"You got something good or what?" the old man asked gruffly, leaning in to get a better look.

Now that both Clan Leader Gul and Andihar had been brought into the circle of knowledge regarding his status as a Worldbreaker and generally cool guy, Eik readily consulted on skill evolutions like this. "Maybe. I hit Level 300 with Profound Toxin earlier and hit a threshold. I figured it was better to save the choice for a situation where we needed something specific, like this. Lucky I did. Check it out."

[Skill evolution available. Skill available for evolution: Profound Toxin]

[Choose one]

[Profound Toxin — Death Star]

[Profound Toxin — Extinction Zone]

Gul continued to weave his hands as he read along, lobbing dark purple missiles into the cultists and reinforcing his army of specters. Eik, too, kept sending more Living Manifestations out as they were destroyed by the cultists, guiding their movements.

"All right, so not that obvious what you would be in for with either of them," the old man began. "but knowing how your ability works, I think you should go for Extinction Zone in this situation."

"What're you thinking?"

"Well, you can dictate who gets affected by your toxin in practice, right?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, and Extinction Zone sounds like some kind of area of effect trait which is exactly what we need if your can dictate who gets hit. You're having trouble deploying your mist to the center, aren't you? The S-rankers are shutting it down because it doesn't have great staying power."

Eik nodded along as his own brain mulled it over. "That's true."

"I think Death Star has a greater chance of involving something crystalline from which I don't believe you can exclude targets in the same way. What we really need is to keep them away from that damned ball of metal, and a trait called Extinction Zone seems most likely to achieve that without damaging the abdominal sacks of the Life Harvesters."

Eik's triceps injury was more or less good again so he cracked his neck and made his choice. "That's good enough for me, and we don't have any time to waste. Here we go."

The sensation of a new ability flooded his spirit and he immediately reached for it. Unwilling to risk bursting an abdominal sack by accident, he turned around and cast a micro Extinction Zone on the ground where it affected nobody.

He observed it for a few seconds, suppressing the urge to just hope it worked and rush into the fray. All right, it seemed fine. Just by the sensation of it, he could tell that he would be able to control who would be affected by it.

"I'm going!" he shouted to grandpa Gul as he leapt away.

"I'll cover ya!"

Eik skidded to a stop in the sand about a hundred meters from the large battle and thrust his hand forward, willing the largest Extinction Zone he was capable of creating into existence. It hummed bassly as a circular cylinder of transparent blue settled across the entire battlefield, spanning about a hundred meters in diameter with the floating metal sphere and the Life Harvesters in its center.

At this point there were only five Life Harvesters left before all had been drained of their stored energy, but Eik wouldn't let even one more be taken.

Sparing both his fellow warriors and the Life Harvester from any harm, he focused the full might of the Extinction Zone on the cultists exclusively. His abilities were always rather quiet—even Apocalypse Canvas, as big as it was, didn't really make much sound at all. But Extinction Zone was different.

Pitched and low, it cut straight through to the bones of the ears, making even Eik's entire head feel like it was vibrating from outside the actual area of effect. The trait employed Profound Toxin in a state of matter that Eik hadn't seen before. It certainly wasn't solid or liquid, but it wasn't gaseous either.

The strange, almost ectoplasmic substance that made up the avatar of Tyrant's Pressure was probably the closest but still wasn't quite it. It kind of just looked like a colorful filter overlaid onto the real world, swirling and churning.

But most importantly of all, the effect was immediate.

Where his allies just seemed startled and slightly uncomfortable by the ability, the cultists reacted drastically.

The A-rankers died first, bleeding from all orifices as they collapsed. Among the ritualists working on the draining, six of them turned out to be A-rankers, leaving only two standing immediately slowing down the progress. And even the S-rankers quickly felt it.

If nothing else, the warriors from the Alliance recognized the distinct color of Eik's abilities and soon caught on to what was going on. Ignoring the discomfort of the noise of Extinction Zone, they resumed their relentless assault on the cultists who were suffering more and more by the second.

