"Do you have everything?" Rasmus asked as he swept a hair off his son's coat with a hand. "Did you remember your toothbrush?"

"Dad, I'm not going camping in Norway, I'm going on a big raid to another world!"

"And I'm very proud of you for that, believe you me, but do you think your sweet, kind, and beautiful Ihasu is going to want to kiss that mouth of yours when you come back if you haven't brushed?"

"Dad, seriously. I'm an A-ranker, I don't even think I work like that anymore. Plus, I literally have the strongest mouthwash in the world on tap whenever I want," Eik insisted, a slender tendril of Profound Toxin snaking out from his arm and slapping him hard across the face at the indignation of being reduced to a common household item. "Ow, stop that, you blue prick! It was a joke! A joke! Damn, that hurt…" he muttered.

"I will ask again," his father persisted. "Did you or did you not remember to pack your toothbrush?"

"… Yes, I have it…"

"Good. That's a good boy," Rasmus sang and pulled his son in for a hug.

Eik returned it lovingly, but still complained into his father's shoulder, glancing at Robert who had also come to see him off. "Dad, not in front my employee."

"And friend," Robert corrected, Bin sat comfortably on his shoulders.

"And friend," Eik nodded with a wink.

Eik didn't pull away from the hug until Rasmus stepped back himself. There was one thing he had undoubtedly inherited from his father, and that was the tendency to joke around and blabber nonsense when he was nervous or anxious. Forgotten toothbrush? Come on, dad.

"Just be careful, please, Eik. You have a lot of people who love you waiting for you at home," Ihasu said, taking his hand in hers. It hadn't been that long since they were around the same power level. As a matter of fact, if he was remembering correctly, she had been stronger than him back when they first met. Now, however, she just wasn't powerful enough to come along on this operation.

"I'll be just fine," he said, smile as big and bright as he could make it. Despite the excitement for combat and daring that still coursed thickly through his body, there was a sense of wrongness as he prepared to leave behind his family, even for the hopefully short expedition it would be to rescue that oracle and possibly further disrupt the Moon Shall Swallow's attempts to summon the Lord of the Moon.

"I don't want you to go," little Bin cried and reached for him from Robert's shoulders.

He took her in his arms and rocked her from side to side. "I'm not going to be gone for that long. And everybody else is going to stay right here, all right? Mama, grandpa, aunty Oli, uncle Mikey and uncle Heathy, uncle Bob, grandpa Gul, and all the others will be right here and you can go see any of them whenever you want. I'll leave one of the blues with you as well, okay? And you can go to the cafe and drink hot chocolate anytime you want too."

"No, I just want you to stay and not go anywhere at all!" she cried into his shirt.

"I have to do some really important stuff, you know," he said, caressing her hair gently.

"What kind of stuff?" she asked, looking up at him with wet eyes.

"Mmh… Save the world, I suppose," he grinned.

***

A scouting team had already checked that the fracture was actually still active where Vendekaabe had said it would be. Entry was limited to B-rankers and below so they brought a fracture specialist along whose primary role it was to make sure that their entire raid team could pass through without issues.

Although Vendekaabe, who was now free and therefore able to come with them, had said that he didn't encounter anything worse than D-rank monsters, their large group advance slowly through the various terrains.

With as many people as they were, the risk of encountering or luring in more powerful beasts was incomparable to Vendekaabe's solo escape, and they couldn't afford to lose anyone. There shouldn't bare anything that could actually threaten them too much but you could never be sure.

No monsters dared approach their procession as they traveled from fracture to fracture through the first three worlds. Halfway through the fourth world—a mountainous area of dense snow banks and shrubs that seemed to have adapted to the harsh climate—a behemoth of a monster suddenly came thundering down the side of a snowy mountain side.

With a howl of bestial fury, it rushed them as if possessed. The undiluted power seething from it told them that Vendekaabe's original, successful trek had been due, at least in part, to luck, which was a fact that seemed to make him quite uncomfortable.

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Almost ten meters across, the monster was a near spherical ball of white, fluffy fur. Tiny black eyes in what must have been its face and jet-black, razor-sharp claws jutting out of the fur were the only things that proved it was anything more than a gigantic dandelion blowball. That, and the mad rush as deadly icicles circled its body.

Shouts of alarm spread throughout the raid team as they immediately prepared to confront the rapidly approaching threat. Eik grinned.

Before it had a chance to even get close, countless ranged abilities stormed out. Flying blade slashes, elemental bolts and manifestations, arrows, energy blasts, and many other attacks battered the furry monster violently, obliterating it in an instant. It must have been around A-rank to even dare charge for such a large group of Awakened but clearly not strong enough to actually go against them in any way.

Eik was momentarily stunned, now realizing just how much firepower they actually had brought here. He didn't have much experience with operations of this scale.

