Goo's activities weren't the only thing that netted Eik passive level in Living Manifestation. Since the little guy had come to life, Eik had almost forgotten the primary and original method for gaining levels in the ability—siccing those blue terror on unsuspecting bastards ot rake in the experience.

This attack on Earth by Moon Shall Swallow involved many more cultists than the first, more controlled effort a little over two years earlier. That had been smaller in order to stay under the radar for as long as possible and because they had the specific goal of collecting more victims for the Life Harvester which were to be used to forcefully initiate the energy burst from the Chasm in the center of the cosmos.

What was happening here was nowhere near as involved. It was mayhem and it was slaughter. The more chaos they could wreak, the more they could disrupt Alliance operations against the cult, which was headed by Eik among a few others.

But he wasn't going to let it affect them, and neither was he going to let them hit Forest as hard as they had managed to back then. Profound Toxic beasts had been fighting back against the cultists ever since the first few seconds. They had been lying inert throughout the entire city, just in case something like this happened.

With how powerful he was now, Eik simply didn't need that extra layer of safety. Rather than the safety of that clincher, to him it was magnitudes more important to have the sense of security provided by the knowledge of his family's safety at home while he was out.

Once his family was through the fracture safe and sound, he went through his levels while they went around to help where they could, Profound Toxic beasts carrying wounded or defenseless civilians and warriors back to the fracture.

[Acquired Living Manifestation — Lv. 199]

[Acquired Movement Boost — Lv. 175]

And then from the mass destruction by the Pesticide.

[Acquired Profound Toxin — Lv. 293]

[Acquired Profound Toxin — Lv. 294]

[Acquired Monarch's Will — Lv. 250]

[Acquired Monarch's Will — Lv. 251]

[Skill evolution available. Skill available for evolution: Monarch's Will]

[Choose one]

[Monarch's Will — Noble Mentality]

"That's it?" Eik groaned as he and Gul sailed through the air toward the next situation.

"What?"

"My ability hit a threshold and I'm getting a new trait but it's only offering me a single option."

The old fart just shrugged as they made contact with a group of cultists, wiping them out near instantly. "Meh, it happens. Get over it, kid." There didn't seem to be any S-rankers but there were plenty of A-rankers and even more in the lower ranks.

Eik, Clan Leader Gul, and Andihar had the same problem now that Oru the Devourer and Bobopahn the Reacher had. They couldn't just go all out and destroy everything. They had to work on smaller scale or less destructively, like the Pesticide which neither inflicted damage on buildings nor on non-hostile people.

"You know what? You should work on that attitude. This is why my dad doesn't let you win at chess, just so you know," Eik grunted and accepted the Noble Mentality trait.

"Hah! Shut it, whelp," Gul huffed and leapt onto a roof. "Let's split up. There's no need to work together."

"Yep, see you later," Eik agreed and went in the opposite direction.

The moment Noble Mentality took hold, it felt as if a chain of stainless steel snapped into place around his mind. He would have expected it to perhaps dull his emotions in one way or the other. But it certainly didn't feel like that's what happened.

It just felt… tighter, somehow.

As more and more Profound Toxic beasts became unable to locate any more cultists, they switched over to search and rescue detail. Many of the larger specimen scattered into dozens of little guys, vastly increasing the efficiency of the search, and then when one located someone in need of help, they would recollect into one big enough to get the job done.

Eik also changed many of them into the Panacean Quintessence variety, allowing them to heal injuries on the scene instead of having to carry someone with broken bones or other severe injuries all the way back to Mission Central.

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As it all began to calm down, Eik checked his levels again.

[Acquired Living Manifestation — Lv. 200]

[Acquired Living Manifestation — Lv. 201]

[Skill evolution available. Skill available for evolution: Living Manifestation]

[Choose one]

[Living Manifestation — Raise to the Occasion]

[Living Manifestation — Fortification]

[Living Manifestation — Harass]

Finally he was given three options. This System was so damned stingy.

He thought it through as he worked rescue. There were barely any cultists left. There had been thousands and the streets were absolutely flooded with corpses. A vast majority of those were soldiers of Moon Shall Swallow, fortunately, but there were still far too many citizens of Forest lying in pools of blood for Eik's liking. Actually, even one person from Forest would be too many.

Eik cursed under his breath. Every corpse was checked for signs of life by a Living Manifestation and luckily there were more still alive than Eik had dared hope for but every dead stung. These were Eik's people.

But for now, he just had to keep his mind on the task at hand. Anger could come later. It was also important to be conscious of the fact that they had managed to reduce the number of victims many times over, no matter how one looked at it.

This was not a failure. It was the best they could have hoped for.

He went over the trait options to distract himself from the uncomfortable thought.

First of all, 'Raise to the Occasion'. Shouldn't that actually be Rise to the Occasion? That was the phrase, right? So had the System just made up a clever little variation on the phrase to match the effect of the ability? Changing 'rise' to 'raise' made it a transitive verb which probably meant that it was Eik who activated it and triggered the effect on the summon. Interesting.

