ass armor was this? Finally, with the sound of something tearing, it came all the way off, revealing a face covered in deep, bloody gashes.

"Dude," Eik said as Gih stared up and him with madness in his red eyes. "I totally get why you insist on wearing that helmet. I'm about to put this thing back on you, man," he said and turned it around in his hand to look at the inside. He jerked back abruptly.

The inside of the helmet was wiggling and squirming, dozens of little pronged hooks reaching for the skin of his fingers and face like grasping insect legs. "Ew, what the hell. I take it back. Why the hell would you ever walk around wearing something as disgusting as this?"

"You were lying, weren't you?" the cultist repeated, ignoring Eik's words completely, desperation crystal clear on his face. "She would never betray us like this! The oracle is infallible!"

The bloody red hue that still covered the body armor had drained from the helmet, leaving it the same blackened gray that it had been initially. Did it empower him by consuming his blood or something? Combined with the man's extreme regenerative ability, it now made sense why he had been so happy about getting knocked around. It was making him stronger.

Well, there were other ways to make him suffer.

Eik conjured a thick, purple shard with a sharpened point and rammed it into the cultist's neck without hesitation. "Feel that?" he asked with a grin. "That's going to make you even crazier than you already are. Just take a deep breath and feel the fear spread. You won't be able to form coherent thoughts until I allow you to. Try to focus on the fact that everything you have been clinging so faithfully to is false."

Ever since gaining Monarch's Will, Eik had been able to use the different variants of Profound Toxin, like Visage of Death and Panacean Quintessence, simultaneously. So even though he had just infected Gih with a concoction of fear, he could still maintain his standard Backflow as well as the blue guardian beasts which he was constantly supplying with new mass, Living Manifestations pouring out of him without end.

"Why don't lie there an enjoy it for a little bit?" Eik suggested as he stood up. "I'm just going to go and say hi to your friends, okay?" And with that, he launched himself into high into the air, throwing a massive dose of Pesticide out across the gathered cultists.

Numerous corpses of the weaker pursuers already littered the area, perished either by the potent poisoning of Profound Toxin or the deadly attacks of the powerful Profound Toxic beasts. Only about a dozen or so cultists still stood on the battlefield. Hurt and exhausted by the persistent rain of Pesticide, they just didn't stand a chance in a prolonged fight against the practically invincible summons.

Like a comet, Eik landed in the middle, skin and hair glowing brilliantly, Backflow shining through in thick streaks. A luminescent blue mask of translucent energy settled in front of his face. The front was a mass of hauntingly swirling patterns, vaguely forming a ghostly face.

A woman with a staff was standing with her back to him but didn't manage turn around in time to see the slash coming, Eik's crystalline blade opening her up from neck to tail bone. Whirling into a blur, he reappeared on the shoulders of a swordsman like a spectral assassin, the crystal blade now separated into two shorter knives which he plunged into the man's neck from both sides and ripped his head off in one smooth motion.

Inside, Profound Toxin was howling with glee at the massacre. And Eik couldn't fault it. He was enjoying it himself.

Landing on the blood soaked grass as the headless corpse collapsed under him, Eik raised his hands into the air like a stage actor.

And thus…

He reached deep for Accelerant, feeling every single mote of Profound Toxin coursing through every single system present.

The end.

It had had plenty of time to build up in their bodies after several doses of Pesticide, not to mention the Profound Toxic beasts which, cruelly, would shed viable globs of toxin whenever they were cut or damaged.

Even without Eik's intervention, another minute would have seen them all dead in the grass.

Multiple shock waves slammed into Eik from all sides, rocking him on his feet as warm blood splattered his face. The Profound Toxic beasts also detonated, serving to further enhance the carnage.

Finally, Eik stood alone as the sole survivor, taking a deep breath as the blood lust began to fade from his spirit. A wet gurgle drew his attention. A cultist half of whose face was one big bleeding wound stared at Eik with glassy, distant eyes. She wobbled on her feet as if she was drunk.

"How did you survive that?" Eik asked. Even as he spoke, the remnants of an energy barrier flashed across her body before sputtering out of existence. "Ah, I see."

Without another word, he raised his arm and brought it back over his shoulder as a thick javelin of blue crystal formed in his palm.

Just as he was about to throw it, a flash of light ripped a line through the air upon which a shimmering fractured hummed to life. Andihar Dayarunar, fully decked out in his glittering armor with his colossal blade held in one hand as easily as if it had been a pretzel stick.

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The elf was momentarily stunned as his heavy, metal boots splashed into a layer of blood that still hadn't sunk into the soil, his eyes taking in the plain butchery laid out before him. When he saw Eik standing in the middle of it, he took a few steps forward. "Eik, are you inj—"

"You're late," Eik grunted and hurled the javelin, the projectile piercing the cultist through the chest, hooks worked in along the middle of the length catching and carrying her bodily through the air for more than a dozen meters, ending her life instantly. "I finished it all without you," Eik said, looking at the astonished Andihar as elven troops poured out of the fracture behind him.

