"The sun is out, the breeze is cool and gentle, and I'm surrounded by loved ones," Eik said, shielding his eyes from the sun as he looked across the vast stretch of open plain. "This is a good day to die."

"You're not going to die," Heath said and punched him in the arm. "It's a monster in complete stasis. It won't even be aware that you're hitting it, much less be able to fight back."

"Way to ruin a man's moment. Can't you just let me say a cool line for once? Is that too much to ask for?" Eik whined.

"You say plenty of cool lines, like when you said to Gih the Madman 'I'll dance on your corpse, bitch.'"

"Nobody was even there for that one. You only know because I told you about it. That's the same as if it didn't happen."

Michael pursed his lips. "What about that time you told Mushroom Head that they shouldn't get on your bad side or something like that?"

"Yeah, that was alright, I guess," Eik said with a sigh. "What happened to that guy anyway?"

"Wasn't he one of the people who went over to the cult voluntarily?"

"What a perfect display of the weakness of Earthlings," a voice piped up, full of acid. "Is it true that your entire planet could barely defend yourselves against a single A-ranker?" the man remarked to chuckles from two of his friends who seemed to always follow him around. It reminded Eik of Rock Fist Bart a little bit.

Eik glanced over at him as the rest of the humans tensed up. "Shut the hell up, Gilim!" Ihasu snapped.

Gilim was Ihasu's older cousin. From the moment it had become known that Eik and Ihasu were together, the man had been incessantly vocal in his disapproval of the Earthling. Even the thought of someone from a new world with no familial backing potentially joining the Ougi clan seemed to fill him with disgust to no end.

The man simply clicked his tongue at Ihasu until their grandfather, Clan Leader Gul added his voice. "Don't cause a fuss, Gilim. You're going to end up burning your fingers sooner or later," he warned.

"Yes, grandfather," Gilim said with a respectful bow, but his orange eyes still practically crackled with disdain as he glared daggers at Eik, clearly nowhere close to having discarded his ridiculous feelings.

When the man threw insults at Eik personally, it really didn't bother him at all. Why would he care what some random idiot, whom he didn't even like, thought of him?

But when the ire was directed at Eik's loved ones, or he shit on the suffering that the many people of Earth had gone through as they transitioned into a new life in the Unified Mass, it was very difficult to take.

One of these days, he might just bust open the guy's skull. Eik had made a point of resisting the urge to murder that Profound Toxin enjoyed throwing at him like push notifications on a smart phone but, hey, everybody was bound to fail at some point, right? That was only human, after all, as Gilim himself so liked to point out.

They had just stepped out of the fracture that had brought them to the site of the A-rank Crucible tests. Here Eik would test his mettle in the test for raw damage output. At least this time, he wasn't going to take any of the other tests, like speed or defense. He didn't need the money anymore, and as a standalone, damage output was definitely going to leave the greatest impression.

Everybody had taken time out of their calendar to come and watch. Heath and Michael had taken leave from the workshop and clinic respectively for the day. Ihasu and Mikla had gotten friends to take their shifts at the fracture halls, Ihasu still permanently stationed on Earth by her own choosing.

Eik's father, Rasmus, had opened his own restaurant recently but had closed it today to watch his son destroy a monster. While he had been desperately throwing himself into danger before Eik had found him in Sweden, grief mixing into a dangerous cocktail of recklessness and depression, that attraction to danger had vanished almost as soon as he set foot in Forest. It had been a symptom of something that was healing.

Rasmus was doing so much better now that Eik was hoping he might even find someone to grow old with. How lovely that would be. His father deserved all the happiness in the world.

Rasmus had gone to pick up Bin early from school today as well. She had cried like a broken faucet when Eik had initially refused to bring her along as a spectator. Bin was a girl who barely ever cried, even after everything she had been through in her young life, so when she did, Eik knew that he had to listen. In the end she got her way, and grandpa Rasmus was happy to take care of her.

Endeavors to reestablish a school-like institution was one of the first initiatives Eik had assisted the people of Forest with. Not only did he want to create a place for Bin to make new friends as quickly as he could, but he also recognized that many children weren't living as children should. They should learn, play, and socialize with kids their own age.

Children were the backbone of a society and their education was the muscles that allowed that backbone to stay straight and healthy. Practically, it was also simply one more cog necessary to strengthen Earth among the many other, much older worlds.

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Although Bin had made many friends and even brought some of them home to play and have dinner after school, it hadn't been all good for her. Some parents and, in extension, their children weren't satisfied with the fact that an 'alien' had been allowed to attend school here on Earth.

While he despised the sentiment, Eik couldn't pretend not to understand it. Earth had spent years tormented by aliens, and still was in many ways. And most Earthlings hadn't met enough aliens yet to developed a nuanced perspective of the situation. So, yes, Eik could somewhat sympathize with the sentiment… So long as it didn't turn into anything more than it already was. Mistreatment of his adoptive daughter would be repaid in kind.

Bin sat on her grandpa's shoulder, spilling glob after glob of chocolate cream from her pastry into his hair, giggling uncontrollably. Her laughter only intensified when Olivia appeared out of the blue like a ghost and delivered a huge wad of custard cream right on the girl's nose.

That was the loveliest sight Eik could imagine. This had to be protected at all costs.