There was the Lake Serpent raid back when he had been around E-rank, but that had mostly been spent apart from most of the other participants or inside the serpent's esophagus.

The raid on Forest by Moon Shall Swallow had been larger of course, but that had been so chaotic and terrifying that he had barely been capable of registering anything but what was right in front of him.

Now he could really appreciate the power he had brought together. Hopefully it would be enough.

That was the strongest monster they encountered for the rest of the trek, although they got to blast several more into orbit. Even if it was a piece of cake, it was good to get to witness their comrades' various powers and abilities so they could get a clearer image of what to expect from those that fought by their sides.

All in all, it took a little over seventeen hours to reach the final fracture that would send them whirling into the world upon which Moon Shall Swallow had establish their capital of Luna. About three and a half of those hours were spent waiting as the fracture specialist manipulated the parameters, limits, and configurations of each fracture to accommodate their party every time they reached them.

It was delicate work that required skill and patience lest the existing portal collapsed unexpectedly, forcing them to spend even longer to conjure up a new one.

Building seven gigantic bonfires, they took rest in front of the final fracture, recuperating their strength as best they could before the operation began in earnest.

Eik got to talk to many of the Awakened he had hired, most of whom were combat-oriented. They had all heard of his ridiculous accomplishments these past couple of weeks and they all asked for his secret to power.

"The boss man is secretive as all hell," a giant of a man said with a huffing laugh when Eik was asked, for the twentieth time, how he had created something like Apocalypse Canvas at his level. "I already tried it twice but he doesn't budge at all. Let's get some alcohol in him and I figure it might grease up that jaw a bit," he chuckled.

Swirling tattoos covered his entire body and face. He had huge and heavy shield strapped to his massive back as well as an additional smaller shield hanging from his belt which he used mainly offensively and for parries. Eik had seen him fight and realized just how skilled he was with the weapons. At first glance it had seemed like an odd and mediocre setup but in the large man's hands it just worked.

"You got any booze on you?" Eik asked with a self-confident grin.

Snorting with mock outrage, he reached into his bag of holding. "Who do you think I am, boss, huh?" he asked, showing teeth. "It was the first damn thing I packed!" Several sealed containers were placed between them.

Eik picked one up at looked it over. "All right, then. An impressive selection. So which one is the strongest?"

"This one, I reckon," the large man said, handing him a brown clay jug sealed with a strip of cured leather tied around the mouth with string. "Aged four and a half years. It's a special high rank recipe designed to get high-rankers drunk off their tits." Eik smelled the opening and reeled back as the stench of it jolted straight to his brain.

"Wow, that is foul!" he coughed.

By this point, a good number of people had gathered around them to watch one of their leaders try his hand at a little drinking challenge. After all, just because he was an exceptionally powerful fighter and skilled alchemist didn't mean that he could hold his liquor.

Seeing how they acted with each other, it was clear that a sense of camaraderie was taking root. Eik could clench his teeth and gulp down this swill if it banded together these men and women who had come together to fight under his banner.

"How much of this can you drink?" Eik asked.

The tattooed man pursed his lips for a moment. "I can drink about half of that bottle before I have to lay down for a nap," he admitted to cackling laughter from the others. "But don't get your hopes up, boss! I'm a big lad pumped full of resistances. We won't think lowly of you just because you black out after one sip." He guffawed heartily and Eik's own face split into a merry smirk.

"Well, we will just have to see about that, won't we?" Eik said and poured a couple of drops of the rank liquid onto his tongue. He pulled a surreal face as he resisted the urge to spit it out immediately. "Oh… Oh, no! That is so much worse than it smells!" The women and men around him fell over laughing at the spectacle.

"Don't overdo it now, eh," the shieldman said. With how many people they had brought, Eik had to admit that he didn't remember the man's name. In time he would.

"Watch me, lightweight," Eik said and upturned the jug to let the entirety of the contents run down his throat in seconds. The taste alone nearly made him vomit. The large man stared with a mix of worry and incredulity.

"Get a healer over here!" he shouted, the joke forgotten. "This stuff knocks you out within two breaths! He's gonna collapse!"

Eik seized him by his trunk-like forearm. "Who's gonna collapse, chump?" he asked with a grin. Resistance: Toxin merged into Profound Toxin, thank you.

The shieldman's eyes practically popped out of their sockets. "B-But…"

"Another!" Eik called, raising a cup high. "Actually, no, give me something that actually tastes good! I've got enough chocolate milk for everyone! I promise you'll love this!" he shouted and pulled container after container out of his own bag of holding.

Cheers echoed as he was tossed into the air by the merry high-rankers. They would rest eventually, their mighty bodies requiring little actual sleep.

The party lasted into the night as they charged up for the conflict on the morrow.

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