Now that the first attack had been made, ranged projectiles rained down upon them with abandon as they sailed through the air.

Although Eik had been the first to leap toward the gathered cultists, the three of them had been quick to fall into a more advantageous formation with Andihar leading that charge, shield raised protectively in front of them, followed by Eik and with Mn'Toakh making up the tail end.

With a rhythmic twang, arrow after lethal arrow left her bow string to target a diverse variety of targets, some instantly obliterating a cultist or two while others were blocked or neutralized in other ways. Judging by who survived, it would appear that the stronger cultists were primarily gathered near the center.

Andihar grew slightly, to about three and a half or four meters tall, his shield following suit, in order to cover better for his two teammates but still remained small enough to not be too large of a target.

Summons were already pouring out of Eik as they traveled, scattering rapidly to the sides to both increase the pool of attractive targets for the ranged attackers but also to supply numbers to engage around two hundred cultists, certainly all high-rank, and likely more S-rankers than they had themselves. Moon Shall Swallow deployed their own summons as well, a variety of creatures now making up the front lines of the cultists preparing to clash.

Anybody below B-rank would probably not even have been able to remain conscious with the spiritual pressure constantly crashing down upon them, only felt more powerfully the closer one got to the metallic sphere.

The dragon Raised to the Occasion soared high above and disappeared into a thick layer of roiling clouds which almost appeared to be pulled into a vast whorl centered around the sphere. Projectiles were shot into the sky after it but Eik could feel that it remained unharmed.

As they approached the gathering, the intensity and volume of attacks grew and a rumbling, penetrating hum originating from the sphere reached them, a glow of power emanating from its surface.

Eik threw up shells embedded in the sand on their right and left, extending forward in several layers, essentially creating a protected avenue of passage where they were passively protected from all but the strongest of attack which Andihar was still responsible for.

A droplet of concentrated Profound Toxin oozed out onto his finger tip and he launched it into the clouds at high speed, a second after which the gigantic ocean of blue of Apocalypse Canvas swelled across the sky, casting the world in waving azure. With a hand lifted, he made a fist. The Apocalypse Canvas as if contained within his grip and constricted into a tenth of its original size.

Its blue hue intensified as it was now denser and could spit out much more concentrated barrages of shards. It was a little modification Eik had figured out recently.

Immediately, crystalline knives poured out of the surface in the thousands, much larger than they usually were, creating another front on which the cultists had to defend. Before the first one could land, however, barriers snapped into place above the metallic sphere.

Eik was very consciously avoiding direct attacks to the tethered ball and the still volatile living Life Harvesters. If a single burst abdominal sack contained the energy to cause such massive destruction as what he had seen earlier, what would a battery with more than eighty times that do?

Andihar raised his heavy blade for an overhead slash as he led with his shield, a split second away from clashing with another S-ranker, when a fracture ripped open right in front of them with a speed Eik had never thought possible.

"What the fuck!" Eik hissed as they were spat out somewhere else in the desert. The force from the sphere told them that the cultists were now behind them but before she could reorient herself properly, Mn'Toakh took an icicle to the shoulder and was flung into Eik as Andihar stepped back in front of them, blocking several more projectiles.

Mn'Toakh groaned in pain, her shoulder a mess of blood and broken tissue. Beginning to spread rapidly across her skin, the ice was crushed and ripped away by Eik before it could get too bad, Panacean Quintessence flowing into the wound and beginning the healing process. He poured red healing potion into it as well as attacks kept raining down upon them.

"What the hell was that?" Eik asked again.

"Woulaxi the Mover is among them," Mn'Toakh gasped as they began advancing again. "He uses ultra quick deployment of small fractures to essentially force teleport moving targets. He's a formidable opponent."

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"Which one is he?" Eik asked, craning his neck to peek around Andihar's shield.

"Do you see the tall man by the chain furthest to our right? The Acrixa."

Eik narrowed his eyes. They had been sent about three hundred meters away. Normally, that distance could be covered in a moment by three S-rankers, but under fire and with the risk of being victims of the same trick again, it was no good. "The insect guy? Yeah, I see him. All right, give me a sec," he said and released another ten Living Manifestations, all flying types. "Take me up, boys!"

"What are you going to d—" Mn'Toakh began but before she could get out the question, Eik had transformed into a large shard of crystalline Profound Toxin and was being carried up by one of the flyers.

Near the surface of the Apocalypse Canvas he sent a mental order to be dropped and mixed himself into the thousands of falling fragments, heading straight for Woulaxi the Mover.

