[Natural skill acquisition triggered]

[Naturally acquired skill (Unique) Monarch's Will]

[Acquired Monarch's Will — Lv. 1]

Natural skill acquisition? That hadn't happened before. He had had a natural skill evolution before, but never an entirely new skill. And another Unique one at that.

The letters faded and replaced themselves with new text.

In the fight against the shitty bird that had tried to kill his father back in the Swedish forest, Profound Toxin had hit level 91 while Movement Boost had hit level 43 and Living Manifestation reached 39, and now he got more.

[Acquired Movement Boost — Lv. 44]

[Acquired Movement Boost — Lv. 45]

And it kept going.

[Acquired Living Manifestation — Lv. 40]

[Acquired Living Manifestation — Lv. 41]

[Acquired Living Manifestation — Lv. 42]

[Acquired Living Manifestation — Lv. 43]

Fighting an opponent two ranks above your own really did something crazy to ability growth. And the fact that he had Accelerated his own body for the first time while under the effects of Toxic Liquefaction, subsequently shot his consciousness into one of the little Living Manifestations and returned back to his human form had probably contributed to the level ups as well.

[Acquired Profound Toxin — Lv. 92]

[Reached Apostle of Toxin — II]

A rank up as well? Stage 2 of his C-rank equivalent Apostle of Toxin was nothing to scoff at. At this point he was pretty sure that fighting foes as far above your own rank as possible was the golden ticket to rank ups.

It was as if the system tried to adjust him whenever he beat or contributed greatly to the vanquishment of something much stronger. As if it thought it had miscalculated his actual rank and was revising. What ended up really happening was simply that he kept being pushed upward more and more—stronger and stronger without end.

The message faded from his forearm, leaving pristine skin. He couldn't stop thinking about the first notification.

Monarch's Will sounded… strong. There was no time to theorize about its effects because the giant was slowly getting back to its feet—but there was ample opportunity to test it.

Monarch's Will, he could tell, wasn't just another ability. It wasn't just another attack or utility skill. It was something far different. Somehow he felt the skill connect to something far away. Something… else. All he could do was try it out.

With a grunt of determination, he triggered Monarch's Will.

Instantly, as if a totally new sense had been opened, Eik became acutely aware of every single mote of Profound Toxin, both Living Manifestations and otherwise. But not only that. He could feel every system nearby. The giant regaining its bearings a dozen paces away, of course, but also the entire audience above.

It was like a visual overlay. He could see everything alive. It was magnificent.

Like a vortex of luminescence, gaseous Profound Toxin streamed out from every inch of his body and gathered into a swirl of blue that rushed up high around him. The sense of control was… like nothing else before.

On pure instinct, he created a board of crystalline toxin under his feet and launched himself toward the giant. Thirty more Living Manifestations poured out and assembled into two large, high-tier Profound Toxic beasts, both of which grew limbs equipped with wicked sets of claws. They latched onto the cyclops' back and began tearing into its flesh, drawing deep, bloody grooves into its skin.

No matter how one looked at it, Monarch's Will had empowered the toxic beasts far beyond their usual limits. That boded well for the rest of his powers.

Like a music conductor he directed flows of pure poison into the cyclops' mouth where it entered both its esophagus and the already healing wound on its tongue. Almost immediately that was shut down as it snapped its jaw shut, but Eik simply redirected the blue currents to the new wounds on its back.

Finally back in the fight, the giant let out a bone-shaking howl and swept its hammer around for a devastating blow. While the power and control of his toxin had been intensified immensely by Monarch's Will, the same didn't seem to be the case for his physical prowess.

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He did feel like he could now push Backflow further, since its limit was dependent on the potency of Profound Toxin but there was no time to do that in time. And he couldn't be sure just how much it would damage his own body either.

Unable to react and get out of the way in time, eight shells of solid toxin snapped into existence between Eik and the hammer, just as it slammed into the foremost of them. With each shattered layer, Eik was pushed back more forcefully.

The stone of the arena wall cracked slightly as his back slammed against it. Before he could even recover, a plate of blue sent him flying high above the arena floor as a second swing came it to finish the job.

Diving back down, hundreds of razor-sharp shard of crystalline toxin rained down like a storm of hails. Controlled by his will, most of them went directly for the cyclops' only eye. Being an A-ranker, taking out one sense probably wouldn't be enough to put it out of the fight but it might discombobulate it.

Throwing up an arm to block the shards turned the giant's fingers and palm into pincushions. With a thought, Eik triggered a ranged Accelerant on every single of the buried projectiles and within a second, everything from the middle of the forearm and down was vaporized in the most violent explosion Eik had ever caused.

A deep, bass-filled wail reverberated throughout the arena, many of the cultist above clutching at their ears to block out the ear-splitting cacophony.

Immediately taking advantage of the enormous bloody stump, Eik funneled currents of toxin into the wound. The two toxic beasts had been annihilated by the sweep of an arm but new forces rushed out of Eik's skin almost immediately and flocked the giant to inflict even more bleeding wounds.

