Gimleh itself hadn't been attacked this time. Good. That meant that suppression of the cult on Earth and whatever other worlds had been targeted could take priority.

Eik rocketed through the streets toward the fracture hall that held the Earth fracture. Luckily, it wasn't far from the one they had just come out of, so it really only took him a few seconds to get there. Like a train flying through a narrow underground tunnel, his arrival brought with it a gust of air that slammed people up against the walls and threw everybody into high alert.

People reached for weapons and prepared magic but froze when they felt the aura of the Monarch. Most of the people there would never have felt it before, but the crushing weight of it would allow no doubt in anybody's mind that they were facing a true nightmare.

His voice pierced through the crowd, rage only barely contained. "I'm going," he stated and started toward the fracture. Armored Awakened parted like a mythological sea as he approached, the long, blue caped cloak of his Armor of the Scourge snapping angrily at anybody who got too close.

Even amid the wrathful fog that filled his mind, Eik was struck by a deep appreciation for the people there. The moment he had arrived, an armored leg had disappeared through the fracture, and it was clear that more platoons were already preparing to go through. They were putting their lives on the line to save the Earthlings who were strangers to them.

It might well have been because of his high status but what mattered right now was that something was being done quickly.

"Eik!" a voice snapped as another gale of air pressure blasted through the fracture hall. Clan Leader Gul of the Ougi clan appeared in front of him, unfazed by the might of Eik's aura. "Eik, where's my granddaughter and great granddaughter?"

"I'm going now. My first stop is home," Eik said, none of them in the mood for greetings.

"I think I shall accompany you," the old man grumbled, unable to restrain his own furious aura, tinges of deep purple throughout the substance of it. Troops dressed in the multi-colored, patterned garb of the Ougi clan entered the fracture hall after Gul just as the two S-rankers stepped through.

Eik had no doubt that Andihar would arrive with his own troops momentarily. No mercy for any cultist who had ventured to Earth this time. He would leave them rotting.

The noise of multiple explosions was the first thing from Earth that their senses became able to take in. The fighting must have been in full force already. Unlike the first invasion of Earth by Moon Shall Swallow over two years earlier, the population of Forest was of a completely different caliber than it had been.

Not only had the Earthlings grown much stronger with access to better medicine, knowledge, allies, and opportunities to improve themselves, but the various migrants from Gimleh and other Alliance worlds had also bolstered the city's combat power significantly.

The moment they could see again, they were surrounded by warriors on all sides. Both Eik and Gul were recognized almost instantly and a couple of the people there attempted to guide them past a slew of Awakened guarding the fracture to make sure that the cultists couldn't disrupt the flow of reinforcements, but they wasted no time.

Exploding out of there, Eik and Gul soared through the sky above Forest. They would arrive at Eik's house in seconds at the speed they were going.

Gul gazed down over the city, where Awakened fought in chaotic clusters or cultist hunted civilians without mercy. "I see that you were prepared for a situation like this." There was some admiration in his voice.

"I would have been dumb not to be," Eik answered gruffly.

Below, the streets were not only overrun by murderous cultists. Another army was countering the attackers with a vengeance. Packs of smaller Profound Toxic beasts swarmed lower ranked cultists, biting and infecting them relentlessly, while larger beasts dealt with stronger cultists. It was a massacre.

Eik's summoning capacity had already been massive before his evolution, but as the Monarch of Toxin, the game had changed completely. The effect of the trait of Living Manifestation called Ruler's Governance, which expanded the original summoning cap of one Living Manifestation per ability level, had multiplied many times over.

At his current power level and ability level, Eik was capable of maintaining tens of thousands of Living Manifestations simultaneously, and a single glance at the city from above would leave no doubt of that fact.

It was difficult to measure exactly what power level the smallest single unit of Living Manifestation was equal to, but they weren't exactly weak. And that power grew ever upward the more of them combined into a single individual.

Eik had found that there was a hard cap for the strength of a summon that lay significantly below his own power. That, however, did not mean that they were weak in any sense of the word. The strongest of them easily hit A-rank equivalent strength, allowing them to run wild in the city.

Operating on strict orders to not ever touch any friendlies, they caused the deaths of countless cultists on the streets.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Gul Ougi's own terrifying summons had been dropping out of the sky like specters ever since they took off from the fracture hall near Mission Central. Each of the shadowy soldiers was strong enough in its own right, but to add butter to the toast, any enemy felled by a summon would be corrupted and turned into a new soldier.

Gul's ability allowed for an essentially infinite number of soldiers so long as the enemy kept coming. The old man absolutely thrived in large scale fights.

"They aren't here," Gul shouted, alarm evident in his voice.

"No, they are," Eik said with certainty as he marched to the back of the house.

"How do you know?"

"I can feel their bodyguards," he answered. That hadn't been the case before they stepped through the fracture to Earth, however. "Ihasu, it's me and grandpa Gul," he called, kneeling down by a nondescript trapdoor in the floor.

"What's the password?" came the muffled reply.

"I swear I didn't pick it," he said with a sigh, glancing up at a puzzled Gul. "Eik loves Ihasu's buns."

Gul's expression of puzzlement didn't change. "I don't quite think I understand. My granddaughter is an excellent baker."

"You know what? She totally is, you're right. That's what it means."