When he was about a hundred meters from the top of the metal sphere, the heads of two different cultists snapped up, eyes locking onto him in an instant despite his suppressed aura. Shouted warnings saw ranged attacks flying by his ears as he returned to human form.

Eik gritted his teeth as he pushed all personal buffs to their absolute maximum and dove for a spot a dozen paces from Woulaxi who conjured a fracture directly in Eik's path but the Acceleration of a prepared rod of solid toxin already adhered to Eik's side knocked him out of the way and straight for the insectoid bastard.

Shells flowed across his body from ears to ankles, supporting the defense of Armor of the Scourge but he still took two painful hits, one putting his elbow completely out of commission while the other definitely cracked some ribs.

Close combat fighters waited for him on the ground, blocking the way to Woulaxi who had sent himself a couple dozen paces back via a fracture that closed nearly as quickly as it opened. One of the close combat fighters was S-rank by the way he moved but Eik didn't give him a chance to swing his axe and flexed his aura, Tyrant's Pressure rocking him on his feet as the titan Monarch emerged and set his gaze on the gathered cultists.

Suddenly, something slithered in to touch his mind and a spike of pain hacked into his brain but almost instantly vanished again, the sensation of a dormant power inside Eik washing through him to cleanse it. Ah, he recognized that feeling.

So the effect of the Noble Mentality trait granted by Monarch's Will protected him against attacks to his mind.

That he had been attacked like that made it likely that the asshole called Qarr the Pillar was somewhere here as well, but there was no time to worry about him right now.

Erupting in thick, mist-like toxic gas, Eik utilized Toxic Liquefaction once more to practically teleport through the substance only to revert to standard Movement Boost at full throttle to reach Woulaxi just as he stepped through yet another portal. Its twin was visible a hundred meters out from the gathering of cultists.

"No, you fucking don't!" Eik shouted and leapt at full speed, the dimensional forces of the portal pulling him in as the brim of it closed.

The Mover gasped in surprise as Eik stumbled through the fracture after him, the two of them now alone and separated from the rest of the gangsters of the cloth. He ripped open another gate but the moment it snapped open, Eik seized him by his rough, ridged forearm and hauled him in the opposite direction and slamming him into the sand with such force that it sent a cloud of sand forty meters into the air and erased the slight dune they were standing on.

Before the Mover could free himself, Eik plunged a half-length sword into his abdomen where the exoskeleton seemed to be thinnest, a localized Movement Boost hammering it in to the hilt.

It melted and flowed into the wound where sticky, green ichor was already spilling out, and Eik followed as Toxic Liquefaction once more changed his body.

Man, he had completely overwhelmed Woulaxi. While the man clearly wasn't a physically specialized Awakened, Eik was on a different level. He was still continuously surprised by how many S-rankers he had overwhelmed already. Just hours before, he had taken two at once for crying out loud.

No, he probably couldn't solo twenty S-rankers at a time in the same way he had been able to with A-rankers when he was one himself, but he had honestly expected the power difference between him and other S-rankers to equalize even more.

S-rank was truly a spectrum unlike the previous ranks and he had managed to land quite high up from the moment he evolved. Once he figured out S-ranked booster potions he would be unstoppable.

Just by the fluctuations of aura, Eik could tell that Woulaxi was terrified to have a powerful enemy inside his body. Although most of the low ranking cultists of Moon Shall Swallow seemed to be decidedly insane, conversely, the high rankers seemed much more… lucid. Mission oriented and loyal, yes, but clearly able to think.

As he flowed through the Mover's system, he released copious amounts of Profound Toxin, charging up for the big finish. Giving it a good ten seconds, he activated Eyes of the Beast to tap into the senses of one of the flyer high above and confirmed that Woulaxi had returned to his comrades, desperately but futilely trying to get rid of the intruder.

Good. Who didn't love a bit of collateral?

Triggering Accelerant, the familiar yet sickeningly unnatural sensation of one's own body being torn apart washed over him like a wave of rancid sewer water filled with used syringes. Atom by atom he was ripped and torn until, with a pop inside his mind, he was looking down at the scene from above.

The earsplitting burst of Accelerant took out a handful nearby cultists while three times that were badly injured to degrees that varied by proximity and rank. Luckily Woulaxi had been far enough from the Life Harvesters and the metal sphere to make such a move possible.

On solid wings of toxin, he glided back toward Andihar and Mn'Toakh just as their army, led by Gul and Pölse, appeared on the edge of the large dune. Projectiles came for him, but at this range he effortlessly swerved to avoid them all.

Two more rows of Life Harvesters had already been drained into the tethered ball.

Time was running out.

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