Muddled with confusion, Eik opened his eyes to an incomplete darkness. Streaks of light peeked in through narrow slits on the periphery of his vision.

Fuck.

He was in the middle of a fight with his life on the line. Why the hell was he back in that damned rotting coffin? Couldn't this crap wait?

The tepid, rank water squelching against his back made him shiver. Hold up, no, that wasn't the sensation of water, but of the wind. As easily as if it had been wet paper, Eik sat up, his forehead tearing apart the rotten wood.

This wasn't the usual pond. It was a rocky platform with no vegetation, neither dead or alive.

Why was he here? Was he dead? The fight with the remaining A-ranker had just been going on. There had better be some kind of time dilation going on here or he was done for.

He looked around.

In the center of the rocky platform was a small basin. It was familiar. Familiar because he had nearly spilled his brain all over it not too long ago when he fell through the churning clouds above.

Looking up, there really wasn't anything to indicate the existence of that endlessly vast space where he was always taken to evolve.

Slowly, he approached the basin, craning his neck to look into it, but just as he got close enough to get a glimpse of the same intense blue liquid as before, something barreled into him and sent him reeled across the rocky ground, pebbles digging into his ribs as he slid.

"What the fu—" he shouted, rolling back onto his feet and looking back, only to leap to the side to avoid a Profound Toxic beast of a tier he had never seen before as it chomped empty air where his neck had just been.

While it still had a somewhat serpentine form, its limbs were much longer and its gait was significantly more feline. Where the drakes were muscular and heavyset, this specimen was slender and agile, although, judging by the force with which it had slammed into him before, it didn't lack anything in strength.

It let out a hissing snarl, not unlike that of an alligator—or a crocodile. Eik really didn't have a clue what the difference was, so sue him—proving itself much more vocal than any of the Profound Toxic beasts he had encountered thus far. Its physical features were so pronounced that Eik could even see its throat vibrate as the sound passed through.

Was this slick bastard a test to evolve?

Good. He would make short work of it.

"Come on, come on, fucker," he sung, beckoning for the blue monster to come at him.

It obliged and shot forward with explosive speed, not as fast as the A-rank Awakened he had just been fighting but still quite fast now that he didn't have the effects of Potion of Mighty Strength boosted to the moon by Perfect Consumption to lean on. Backflow still chugged to life along his skin, however.

With what he had learned from the last big fight here, slaughtering Profound Toxic beasts was a piece of cake. He side stepped the lunge, avoiding both fang and claw as he slapped the blue monster on the abdomen, willing Accelerant to activate throughout every mote of its tissue.

Here he was king.

And boom!

Any time now, it would go boom.

A reptilian tail slammed into his stomach and sent him tumbling away.

Any time now!

No, any time now!

Now!

Now!

… Now?

"You're supposed to explode!" he shouted and launched himself at the monster. Four more times he tried to get Accelerant to activate while he danced the dodging dance but it just wouldn't explode.

Again, a tail caught him across the ribs and threw him straight into the basin of toxin. Immediately it wrapped itself around him and trapped him inside like a cocoon with only his face free. What the hell was this supposed to be?

The same energy that he felt from deep within the origins of Monarch's Will, he could feel emanating from the Profound Toxin in the basin.

He struggled to free himself but the bindings held fast despite his best efforts. "Let me go!" he raged as the Profound Toxic beast galloped to lunge at him but nothing worked. "Let me go!"

If he was attacked in this defenseless state, he would be ripped to shreds. The crown signifying the activation of Monarch's Will bubbled out of his scalp and settled in above his head. A sense of clarity snapped into place in his mind.

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"I said, let go of me, you dumb, blue prick!" Instantly, the toxin obeyed and flowed up to merge into the substance of his crown. He felt it grow more complete.

Was Monarch's Will some kind of threshold skill? Would he be unable to control higher strength toxin without it? Perhaps his several fights with A-ranked monsters so early had triggered the natural skill acquisition earlier than the system had anticipated. Guessing about the rules of the world he lived in was getting tiring.

The Profound Toxic beast leapt and rocketed straight for him but before it could get him, he kicked it hard in the abdomen, caught it by the tail as it was knocked back, and detonated it to devastating results.

As the blast struck him in the face, his vision shifted abruptly.

***

Plip. The sound of a droplet of water.

Plip. Plip. Again they fell.

Now the gentle drumbeat of a spring shower.

A downpour. A torrent to wash away everything.

A flood to annihilate all life in an extinction event.

A true rebirth of all organic life.

As soon as he opened his eyes again, the ocean of blue drained into nothingness, leaving him hanging freely.

With none of the wait time, a glob of toxin whirled into existence and promptly flowed into text.