"Is it impossible for that little runt to be quiet, huh?" Gilim shouted, the volume of his voice jolting Bin into instant silence, her face a mask of fright as she squeezed grandpa Rasmus' hair tightly. Eik's face darkened, the vague outline of a ghostly mask appearing in front of his face.

Ihasu immediately saw what was about to happen. "Eik…" she began.

"Ihasu, I'm sorry, but I think I'm going to murder your cousin today," he hissed as thousands of needle-thin tendrils of Profound Toxin rose up from his body, reaching for Gilim like ferrofluid to a magnetic object.

Ihasu's face alone told Eik that she was no less enraged than he was. The only real difference between the two of them was that she was still capable of thinking clearly in spite of it. "Could you at least just maim him? I'd like to have a relationship with the both of us outside of prison, and I'm not sure an outright murder is the best way to maintain that."

Making such an absurd request with a straight face almost made him laugh, and probably would have if he hadn't been so angry. It somehow pulled him out of the murderous fog he had been caught in. Taking a deep breath, he flashed her a smile. "Nah, I'm good now," he assured her and walked over to little Bin. "Let's just move on, eh?"

He picked her up and hugged her to his chest, humming quietly into her ear. "It's okay, it's okay. That was just the bad man farting out of his mouth, don't you think?"—Bin's face brightened as she giggled, nodding her head in agreement—"Don't even worry about him, okay? I'm right here, little Bin."

"Okay." They continued toward the sunken arena where the A-rank test of raw damage was conducted.

Only when they looked down the stairs from the edge did Eik realize that this arena was five or six times larger than the one he had previously fought at. Had the last been D-rank? It made sense that it would be larger. Some A-rankers had some serious destructive power. There was probably an invisible barrier as well to protect the spectators.

The place was absolutely packed with people of all kinds. A-rank would be more fun to watch, wouldn't it? Given how relatively few A-rankers there were, it was not a constant stream of fighters like in F-rank and E-rank, but chatter still ran loudly through the crowd as they waited for the next contender. It looked like coming to watch these tests was treated as something like a picnic.

The last time Eik had heard a cacophony like that, he had been pushed through the hot sand of the death theater in the cult capital. But the cheering here was missing the malice that the cultists had poured over him back then.

"What was my score back then? Back when I was D-rank?" Eik asked Ihasu.

She narrowed her eyes as she tried to recall. "Two hundred and something thousand points, or something like that, I think."

"203.543," Michael chimed in confidently.

"Wow, that's one impressive memory," Heath praised.

Michael just shrugged. "It was a pretty impressive performance, so…"

The monster in the arena was massive. Even though the arena was so much larger than the previous ones, the beast took up almost half of it with sheer size. It lay curled up on the flagstones, seemingly asleep. The glowing shackles around its limbs and neck made sure that it would never move again, however.

Two pairs of wings ran down its ridged back, the tail making up at least half of its body length. With a hide covered in thick scales, and a long, reptilian snout and horns sprouting from its scalp, there was no doubt.

"Is that a freaking dragon?" Heath exclaimed excitedly as they descended the stairs.

"That is definitely a dragon! Dude!" Eik laughed, joining his friend in his excitement.

"You've seen one of these before?" Clan Leader Gul asked, a hint of genuine surprise in his voice.

"Not exactly," Eik admitted. Some people were beginning to notice Clan Leader Gul. He was a very powerful and influential man with an exceedingly recognizable appearance with his many tattoos. Murmurs erupted—a fact Gilim seemed to revel in. "It's been part of myths and legends on Earth for centuries."

"That's very interesting," Gul said, already drifting away into thought.

Gilim was the first to announce his intent to fight, Eik second. The haughty man ascended the stage and prepared his weapon, a wicked spear.

Before approaching the unmoving dragon, he turned around pointed the tip of his blade at Eik's face. "You're not worthy of the Ougi name. Deep down you know that, don't you?" he said with a smirk.

"Gilim!" Ihasu broke in. "I am so tired of your anti—"

"No, Ihasu! I am tired of your antics! You think the clan will simply lie flat and accept you tainting our name with someone so… lesser? Many within the clan share my view, you know! Why don't you get over this little rebellious phase of yours and find someone worthy?" he spat.

Eik watched Clan Leader Gul closely. He usually told Gilim to quiet down, but never took it further. And with no consequences, the arrogant bastard probably thought he had an implicit green light to spout as much hateful crap as he could think of. Eik was getting tired of it, but Ihasu didn't need him to protect her dignity. She felt no shame for their relationship, and he loved her for that.

Clan Leader Gul said nothing now, however, and simply watched events unfold. One thing Eik had learned about the man was that, despite how he seemed to absolutely adore Ihasu, he was a firm believer in the necessity to fight one's own battles. Unless someone was going to die, he probably wouldn't step in.

"It's none of your busine—" Ihasu tried.

"None of my business? You're a traitor and you say it's none of my business?"

That struck a nerve in her, a jolt zapping through her. It was clear as day. Eik clenched his fists, ready to reduce to fool to a pile of rotting flesh if he tried something drastic.

But instead his gaze fell on Eik again. "I'll humiliate you and prove just how worthless you are. To everyone. With power. In one week I will make you face my blade!" he announced in true young master fashion, stirring up the crowd like crazy.

Eik face didn't break, but on the inside he was cackling.

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