As the pressure mounted it became clear that this wasn't just any world in the Unified Mass. Originally, they hadn't had time to pinpoint a location but now there was no doubt that it was very close to the Chasm. A world on the verge of being swallowed up by the center of the cosmos.

"We need to get out of here!" Andihar roared as he grew, clearly still injured. "There's no telling what's going to happen here now!"

With all the cultists already killed, the retreat was immediate. Eik caught up with Andihar and Mn'Toakh, his mind still reeling. "We can't leave! The Lord of the Moon is going t—"

"What happens or doesn't happen won't change just because we stay here!" Mn'Toakh interrupted, pulling him along by the arm. "I don't know if you noticed, but under that ball of metal was a ritual more advanced than anything I've ever seen. And it had already resolved completely. The energy that's bombarding us from the Chasm right now will supply the effect with fuel whether we stay or not."

"But…"

"Let's say that this awakening does go according to their plan—and we can't tell yet if it will—we can't just engage a Worldbreaker with a force like this, Eik," Andihar said. "We have injured. We're fatigued. We are unprepared. This is a mythological existence that nobody has ever seen. Nobody knows anything. Eik, we have to leave now."

Eik's jaw tensed as his vision blurred. Even now, Profound Toxin's undiluted fury and indignation was creating a tempest of negative emotion inside his mind. Any thought he had of leaving when this ancient enemy might appear at any time was met with white-hot refusal, to the point that it felt like the Worldbreaker would wrest control of his body and force him to stay.

It had done so once before when he had lost consciousness during the Championships. Obviously, Eik wasn't about to let it take over, but Profound Toxin really hadn't been this upset ever before.

For a moment, Eik was struck by the thought that, if the Championships were to resume where they had left off, he wouldn't know where to join. Had had been leading the competition in the D-rank bracket if he wasn't mistaken. Would he be put back with D-rankers? Wouldn't that be a little… cruel?

"Hey!" Gul shouted, snapping his fingers in front of Eik's face. "We're going, boy. Now!"

Profound Toxin's frenzy must have sent him into a stupor but he was quickly pulled out of it. "Right, okay," he said while his blue buddy raged inside his spirit. The rampage felt as if it would rip him apart.

As they ran, motes of dark energy suddenly began to collect in the air above, and Profound Toxin went even more berserk when the air shifted and a feeling of a weak but unmistakable otherworldly presence washed over them. His Worldbreaker nearly pulled him off his feet in its frenzy.

Rapidly, the motes gathered into larger accumulations which then gathered again and again, silvery light dancing busily across their surfaces. Gul stopped for a moment to observe as the already extreme cosmic pressure continued to intensify, an expression of concern on his face.

"That's… not something that normally happens when the Chasm expels excess energy, is it?" Eik asked and stopped as well.

"No… No, it most certainly is not," the old man said, staring wide-eyed.

"Let's go already!" Andihar shouted, coming back to haul the both of them along by the arms. "Don't dawdle like fools! Our fractures are losing stability by the second!"

That reminder got them moving. A considerable force had stayed behind in the oasis to maintain and defend their escape portals but the volatile cosmic waves were making it difficult to keep them operational. While conventional attacks might not do much to destabilize a fracture, something like this certainly would.

As they reached the oasis, the silvery dark energy had coalesced into a concentrated, swirling mass. And then, without warning, it shot into the air as if fired from a catapult. "Then is that supposed to happen?" Eik asked Gul, both of them stopping again to watch it disappear into space. Andihar pulled hard on the two curious cats.

"Ah, no. It really should have completed and formed here."

"The saturation of energy here probably isn't sufficient to support the awakening so it's moving toward thicker concentration on worlds closer to the Chasm," Andihar added.

"The ritual can do that?" Eik asked incredulously as they waited for the other warriors to leap through the fractures. At this point, the portals were oscillating worryingly.

Gul shrugged his shoulders, still looking up, almost as if expecting the dark orb to return at any moment. "If you do it correctly, it can."

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Atmospheric pressure continued to mount without any sign of stopping and the fracture mages were clenching their teeth in concentration.

"They're struggling," Eik noted with concern.

"Given the condition, it's no mystery why. There are simply too many of us," Andihar told him. "The constant strain of high rankers passing through in such an unstable environment is the issue."

"They'll hold, right?"

Andihar hesitated to answer. "Yes, of course."

The first fracture broke a few seconds later, an awful sound echoing through the oasis like a giant's trousers tearing at the groin. One of the warriors on the way through was rejected with force, tumbling through the sand and into one of the few pools of water in the little piece of paradise.

A second one went two seconds later. "Everybody, step back for a moment, please!" one of the fracture specialists shouted. "We need to get these things under control or we're going to lose them all!"