[Evolution possible. Current path derived from intimate relationship with — (Unique) Profound Toxin]

[Return to standard path possible: Evolution to B-rank possible]

[Evolve?]

[Evolution along current alternative evolutionary path possible: Alternative evolutionary path derived from intimate relationship with — (Unique) Profound Toxin]

[Alternative evolutionary path possible: Inheritor of Toxin]

[Evolve?]

"Yes, yes, yes! Of course I'll evolve! I'm in the middle of a fight, right? Come on, hurry up! Stab me with that spear or whatever you have to do already!" he shouted, thumping his own chest.

The letters quivered in exasperation but rapidly gathered into a thin spear of toxin that appeared to stretch to at least a hundred meters in length. Piercing him with great force, it raced into his body, his skin glowing more and more intensely blue with every meter until he felt like he was going to explode.

Blue light filled his vision to the point where he had to close his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was lying on the ground in the enormous chamber of the Stirring Cradle. He sat up spotted the remaining A-ranker kneeling by the bloody mess that had been her comrade.

Profound Toxin must have been aware enough to rush him through the process of his rank up, rather than the thirty minute plus nap he usually had to take.

A message etched itself into his arm.

[Reached Inheritor of Toxin]

Fuck yeah! Toxin jetted through him as he activated Backflow, now incomparably more powerful than just moments ago. For the first time, he took a Potion of Mighty Strength class 4 which was suited for B-rankers, this too far more potent than the class 3.

And finally, his crown once more rose into the air, its presence and glow definitely more intense than before. It also seemed taller as far as he was able to make out in the periphery of his vision.

With a deep breath he got down low and jumped into the air at full power.

Bad idea. He had to catch himself with his hands to avoid banging his head on the high ceiling. Damn, he was so awesome now.

Conjuring miniature versions of his gliding wings, he carefully adjusted the trajectory of his fall to head straight for the A-ranker who was just now getting back up. She seemed to notice that he was no longer on the ground and frantically looked around, but only looked up just as he reached her.

She gasped as white flames reflexively appeared in her palms, but she didn't manage to carry them into an attack before Eik's prepared javelin descended. Barely avoiding death, she jerked her head out of the way, but the lengthy blade was still driven deep into her shoulder.

She screamed as she threw him off her, the blade quickly flowing into the wound and disappearing into her system. Profound Toxin had very clearly grown more potent because the corruption spread discolored veins from the wounds within seconds.

White flames roared forth but Eik danced away agilely, countering with a gout of high-pressure toxin. She, too, hopped to the side, activating a movement skill that practically teleported her out of the way, but the stream followed her like a striking snake, enveloping her body in the deadly liquid. Her scream was quickly muffled into silence by the roiling toxin.

Out of nowhere, a remote explosion cracked him in the back and sent him flying directly toward the blue prison. Just as he was about to fall into the blue flow, a second explosion, this one much more powerful and originating from the woman trapped inside the blue prison, threw him back again, making him feel like a pinball.

He felt his nasal bone shatter and saw stars as his head banged against the hard wall, shattering the stone outright. The explosion had completely dispersed the Profound Toxin which now flowed rapidly back to reunite with Eik.

As the first motes began to reach him, he switched into Panacean Quintessence. He ran forward at full speed, the now green toxin healing him as it was reabsorbed. He switched back to blue when one streak of white flame after the other was shot at him, ducking and weaving, momentary application of Movement Boost pushing him to speed that his opponent couldn't follow with her eyes.

When he whipped a gigantic shell of solid toxin up between them, cutting off her line of sight, she tried to move in to shatter it with a fire-clad fist but the moment she punched, it collapsed in on her, returning to liquid. She cried out in frustration as it drained in through her wounds.

Movements significantly addled, she stumbled as discoloration spread to her whole body.

Another handful of flames blasted forth but Eik was already behind her, two razor-sharp blades of blue buried in her back. "It's over," he said.

Unwilling to accept reality, she spun around with a shriek, flaming fist coming up for a desperate, last-ditch attack, but a violent pulse jolted through her as a blue glow tore her apart from the inside. Blood gushed from her mouth, eyes, nose, and ears as she was hurled down like a rag doll, dead before she hit the floor.

A pool of blood seeped out from her corpse. Eik checked her pulse and nodded to himself. He looked down at his severed arm.

It was really gone.

Fuck.

Switching into Panacean Quintessence again, the green Backflow immediately began to heal him from the inside, globs of liquid targeting particularly severe injuries. Meanwhile, the gaseous form provided him some much appreciated pain relief.

Even when he held a slab of crystalline toxin against his burns, they provided no visible healing effect unlike the liquid. Holding the slab in his hand, he glanced at the stump of his arm again. An idea struck him.

Elongating the slab and pressing it against the stump, he began the meticulous work of sculpting it into the shape of a new arm.

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