Eik stared at the dragon, his every buff and boost pushing him eagerly to violence as he waited for the signal to go all out.

He had been holding himself back most of the time for these past two years. When he had first Awakened everything had been pure chaos as he tried to navigating situations that should have been impossible to survive and enemies that should have been impossible to beat.

Ever since coming back from his imprisonment at the capital of the cult of Moon Shall Swallow, that had changed rather drastically.

He had come to the realization that, despite his desire to grow stronger, the best way to help his loved ones, Forest, and Earth on the whole right now was to focus on his business in order to solidify their position within the Nidafjeld Alliance and to earn money to upgrade their quality of life.

Still, since then he had gone on more than a few hunts and missions, both on Earth and for the Alliance, and he had hit A-rank because of it, but it had been sporadic and infrequent compared to before.

At this point he was a weapon. Deployed when other Earthling Awakened became overwhelmed by a threat. Most of the residents of Forest would not actually be able to recognize his face.

But they all knew his name. They knew that he was a protector.

However, now was not the time to be the protector. Now he would be a weapon.

"Your one minute begins… now!" the test supervisor shouted.

The solid flagstones practically exploded as Eik vanished. A tidal wave of Profound Toxin trailed him as he hammered into the dragon's side like a projectile fired from an artillery gun.

With a long, razor-sharp blade conjured in an instant, Eik applied a localized Movement Boost to his shoulder, arm, and hand, plunging it deep into the beast's hide, getting deeper in that first attack, than Gilim had managed in his entire minute.

A literal flood of Profound Toxic beasts had been pouring out of him since the moment the test began, coalescing into an army of more than seventy high-tiered beasts. Each of them chose a spot on the dragon's body and began to claw and bite furiously to open up as many points of ingress as they could manage, countering the S-ranked monster's extreme natural regeneration by never stopping their attacks even after they had found blood.

As they did their foul work, Eik reached deep for Monarch's Will, finding the trickle of something more that he had discovered during long nights of meditation and wandering through the Profound Realm. It was so small, so scarce. It was the most brilliant blue, almost blinding as it responded to his call.

With the amount he had access to—no more than what could fit in the cup of his hand—it should have been insignificant. But it was potent. Terrifyingly so. While he had gained enough control to comfortably and confidently let Bin play with the Profound Toxic beasts, he would never let anyone he cared about anywhere near this substance. Even a single drop would be fatal to low-rankers in mere seconds.

Through a prepared channel in the center of the conjured blade, he injected the liquid that almost hummed with energy.

Within seconds, discoloration and signs of tissue decay started showing around the injection site, although the scales that covered most of the already dark hide made it difficult to see. Only the blue hue, not unlike Eik's own skin during an active Backflow, really made it apparent that something out of the ordinary was going on with the dragon.

He immediately sent it on a journey through the dragon's circulatory system in order to get as close to the brain and skull as it could.

Meanwhile, the crushing torrent of Profound Toxin that Eik had released at the first second was now flooding across the beast's entire body, invading the S-ranked system from every single wound opened and maintained by the Living Manifestations.

Eik was a faucet releasing different variants of Profound Toxin as he practically teleported onto the dragon's massive horned head. In the moment he had vanished in rapid movement, the blade had been left in the wound and replaced by an almost comically large gauntlet of crystalline blue.

Using the horns as scales, Eik used the solid toxin to essentially melt himself to the scalp, ensuring that every ounce of his power was transferred into the blow.

Eyes shining a burning, radiant blue, he let out a bestial howl and hammered the gauntlet into the dragon's head with as much power as he could muster. Again and again, he slammed the heavy, spike gauntlet into the skull, the test supervisor looking unable to believe the readings he was getting from the running measurements of the monster's health related markers.

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"T-Ten seconds have elapsed!" the man called, having almost forgotten to call it out.

Already at this point, most of the color had drained from Gilim's face as he watched exactly what kind of living horror he had challenged. He was watching in real time what he could expect to be subjected to in the near future—and he wasn't having a very good time with it.

In one of the foremost rows of spectator seats sat Aohan, flanked by his son, daughter, and wife. His children were going absolutely bananas as Eik tore into the S-ranked beast, and even the violence averse Aohan could not hold himself back from pumping his fists in the air as the atmosphere of it drew him in. It would seem that Eik had gained himself a new fan.

Eik's friends and family looked almost as surprised as Gilim and his parents, but lacking most of the concern. They had all known that Eik was something special, and some of them even knew about the fact that he was a Worldbreaker heir. But, clearly, none of them had grasped just how powerful he had truly become since Awakening.