Mutters ran through the Alliance troops as they did as instructed and gave the mages some space. More than half of the troops had made it through before the first portal collapsed but as the specialists worked frantically to get the fractures back in shape, the rest of them looked around with worry. They all knew what happened near the Chasm during the Expulsion as the phenomenon was called.

A massive amount of energy was released from the center of the cosmos as a way for the System, which governed the super natural, to stabilize and balance itself, lest it grew too volatile. And when that happened, among other abnormal phenomena, monsters were spawned on the proximate worlds.

Powerful monsters.

That's why it was so unfortunate that, for the time being, they seemed to be stuck on one such world.

"How long does it usually take for the monsters to start appearing?" Eik asked, eyes scanning the sandy horizon. They had already stationed a few scouting specialists on the peak of the dune above the oasis.

"We don't know for certain. Not long." Andihar said.

"You don't know? Doesn't this happen frequently?"

Andihar shot him a look. "We don't usually wait right here for it to happen, Eik. We measure the cosmic fluctuations from home and then deal with it according to that. All I can say is that it depends on how close we actually are to the Chasm."

"Damn…"

"But given the fact that the ritual to awaken the Lord of the Moon had to travel closer, my guess is that we're not terribly close, at least."

"So we should be good until we can leave?"

Andihar nodded tentatively. "Yeah, I think that's a pretty safe assump—"

"We've got incoming!" sounded the alarm from the dune above. A scout was descending at speed while the rest of them waited above to keep an eye on the situation. "Monster incoming! It's big!"

Andihar coughed and hefted his massive blade while Eik sent him a side-eye. "You should work on the accuracy of those reassurances there, mate."

The muscled elf very pointedly looked away and cleared his throat once more as he started up the slope of dune. Chuckling, Eik followed. Now that they were staying a little longer, even if the ritual had departed, Profound Toxin was in a much better mood, and that rubbed off on him.

Shouts sounded as he crested the top, expecting to see a monster approaching quickly at a distance. Gasping, his personal buffs flowed through him instantly as a monster larger than a three-story building hammered a gigantic hoof into the sand and crushed a handful of A-rankers in an eager opening attack.

The thing was all muscle. Six monstrously thick legs supported a stout body like tree trunks. A long head sat on a robust neck and its gaping maw extended nearly to the base of its skull, making Eik wonder how the hell that functioned on a physiological level, unless its jaw was attached on the back of the head like a freaking door hinge.

"All of you, fall back and take up positions behind me!" Andihar shouted as he moved swiftly forward with his heavy shield lifted protectively in front of his body. A blindingly bright glare flashed on the surface of his shield, aggravating the enormous monster and drawing all of its inborn madness to him. "Flank and destroy!" he commanded.

Eik didn't hesitate to obey. As he whirled into motion, he recalled the message that had appeared on his arm as the Expulsion had first ramped up and the awakening ritual had begun activating in truth. It had been Profound Toxin's reaction to a a hated enemy.

[Reached threshold]

[Natural skill evolution triggered — Profound Toxin]

[Profound Toxin evolutionary trait Profound Unity elevated]

[Profound Unity elevated to True Toxic Harmony]

Power erupted from Eik's body as he triggered True Toxic Harmony for the first time. It was something completely different from any of his abilities until then.

Where Profound Unity had behaved almost in the manner a symbiotic life-form attaching itself to his body like a full-body suit, True Toxic Harmony changed his body on a fundamental level. It all happened in an instant but he could still feel every detail of the process minutely.

Exactly why it began at the tip of his left index finger, Eik couldn't say but it rapidly spread from there until his entire body was affected. He retained his human look absolutely, complete with color, clothes, and texture, but his body had become one of Profound Toxin in much the same way as little Goo back home.

Organs, bones, muscles, and everything else had been replaced completely with ultra mobile, durable toxin. Eik had never felt quite so comfortable in his own skin, if he could still call it that.

As he touched down on the nape of the neck of the gigantic monster, he became painfully aware of a time limit on the effect, and it wouldn't last long before he would have to let it cool down.

All in, then.

Instinct controlled his actions as his entire arm instantly turned into the sharpest, most durable blade of crystal he had ever created and with a grunt, he drove it deeply into the tough hide of the neck. It penetrated with staggering ease and went deep into the flesh, releasing copious amounts of toxin directly into the system.

Ripping his arm away, the limb came off at the elbow, and he leapt backward up in to the air as attacks pelted the large monster. With a glance at the stump that was now his arm, a mental flex of his will sprouted a new one in a couple of seconds.

A smirk flashed across his face as he snapped his fingers with finality, triggering Accelerant.

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