The ground was rumbling as the S-ranker dug its way up through the rocks and soil below. It would be back outside within the next few seconds.

But Eik was ready.

Monarch's Will and Profound Unity flared up to their maximum strength, the crown above his head pulsating as the glow flashed. His body, turned blue like Profound Toxin by Profound Unity, fused with the Armor of the Scourge covering him, giving him the appearance of a baneful spirit.

Suddenly, the ground began to undulate, quickly after which the scythe-claws ruptured the surface, the beast blasting into the air as its eyes immediately located him.

Only it was too late. Even though its senses were far superior to Eik's own, he had been waiting, the barrel of his home-made sniper rifle trained on the fucker from the moment its claws first appeared.

"There you are," he muttered and pulled the trigger, although it didn't connect to anything so he still had to mentally activate the reaction.

The first thing he felt was the recoil. It tore into his shoulder like an illegally tuned jack hammer, probably dislocating it at the least. The second thing was the sound, which pierced his ears painfully at such a close range. He probably hadn't been that physically close to an Accelerant detonation like that ever with the exception of the ones he had been a part of in Toxic Liquefaction, and those were just a different experience altogether.

Thrown back forcefully, all he could do was watch with hope as a hyper compressed shock wave preceded the reinforced spear from the mouth of the barrel, a testament to the absurd destructive power he had managed to unleash.

He witnessed the moment the monster realized what was about to happen but with no possible chance of physically reacting to the incoming projectile in time. It traveled so quickly that Eik couldn't follow it with his eyes at all. It was as if the exact moment the improvised long gun exploded was also the exact moment the five meter long spear bored through the S-ranker's body, vaporizing flesh as well as the super tough chitin that had made it completely impervious to the smaller shards from Apocalypse Canvas.

***

Xfer was about to dislocate her jaw as she gaped at the spectacle happening below. When she had led the guy named Eik to the mine to show him where the monster was located, she had secretly thought she was leading the man to an inevitable death.

The guy was an A-ranker! The monster was an S-ranker! The outcome of a battle between the two of them had been absolutely, utterly, and undeniably obvious!

So when Eik had asked her if she wanted to stay and watch the fight, she had agreed. After all, it would be a faster and more reliable report of his death if she had been there to witness it in person instead of returning later to scout for his corpse, which she would definitely have been ordered to do otherwise. In a fight between S-rank and A-rank there would obviously be no corpse left to confirm, but it was a formality to be followed and that was that.

Yes, she had heard of Eik Magnasen. She knew who he was and she knew that he was powerful. Exceptionally so. As an A-ranker, that was. No matter how strong an A-ranker was, they would still be nothing when faced with the true might of an S-ranker.

When he had launched the Apocalypse Canvas and released his army of blue monsters, her confidence in him had risen somewhat, but still only to the point where she thought that he might have the slimmest of chances of escaping once he realized what manner of living terror he had truly met.

That had been what she had expected. It was the best she could have possibly hoped for.

So what the fuck was she watching right now?

Still perched on the high branch from which she had pointed out the S-ranker's nest she watched in disbelief. In the beginning Eik had been unable to keep up and had been forced into a disadvantage where all he could do was retreat as he frantically avoided the lightning-quick lunges that could have ended his life.

The fact that he was capable of that alone was a feat that should be written into history books. Then, a few generations after Eik's eventual death, it would have become myth, legend, and no longer considered fact. Because thinking that an A-ranker could single-handedly kill an S-ranker was a notion that belonged in fantastical stories of heroic warriors, not reality.

But that it was too absurd to be real didn't explain why she was watching a single projectile shot from a primitive long gun created with his ability tear off both of the monster's left legs.

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Immediately behind the S-ranker, boulders and dirt mounds were completely obliterated in a straight cone.

Eik himself was thrown back by the recoil of his weapon at speed, skidding along the bare ground for more than a hundred meters before he could stop himself, preventing him from throwing himself at the beast. But that didn't stop his thousands of tiny summons from swarming the S-ranker to the point where it was covered completely in blue as they forced themselves into its open wounds like parasites.

It howled and rolled over almost immediately despite its horrific injuries, standing up on its two right legs, its S-rank physique offering more than enough balance for the feat.

But it looked unsteady on its feet. Xfer knew of Eik Magnasen's abilities. His main ability was Toxin, although rumors more or less agreed that the many permanent boost from his own original medicines had stacked up to give it absolutely terrifying potency.