Fortification was obviously an effect similar to what Heath had praised as the epitome of tank oriented abilities. It would provide heightened general toughness both against physical attacks and magical attacks, but not to any mental assault.

It was a really good skill that had helped Heath survive many fights while they were still adventuring together, and it would certainly be a crazy boon if it actually applied to every single Living Manifestation.

More than likely, considering that it was both a trait of a summoning skill and would potentially apply to thousands of individuals, it probably wasn't nearly as potent, relatively speaking, as Heath's version was, but if it became stronger the more individuals joined together into a single Profound Toxic beast, it definitely would be a trait worth having.

Finally, there was Harass. Eik very much doubted that it was a trait that made his thousands and thousands of Living Manifestation capable of performing manual DdoS attacks on any unfortunate soul who still had an internet connection. And since it probably wasn't related to prank telephone calls either, it was likely either some kind of distraction maneuver or an attention grabber.

Was this tank themed or something?

In the end he picked Raise to the Occasion but didn't have the opportunity to try it out in a real life situation quite yet.

As he had been running over the options, Eik got to a point where he hadn't been able to locate a single survivor for over five minutes. Considering the thousands of little guys helping him search, he met up with Andihar, Gul, Olivia, and a large group of Earth Awakened to debrief.

The Awakened from Earth stayed back to receive the many reinforcements that would be arriving from Gimleh to assist with clean up and rebuilding. Eik basically gave them the corporate credit card in the form of a promise that he would foot the bill for anything needed for the efforts, including food, drink, and temporary lodgings for those whose homes had been destroyed.

Then they headed to the Dayarunar estate in Gimleh where their friends and family were waiting.

***

Eik was happy that the real offensive against Moon Shall Swallow was just around the corner because he could barely sit still with restlessness. He was angry and nervous, and he was excited and eager to get it over with.

Bin couldn't calm down either but she was only eight years old and had just been evacuated from her home. She only managed to sit on her dad's lap for a little under three minutes and then she was off to join Goo who was crouched in the middle of Andihar's pristine lawn, digging for dirt. Finding out that there was a bunch of brown stuff under the ground he stood on had netted him a level in Learn—a fact Eik still couldn't stop chuckling about.

That gave him an excuse to stretch his own legs and walk around the garden a bit, where he ran into Andihar and Molanda's daughter Thalandi, whom Eik had saved twice when they first met during the Championships.

She was talking quietly with her maid whom Eik had first met when she had explained to him what was going on after he had woken up confused in the Dayarunar house after saving Thalandi two years earlier.

"Thalandi. Uja." Eik approached them with a raised hand. "Good to see you."

Thalandi harrumphed and crossed her arms. She clearly still wasn't a fan of his, but at least there wasn't beef on sight anymore. But then again, what C-ranker would go at it with a certified S-ranker? "Welcome to the Dayarunar house, Eik," Uja said with a smile. "Although you're more like family by now, I suppose."

"Thanks, Uja. And take it easy, will you, Thalandi, you stale bag of chips?"

"Did you just insult me?" she hissed.

"Yeah, but only a little bit. You're so mad at me all the time that I gotta slap back, right?" he grinned.

"I can't believe my father wanted me to marry you, you brute!" she snapped.

"I'm pretty happy we didn't either," he agreed with a loving gaze at Ihasu who was speaking with Molanda. "I'm sure you have a ton of guys after you who were better than me, eh?" he smirked.

"Yeah…" she said, a pained expression briefly touching her face as she glanced at Uja. Uja looked away, eyes downcast.

For a few seconds Eik's eyes flitted between the two women as his brain worked at max capacity. Then his eyebrows shot up. "Oooooh, I get it," he muttered to himself.

"What?" Thalandi snapped, eyes narrowed.

"It's because you like he—" he began but her hand across his mouth stopped him from finishing the thought.

"You! Shut it!"

He held his hands up and she removed hers. "You know your dad is super chill, right? You should tell him."

"He wants grandchildren. It would destroy him."

Eik threw a thumb back toward the gathering where his little green daughter Bin ran around with a boy made of blue stuff. "Hello? Those're my kids, whom, for the record, your dad freakin' loves. If you told him right now, the only part that would make him sad would be the knowledge that he has been pushing you to find a guy. And that guilt will only be more intense the longer you wait," he said with a shrug as she listened. "But hey, that's just my two cents. I'm in your corner at least. And so will he be."

She watched him, mouth slightly agape, as he made his way back to the gathering.

Thalandi spent the next five minutes talking to Uja and then called her mom and dad over to talk. Judging by the hugs a minute later, it had probably gone pretty well.

"Call me Mr. Muscle Cupid from now on," he told Michael who was standing beside him.

"What the fuck are you talking about, man?"

"Mr. Muscle Cupid is going to annihilate Moon Shall Swallow. That's what I'm talking about. When they die, they will know they died at the hand of Mr. Muscle Cupid."

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