"Wha—… What happened here?" the S-ranker asked. He must have shrunk his power rank artificially to come here like he had done when he came to their rescue during the cult raid on Earth. "Where have you been?"

"It's kind of a long story," Eik sighed as he started walking in the opposite direction from Andihar and his soldiers. "Actually, not so long after all, I suppose," he called back over his shoulder. "Gih the Madman—the guy in the armor with the whip from when Moon Shall Swallow attacked Forest, you know—abducted me from my home after my damn date. Can you believe that? He had been waiting for me!" Speaking about it only served to stoke the flames of anger already burning livelily in his stomach.

"We were looking for you fo— Hey, where are you going? How did you get away from him? Is he dead?" Andihar called, jogging after Eik as the Earthling knelt and picked up a chunk of blue glass.

"I don't know," Eik said with a grin, rapping a knuckle against the glass from where a head appeared to be protruding. "Are you dead, huh, you crazy bastard?" Gih could only sob in fear, his incessantly mumbling the same muddled words over and over again, his mind possibly damaged by a mix of Eik's ability and the revelation that the organization he had devoted his whole life to might be imploding.

Eik had actually expected the madman to be rather immune to such jabs at his faith, not to believe it so easily. It could be that the fear component of Visage of Death had tipped him from shock into belief. Regardless, it had worked out for Eik.

"Is that him?" Andihar asked, his face the picture of confusion. "What in the world did you do to him?"

Eik yanked out the shard of purple from Gih's neck with a sharp movement, the wound beginning to close up immediately. The gashes from the creepy helmet had also all healed up completely. His face was… strange.

One pupil was a broad rectangular much like a goat's while the other was round, and mismatched teeth jotted out from his mouth like crenelation on a medieval castle wall. His hair growth was patchy and thin, even on his eyebrows and beard. At first glance, he looked like he had been stitched together from different parts.

Eik wrung the man's cheek forcefully. "Hey, are you in there, buddy? Can't have you disappear on me now, can I?" he said, looking back at Andihar with a shrug of his shoulders. "I guess my little tonic of fear was a tad too effective,"

"I'd say…" the S-ranker said, appearing to be completely unbothered by the rather cruel scene playing out in front of him. "How did you manage to put someone like him in such a position anyway? From what I remember, he's quite a powerful A-ranker. Have you made allies here at the cult as well?" the elf asked with a humorous chuckle.

"You're actually not as far off with that guess as you probably think."

"Wait, really?" he asked, flabbergasted. "Who?"

Eik looked around, seeing some of Andihar's troops approaching cautiously. "You know what, I might tell you later. But this is entirely my own work, I'll have you know." To get his point across, he flared his aura to life and released a torrent of Profound Toxin that whirled up about his person like spectral serpents protecting their master.

In pure shock, Andihar took a step back. "But… how? This doesn't make any sense! How many of those damned magic pills of yours did you take?"

Eik shrugged. "Like twenty, but I think it's the fact that I climbed a whole rank that really did it for me. I can do this now too," he said and let of glob of Panacean Quintessence flow into the stab wound in his abdomen, the skin instantly beginning to knit itself back together.

"Just how many different areas are you going to specialize in? And you managed to take down a few A-rankers on your own," Andihar said with a shake of his head. "You're a total enigma in every way, you know that? I've only ever heard stories of people like you…" the elf trailed off, a look crossing his eyes that made Eik feel slightly uncomfortable, like the S-ranker was getting a little too close to the truth.

But what the hell could he really do? He wasn't from an established world where he could hole up on his parents' estate and refine his Worldbreaker power in anonymity. If he didn't push himself to act, they would be swept away by the tides of change.

Another fracture suddenly sprung open, Mikla stumbling out, followed by a battle-ready Atla with a squad of Alliance troops on her heels. They relaxed visibly when they saw Eik and Andihar standing at ease.

"I see you made it in time to help, Andihar Dayarunar," Atla remarked as she studied the carnage all around.

With a shake of his head, the elf tapped his pristinely clean blade. "I didn't actually. This was all Eik's work. He took down a few A-rankers plus change on his own."

Both Atla and Mikla's eyes widened to dinner plates. Atla's expression seemed conflicted. Both she and Eik knew that he was probably stronger than her now, despite his relative infancy as a resident in the Unified Mass.

"Where the hell have you been to get this strong this quickly?" Mikla questioned.

Eik sat down on the chunk of Gih-shaped prison crystal with a tired sigh. "Cult torture parlor and cult fighting arena and cult underground complex, is where I've been. And I'm so ready to go home."

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