The titanic war hammer was swung so quickly, even one-handed, that sonic booms banged as it displaced air, and Eik was forced to push Backflow to the limit newly raised by Monarch's Will.

Still only narrowly avoiding the swings, Eik had to dance frantically closer, unable to concentrate on anything else. With the boost granted to the potency of Profound Toxin granted by Monarch's Will, Backflow alone seemed to have almost brought him up to the same physical level as the combined effects of Backflow and Potion of Mighty Strength had previously been capable of.

All the while, his forearm felt as if it was on fire, message after message etching itself into his skin without pause as the radical use of his new skill continuously leveled it up.

[Acquired Monarch's Will — Lv. 2]

[Acquired Monarch's Will — Lv. 3]

[Acquired Monarch's Will — Lv. 4]

[Acquired Monarch's Will — Lv. 5]

Just how strong was he becoming all of a sudden? It was almost frightening. But right now, appreciation for his own ridiculous abilities was all he could feel.

It felt like there was more to Monarch's Will than just a toxic potency boost but he couldn't discern was that was right now.

At once, he crystallized a section of Profound Toxin inside the giant's arm stump and detonated it without hesitation. The flesh blew apart as if a grenade had been jammed into it and showered the sandy floor in thick, red blood.

[Acquired Monarch's Will — Lv. 6]

[Acquired Monarch's Will — Lv. 7]

Seconds later, he did the same with the next section of the arm, and then again with the next.

[Acquired Monarch's Will — Lv. 8]

[Acquired Monarch's Will — Lv. 9]

[Acquired Monarch's Will — Lv. 10]

Recognizing a pattern and seeing time run out, the giant suddenly roared fiercely. It's thick skin which had been lightly tanned until now began to turn gray and cracked as a second pair of arms sprouted from behind the original pair, the shoulder lining up.

It looked not unlike a certain fighting type creature from a popular Japanese anime and video game franchise, only many, many times larger and scarier. That alone made it almost comical, but Eik didn't have time to huff a laugh, because the cyclops once more went on the offense.

There was no telling, why the giant hadn't activated this form earlier, but its skin had apparently become significantly more durable, preventing the Profound Toxic beasts from penetrating any longer. Additionally, all of the smaller wounds had instantly closed up, leaving only the still bleeding stump as a viable system ingress—a stump which the cyclops was cautiously protecting, both with other parts of its body, but also through simple evasion.

A sweeping hammer strike caught Eik almost directly in the side, only five prepared layers of thick, toxic shell offering some protection. He was flung off his feet, all air knocked from his lungs. Flipping rapidly as he hurtled toward the wall of the arena, he couldn't tell what was up and down but he knew that that wall would do some serious damage.

It took his all to will the transformation for Toxic Liquefaction into execution. Camouflaging himself among the fragments of the blue shells, which were already melting around him, he let the cyclops pass in enraged pursuit of a target who was no longer where he should have been.

As soon as he could, he reverted to human and triggered a contactless Accelerant on every mote of Profound Toxin still inside the cyclops.

Before the brilliant shock wave even reached him, a five meter long toxic javelin was already ready in his hand and hurled at speeds far above supersonic. Another two followed in quick succession.

[Acquired Monarch's Will — Lv. 11]

[Acquired Monarch's Will — Lv. 12]

They didn't really go very deep, but they did make it in deep enough to spill blood. And spilled blood meant a way in. Chasing the spears, Eik dove for the wounds, ready to flow into a liquid state, but before he could make it, a hammer swing from diagonally above him slammed into his side and sent him to the ground with such force that his body bounced off the sand like a basketball.

Bouncing off turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because it meant that he wasn't crushed by the war hammer as it crushed the floor like a rock through rice crackers, causing the whole arena to erupt with soil like a volcano.

Eik both felt and heard several bones break in his body, from the devastating blow as well as from the meeting with the ground. Blood practically sprayed from his mouth, nose, and probably even his ears when his head cracked against the floor.

He was immediately dizzy and nauseous, a throbbing headache rushing up through his body and settling in his skull.

Desperate, he conjured a large, thick sphere of solid toxin with himself inside, the sound of the hammer being ripped back out of the ground alerting him to an imminent second blow. As quickly as he could, he began to fill the relatively spacious inside of the sphere with liquid, hoping to protect himself in the same way a skull protects the brain in a soup. For some reason it was the first thing he thought of, and he could only hope it would work.

Before he could transform his own body into liquid as well, the hammer came crashing through the sphere and caught him painfully in the leg and sent him spinning away. He felt his femur crunch sickeningly as he tumbled to the ground.

Without much thought, a luminescent leg brace snapped into place to support him as he got back to his feet. The cyclops was already coming in to deliver the death stroke.

Desperate and afraid, Eik reached deep for his reserves, pushing Monarch's Will to its limits. And Profound Toxin answered.

As if shot by a high pressure fire hose, the blue substance flooded out from his hands in a concentrated deluge that could have gone dozens of meters. Instantly, the cyclops was drenched and the poison sought both to enter its system but also to envelop it completely, slowing its otherwise impossibly quick movements.

This was it.

With this, he would deliver death.

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