The enormous blades must have dissolved and corrupted the monster further while it was trapped underground. Switching his Toxin between liquid and solid states seemed to be one of his main tricks. And he was good at it.

Limping but at extreme speeds, the S-ranker charged Eik where he had landed after the recoil, but instead of retreating from the direct confrontation like he had done thus far, he flew toward the clash. A long javelin of crystal formed from his palm and he hurled it forward before they met, forcing the monster to swerve off to the side, pace thrown off if only a little.

But that was enough for Eik. Triggering some kind of movement enhancing skill, he whirled out of existence, appearing above the S-ranker as it regained its balance. A new weapon—a curved sword, the blade of which was more than four meters long—was already in his hand, and he slashed downward, using the momentum of his own spinning body to power up the attack,

With expert precision and strength beyond what any A-ranker should have been capable of, the blade found the smallest of gaps in the chitin armor plates, exposed only because of damage caused during the fight.

Edge slicing into flesh beneath, ichor sprayed out but failed to cut more than a quarter through, which, unfortunately, wasn't enough to take its life. It reared up onto its single back leg and slashed at him but it was addled enough that he could now dodge the attack.

Jumping back to avoid a sudden flurry of attacks, Eik released the great sword and snapped his fingers, the sound seeming to reach her ears despite the distance and cacophonous battle.

In the next moment, the rest of the monster's body exploded in a ruinous explosion. Several pulses of force blasted out of the beast's body in rapid succession, reaching Xfer all the way up on her perch in the tree like a buffeting storm.

The ground below was crushed like sand, dust and debris launched into the air like bullets to fly more than a hundred meters in each direction. Blue smoke-like residue trailed the shock waves, creating dust clouds in an enormous radius.

Again, Eik was thrown back, but this time he didn't seem as frantic to get back to the fight. Well, given the state of the monster, there was no reason to. The remains of its body were nothing but shreds of flesh scattered in pools of ichor around the area.

"N-No… No way… What the fuck is that guy?" Xfer gasped out loud, then narrowed her eyes as she looked closer at what was happening down there. "And what the hell is he doing?"

The guy had jogged over to a pile of what looked like the ruined parts of the monster's face. With his bare hands he rifled through it like some weirdo with a fetish for gore. From the angle she was watching she couldn't easily see what it was, but several times he appeared to find stuff he was interested in within the remains and jam them into his bag of holding.

Strong as he was, the guy named Eik Magnasen was also an incredibly odd fellow.

Standing up, he held a hand up to his forehead and stared up at her. It sent a shiver through her, knowing what he had just done. He had killed an S-ranked monster…

Moments later, he landed on the same branch she was sitting on, light as a feather. A bright, lime-green version of his ability flowed across his entire body, knitting his wounds back together. He seemed to have mostly recovered from the many wounds he had incurred in the first part of the battle.

"Thanks for the help, Xfer," he said with a pleasant smile, seemingly oblivious to the slimy ichor staining his entire body. "I'm ready to head back now."

"I—… Yes, well…" she stumbled, trying to work out a coherent sentence through a baffled mind. "Well, I don't know if you were told but the second part of the contract was to check for and take care of any offspring the S-ranker might have had in its nest."

"I know," he said with a nod.

"All right, then, so…" she fished.

"There were seven young."

"And—"

"And they died quickly. There was more than enough toxin to go around in those blades I sent down there. I took care of it, so don't worry," he grinned.

Her jaw fell open. "H-How did you—… do all of that?"

He just shrugged noncommittally. "I'm pretty strong."

Yeah, any idiot can see that, is what she wanted to say, but she held back. You didn't speak like that to someone this strong. He could end her life before she even knew it was happening, although he didn't seem like the type to do something like that. As a matter of fact, he wasn't at all what she would have expected someone of his power to be like.

"What?" he asked, catching her staring.

"Nothing!" she hurried to say.

"Just tell me. I'm a pretty nice guy, you know."

She hesitated but eventually spoke. "That's kind of it. I don't know what I expected but… you're just so… normal." By normal, she obviously didn't mean the digging through a corpse part, but rather his general behavior. He was like a guy you bumped into at a cafe or at the markets. He was like a nobody, but then when you looked a little deeper he was an incarnation of desolation.

He laughed, startling her slightly. "That's funny! I said that to Andihar Dayarunar once when I first met him. He's even more normal than me, I can tell you! Did you know that his favorite hobby is to just sit in his garden and do nothing?"

"N-No, I didn't."

"He's hilarious! Anyway, let's get back and report. I've got a ton of levels to get through. And I'm baking a cake with my daughter."

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