Because of the seemingly small size of the toxic particles, they didn't necessarily need a wound to enter the body. It meant that the infection was constant and instant, but not nearly as fast. However, given the potency of Profound Toxin, now clearly felt by all of the remaining living cultists within the Extinction Zone, even one second was too long.

For a handful of seconds they continued to defend their position but then retreated out of the ability's range, realizing that their deaths, how ever martyrish, would do nothing to help achieve their goals. They were more useful alive.

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Eik left the Extinction Zone in place, becoming aware of how much focus it took to maintain it. It was the kind of ability that worked excellently for large scale suppression efforts like this, but wouldn't be worth the hassle in a situation where he had to defend himself from attacks.

Now that the cultists were further away from the metal sphere and the Life Harvesters, they suddenly found themselves open to greater bombardment while the Alliance warriors, now cluttered up near the metal sphere remained protected.

As projectiles rained down upon them and summons and melee fighters swarmed, putting them in a perilous defensive position, a roar of rage rang from the now small group of cultists as a pulse warped the air.

At once, a spike of mental agony struck Eik's mind like a electrified sledgehammer, and the pained gasp and cries around him told him that everybody had gotten hit. It was the same sensation as what he had briefly felt earlier, and just like then, this pain faded in less than a second, suppressed by Noble Mentality.

But when he stood up, he saw that only he and Andihar, who had propped himself up on his elbows, were fine. Everybody else wasn't so lucky. Extinction Zone had been dropped briefly, proving how much focus it took to maintain, but he got it up and running again quickly.

A look at the gathered cultists revealed the person doing the mind attack. A man with long hair white as paper and skin nearly as pale stood surrounded by the others. His expression looked just as pained as his victims and blood poured from his nose and ears. Andihar gasped and drew Eik's attention as he began to speak.

"Th-That's… That's Qarr the Pillar. He's dangerous. What he's doing hurts him just as much, but he will surely incapacitate everybody here but the two of us if you don't stop him." He coughed up blood.

Reacting quickly, Eik sicced the entire army of Living Manifestations on the small group of cultists and simultaneously directed Apocalypse Canvas to release four forty meter crystal blades, followed by another four, and then another four.

Qarr was too preoccupied to dodge but he was pulled out of the way of the blades by one of his allies, breaking his concentration and ending the ability abruptly. Snapping out of it, the pale man looked around frantically, but Eik was already upon him, blue blade raised high to strike.

He slashed down with the extreme power of the Monarch of Toxin, cutting a deep groove in the sand that stretched on for more than thirty meters ahead, adding to the many craters, but another S-ranker took the brunt of the attack with a pair of crossed short swords but still suffered vicious lacerations from the near unstoppable force of Eik's attack.

All infected from the brief period within the Extinction Zone, which had been temporarily dispersed while Eik dealt with Qarr, Accelerant tore violently into the lot of them. This provided Eik with an opening to slice into the twin blade user, delivering another dose of toxin which was immediately Accelerated, bringing the man to his knees.

But another S-ranker immediately took his place, followed by another two, vigorously defending the Pillar.

Tyrant's Pressure crashed down upon them, their own powerful auras flattened. Toxic gas shot out and spread around as Eik drove a new blade through the chest of one woman, letting it melt into the wound and kicking her away as she gasped.

A whip cracked into his face, blocked only by a layer of crystal shell swiftly grown by reflex. The strike sent him flying but he could still send a mental order to the numerous Living Manifestations crawling around the cultists.

Accelerant.

The shock wave of the explosion caught up to him and hurled him even further, the boom nearly deafening him. With that many summons detonating at once, sand was thrown hundreds of meters into the air, obscuring everything like a storm.

That would have taken out some of the S-rankers in the center of the group, but those on the outside could well have survived. And that included Qarr.

And as if fate was giving Eik the finger, he spotted the white-haired man a distance from the Accelerant. Shit. He must have separated from the group to avoid Eik's advances and been lucky to avoid the explosion as well.