The sound of locks opening in sequence echoed in the space below and soon the trapdoor swung upward, revealing Ihasu's worried face. Eik pulled her out in one smooth movement and held her in a tight embrace. "Phew," he breathed.

He let her stand on her own only for Gul to sweep her up in a similar fashion as Eik reached down and pulled his little girl into his arms. A couple of tears pushed through to trickle down his cheeks as his hand patted her little back.

Rasmus joined the hug when he got up as well and a knot in Eik's stomach untied itself. Some of their neighbors also climbed out of the bunker, followed closely by ten massive Profound Toxic beasts which Eik immediately sent out to slaughter cultists.

"We're going to go out for a bit, Bin," Eik told his daughter.

"Where are we going?" The little girl was frightened out of her mind by what was happening. Ihasu would have hauled her into the bunker with no time to explain properly as she called for their neighbors to join them. The only thing Bin would have known was that the bunker was for extreme emergencies only.

"You're going to uncle Andi's house to play and have cake. Goo is there too and you're going to be very surprised when you see him."

They all went outside together. Gul released more shadow soldier and summoned four three meter long pillars of darkness around them, one at each of the cardinal directions, hanging freely in the air.

Eik looked to the sky, narrowing his eyes as he tried to calculate the best trajectory he could get.

"What are you doing?" Ihasu asked.

"Trying to figure out where to shoot this… thing I'm cookin' up real quick." He had already dispatched Profound Toxic beasts to specifically secure and keep safe any individuals he could think of. His secondary command to any of them was that, if their rescue targets couldn't be located or turned out to already be dead, the Living Manifestation would begin slaughtering cultists instead.

"What thing?"

"This," he said and held up his hand toward the sky. A spinning sphere of Profound Toxin gathered in his palm, growing in size as the velocity of its rotation increased, and as the velocity increased so did the intensity of its brilliance.

As the velocity reached its limit, the shape of the sphere began to unravel and warp and the others, including Clan Leader Gul, took several steps back in concern. "What is that, Eik?" Ihasu asked.

"A good ol' dose of Pesticide," he grunted. "I'm ending this crap!" he shouted and launched the technique toward the clouds. It soared skyward silently, slowing visibly before disappearing into the clouds.

A moment later the wet, popping noise of a very, very large water balloon bursting reached their ears, followed immediately by what could best be described as a torrential rainstorm so dense that nobody, however evasive and slippery they might have been, could have avoided it.

Their neighbors who had been hiding in the basement bunker with Eik's family ran screaming into cover just in time before the drops of deadly poison made it to the ground. "No need to be frightened," Eik shouted. "To anyone I consider a friendly, the toxin will be utterly harmless. You have nothing to fear."

Seeing Eik's family, including his little daughter stand unafraid and unhurt in the blue rain, the neighbors ventured out as well, letting the droplets fall over them. "And here is a little added bonus for trusting me," he said with a gentle smile which he hoped would help them calm down a little. "Just in case you have some stuff that ails you." With a sweep of his arm, the Profound Toxin covering everyone changed to green and they all breathed sighs of relief.

"Now," Gul said. "This is all very nice, but we should get all of you to safety so Eik and I can get back to clearing the city."

"Right," Eik agreed, A group of Clan Leader Gul's summoned soldiers lifting the low-rankers into the air. They took off back toward Mission Central where the fracture was.

Forced to travel significantly below speeds the two S-rankers were actually capable of since they were carrying F-rankers and even a little girl yet to Awaken, they had plenty of time to witness the arrival of the third S-ranker.

Andihar Dayarunar.

"Look, little Bin," Eik said and pointed. "He's come to our aid, the noble warrior."

"What! Who is it, dad?" she asked, filled with innocent awe.

"It's our savior, little one. Remember his name well. The Knight of the Golden Ring, named so because of the ring of yellow custard around his mouth when he ravenously devours your dad's home-baked custard spandauers."

"It's uncle Andi? He's so huge!" The muscled elf was at least twenty meters tall, likely not growing larger for fear of wrecking the town. Numerous ranged attacks pelted his golden armor but nothing managed to penetrate the extremely powerful, self-regenerating metal. An ear-splitting shout rocked the city, stopping all the attacks at once.

Bizarrely, his massive blade lengthened and slimmed to the point where it was slender enough that Andihar could target individuals on the street with lightning quick and horrifyingly precise stabs.

"Only you call him the Knight of the Golden Ring, boy," Gul said with a smirk.

"And you could be the Knight of the Red Ring, grandpa," Bin told the old man with absolute sincerity. "Because you love the ones with jam, right?" Seeing her barely looking down at the death and destruction below, Eik was just happy that he had managed to make her think about something else.

"Oh, uuh, yes, I could, couldn't I?" he coughed hesitantly, embarrassment clear on his face. Seeing the grumpy old fart like that was comedy gold.

"And you're the Knight of the Brown Ring, daddy! Because of all the chocolate!" Bin exclaimed with glee.

Eik bit his lip as Ihasu held back a laugh. "Yes... a-anyway, Olivia is probably here somewhere already, so I expect Heath and Michael to be on the other side of the fracture. Go with them to Andihar's estate, all right?" he told Ihasu.

"Be careful."

"Nothing will happen to us," Eik said, bumping fists with Gul. "We will clean up here and be right back."

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