Atla, who had come to watch as well, had a look of hopelessness in her eyes. It was like she couldn't quite come to terms with the fact that the fresh and nervous Awakener she had taken along with her to the headquarters of the Nidafjeld Alliance those few years ago was now leagues above her in strength.

Andihar Dayarunar hadn't been able to make it despite the invitation, but Clan Leader Gul quietly smiled as his suspicions about Eik's true potential were being confirmed before his eyes.

The crowd had been excited when Gilim, a prominent member of the Ougi clan, had been showing off his prowess. There was no doubt about it. But the spectator area now was going absolutely insane.

Members of the audience didn't seem to be able to agree on whether the emotion they should be focusing on right now was terror or excitement. Throats became sore from shouting and hair stood on end on arms and necks as shivers ran through everybody present.

None had expected to witness history being made today. How could an A-ranker be capable of this? But if they thought that this was the extent of it, then they were sorely mistaken.

Eik was lost in the devastation as the heavy gauntlet came down on a beat like a metronome. Each impact sent shock waves through the air that could be felt all the way in the rows of spectators, shaking them like the waves of a bass boosted loudspeaker.

"Twenty seconds!" came the next call.

Finally looking up from his grim deed, he snapped his fingers at the rampaging Living Manifestations, the sharp sound acting as a transition between phases as the blue beasts converged into a single body.

Near instantaneously they fused into a fifty meter long wyvern built like a statue of slender, rippling muscles. It was a completely different being compared to the shape Eik had met within the Profound Realm, which had been even smaller than him.

Maw full of meter-long fangs, it picked the dragon up outright, shaking it around like a dog with a toy as Eik launched into the air. Hundreds of slender spears manifested in the air around him, all with deadly points aimed straight down. In his own hand appeared a lance of blue several times longer and thicker, only the handle of it narrow enough to be held.

Vapor cones trailed the main lance as Eik hurled it so hard that it completely disappeared from sight, the impact with the dragons rib cage tearing it out of the wyvern's mouth. The hundreds of spear followed like birds of a flock, each of them impaling the dragon and melting into the wounds, further increasing the concentration of toxins in the beast's system.

Following his weapons down, Eik shifted into Toxic Liquefaction and crystallizing into a pointed rod like the kinetic projectile in an orbital bombardment—a technique he had dubbed SSD, or Solid State Dude.

He reopened the wound caused by the spear he had just thrown, which, due to the adverse effects Profound Toxin had on organic tissue, had barely even begun to heal despite the dragon's S-ranked body.

He, as well as the titanic wyvern flowed into the victimized monster, leaving the arena completely silent.

"Ho—… Holy shit…" one of Heath's colleagues, Kikah, together with whom the Earthling smith was doing his apprenticeship, breathed, unable to catch his breath properly. "There is just no way he is an A-ranker… That's not the kind of destruction an A-ranker can cause. You always said he was strong, and I did believe you, man," he said to Heath next to him. "but it's like a complete personality reversal from how he normally behaves."

"He tends to get carried away a little bit when the tension rises," Ihasu said.

"Don't I know it," Michael chuckled. "But still, since when did he become that strong? He has always been stronger than us, even when we were the same rank, but back then we could at least see the outline of his back. Now he's so far ahead that we might as well be on different worlds. I've only just hit D-rank two months ago, for Pete's sake."

"Why didn't anyone tell me?"Gilim's shrill voice yelped from behind them. "Why wasn't I told that he could do that?" He was panicking now that it had become undeniably clear just how mighty Eik truly was.

His parents too looked like they were wrestling with the thought of possibly losing a son in the near future. It probably wouldn't come to that, but Eik's performance was overwhelming.

In the quiet, the test supervisor called out. "Thirty seconds!" He almost jumped out of his skin as a lightning-quick little Living Manifestation hopped onto his shoulder and settled in to watch with him. It seemed completely docile so despite feeling a sense of dread, he didn't touch or even acknowledge the tiny but extremely deadly serpent.

"Forty seconds!" He glanced at the little guy again. It almost seemed to be listening to him and paying attention to the count.

Discoloration continued to spread across the dragon's hide while the audience watched with bated breath, barely anybody daring to speak or even blink for fear of missing the conclusion.

It was sure to be spectacular.

"Fifty seconds!" The little serpent appeared to be preparing for something.

"Fifty one! Fifty two! Fift—"

Out of nowhere, an utterly silent but blindingly bright flash of intense blue erupted from the dragon's head.

That marked the beginning of the final decimation.

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