Brain still rattled from the whip to the face, Eik leapt forward to get at the man but two S-rankers intercepted him midway. Qarr began to move back toward the floating metal sphere. His two guards seemed ardent to prevent Eik from following.

But why? Other S-rankers had been utilized as bait earlier, so why were they protecting Qarr like this? What could he do that they couldn't…?

Struck by a sudden, nauseating thought, Eik's gaze snapped from Qarr to the metal sphere still bobbing gently in the air. "Gul!" he roared as the psychic S-ranker advanced rapidly and Eik was forced to defend himself against the two guards. "Gul, it's Qarr! He's the one who can activate the metal ball. Stop him, for fuck's sake!"

Close enough to see the clan leader's eyes widen with understanding, he deflected a sword slash from one S-ranker and blocked a boulder hurled at speed by the other. Gul rushed forward, followed by Mn'Toakh, arrows already leaving the string of her bow, the tips bathed in golden light. But a transparent shield appeared above Qarr's head to block the projectiles as another S-ranker ran ahead of him.

"No, no, no!" Eik hissed desperately, unable to look away from the two parties racing for the metal ball. His inattention cost him a deep cut across the chest and a spike of stone driven through his hip.

Overcome by rage, he pumped both Profound Unity and Backflow past their limits, a tidal wave of liquid toxin flooding out, the substance churned into overdrive by the Monarch's panic. It washed over both of the S-rankers, Accelerating unceasingly and violently.

An ethereal, all-encompassing voice reverberated throughout the battlefield. There was only one man it could belong to. "It's already too late," Qarr the Pillar whispered into the ears of everybody present.

Bright and glittering, a mote of ghostly light shot from his forehead and struck the top of the floating metal ball, eliciting a reaction.

But… how? A few Life Harvesters still stood… No, it had already been enough. The last of them had simply been for good measure.

Eik's heart dropped as a beam of impossibly potent energy shot into the sky and disappeared into space above. Eik's face fell as he stared, his stomach twisting with dread.

A gleeful laugh rang out across the sands, stopped abruptly when a super-powered arrow from Mn'Toakh struck an exhausted Qarr in the chest, followed by several of Gul's dark bolts as well as more arrows. But his death changed nothing.

This was it… They had failed.

The energy beam just kept going as everybody watched. The few cultists still alive fell to their knees in reverence, tears flowing down their cheeks as they mumbled words of worship under their breaths. It was disgusting. They died smiling as furious warriors took their lives.

At once, everybody attacked the metal ball relentlessly, an unspoken agreement to die together if it meant stopping this disaster that would spell disaster for families back home. But unlike nearly all other structures, it seemed impervious to damage even from S-rankers.

A call to retreat five kilometers back went up after which Mn'Toakh charged up a long-distance shot that pierced the abdominal sack of one of the remaining Life Harvesters, causing all of them to explode with absolutely devastating force.

They ran back through a colossal crater to check on the metal ball but found it simply floating upward through the air like a balloon, undamaged and still releasing the energy beam.

"It's over," someone close to Eik breathed.

Then came the atmospheric shift. The pressure released by the Chasm as it expelled its excess energy.

A shiver ran down Eik's spine. With that the resolved awakening ritual would be complete and the Lord of the Moon would return.

Images flashed through his mind. Images of Forest and his former home in Copenhagen. Images of the people of Forest. Of his friends. Of his family. He had failed them.

And then came more images. Now of an unknown world devoid of life. Left barren as if by a great extinction event. But Eik was remembering it from the perspective of… someone. Images of death and destruction followed. Entire worlds dyed blue as everything died. Glee and satisfaction in the ruination.

Anger followed. Anger and indignation so deep and primal that it could not be his own. It belonged to his kindred soul. To Profound Toxin.

Something in his spirit cracked and then broke, releasing like a burst dam.

Script etched itself into his arm.

[Reached threshold]

[Natural skill evolution triggered — Profound Toxin]

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