Until now, Backflow had remained his single most impactful physical enhancement ability, but it would appear that that was no longer the case.

Not only did True Toxic Harmony amplify the potency of Profound Toxin drastically, it also replaced all of his corporeal self with vigorous, churning poison, unlike Backflow which just pumped it through his blood. His own body was essentially one big Backflow so long as the effect was still going.

Although the dark orb of the ritual to awaken the Lord of the Moon had already shot up into the sky and disappeared into the cosmos to reach a world with a higher concentration of atmospheric energy, it was as if monsters spawned by the Expulsion were lured to the site like cats to a bowl of shrimp.

Most of them were A-rankers, annihilated with playful ease by Eik's abilities of mass death as well as the other S-rankers and A-rankers still waiting for the unstable fractures to become operational again.

By the time four S-ranked monster had attacked and been brought down quickly with Eik as the primary damage dealer, three minutes had passed and a call went up for return to the portals which were now ready again.

"Proceed to the portals!" Pölse shouted, showing professionalism and authority. "in an orderly fashion, please!" he added as some dashed off at full speed.

"Not all at once, guys!" Andihar shouted as another S-ranked monster slammed into his shield, hooked in by the elf's taunting skill. "A-rankers first! In groups! S-rankers, we hold the line until everybody else has made it through!"

With that many S-rankers fighting side by side—a rare sight in the Alliance as few threats realistically required more than a single S-ranker—it wasn't so tough yet that they couldn't handle it but as the Expulsion rolled out properly, the spawns would grow worse. Both in quantity and in quality.

Speaking of…

"We've got two strong ones coming in simultaneously!" Mn'Toakh warned, pulling back the string of her bow and releasing arrows with extreme speed that made her resemble a walking machine gun.

Again, Andihar took the front, shield flashing the taunt and pulling in the two monsters. The first of them had a hauntingly humanoid face on a gaunt, bulbous body supported by three needle-like limbs and bore down on the elf with abandon, stabbing a single front leg into and through Andihar's extremely durable shield.

It pierced him through the leg and ripped his flesh apart but three arrows slammed into its body as both Eik's and Gul's summons swarmed it. Pölse slashed through the remaining two legs, toppling it. Eik had already made his move on the second one before it could engage properly, manifesting above it like a shadow of death.

True Toxic Harmony was already on its last legs as he stabbed this one in the neck as well and funneled himself into the wound. The pain of the hyper potent toxin immediately sent the creature into a frenzy trying to get an attacker off its back who was already gone.

His allies knew better than to engage and after a few seconds of releasing toxin at full throttle, he detonated the whole thing and transferred his consciousness to a Living Manifestation perched on top of grandpa Gul's shoulder.

Flowing into his human form, he glanced down into the oasis. "It looks like it's just about our turn to go back, guys," he said.

"We've got more incoming! Five this time, including a pack of what looks like A-rankers! Get ready!" Mn'Toakh informed them when the figures of the distant but rapidly approaching monsters crested a dune on the horizon.

"You guys go ahead first," Eik said. "Leave a fracture open for me and I'll follow you once I've dealt with these."

"Did you not hear me?" she said. "I said there are five S-rankers this time, Eik. Even if you're str—"

"Take it easy, Mn'Toakh," Eik said. "I can handle myself. And it's easier if I kill these guys on my own and then dive through the fracture real quick as the last person."

Her jaw worked as she listened. "This isn't—"

"Go now," he said, waving them off as he turned his back and headed toward the approaching enemy. "Let me solo them."

"We'll leave them to you then," Andihar said as they left. "Don't die."

Eik chuckled. "What a funny thing to say, Andi. I never die."

Breaking into a sprint, he clashed with the beasts like a jet, sonic booms cracking through the air on impact. Eik led with a fist shifted into super hard crystal, sending a six meter long S-ranked quadruped flying back like a beach ball punted out over the water with a grunt of exertion. It slammed into and bounced off a sand hill some forty meters away as Eik engaged the next monster.

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A layer of crystal flowed across his back to block the four vicious claws of another beast attempting to tear him apart. Driving a spike of blue into its abdomen, Eik released a giant cloud of poisonous gas which enveloped both S-rank and A-rank monsters. The A-rankers died quickly but the S-rankers caught in it reacted instantly and leapt out of the cloud, leaving Eik alone and obscured in blue.

The one that had been stabbed frantically scratched at the spike buried in its abdomen, surely feeling a sense of undeniable wrongness spreading from the wound, but the moment the crystal was touched it melted and flowed into its blood stream.

In the same moment, the clawed beast, swift and serpentine in shape, charged back toward the mist as sharp, bony protrusions sprouted from the tip of its long tail only to be whipped into the cloud at high velocity. The only indication that they made contact with anything at all was an earsplitting, glassy tink which was followed shortly by a return package in the form of an object shaped like a shovel hurled like the bullet from a sniper rifle.

It sliced through the long neck of the same monster that had taken a spike in the abdomen, shifting into liquid and whirling back into the wound as if sucked up by a vacuum cleaner. Another round of tail spikes disappeared into the mist but this time they simply flew through and out the other side, each of them blowing up sand banks as if they had been grenades.

Suddenly, it was flung into the air as something seized it by it long tail and slammed it into the sand, impaling it on dozens of blue pikes. Accelerant tore its body apart. And the other suffered the same fate.

Living Manifestations poured out of him and rushed the dune into which the quadruped had been punched, one Raised to the Occasion.

The last two had been warily watching the situation unfold, showing an ability to read an enemy as well as control over their own blood thirst that lower ranks simply didn't possess. They must have been able to feel his might.

That hesitation would now cost them their lives, however, as Eik appeared behind them like an azure specter. In each hand he held a long gun of the same variety as the one he had used to kill the brood mother that took him to S-rank. Ten meters long, stuffed full of tiny Living Manifestations and a massive, wicked harpoon, supported against his shoulders. And aimed right at their ugly ass heads.

One of them had a single large eye in the center of its face, which was obliterated along with the rest of its head at point-blank range. The other monster—a pitch black, winged creature—made a token attempt to avoid the projectile, but True Toxic Harmony had brought Eik's reaction speed to a completely different level and the barrel of the other gun followed its high-speed movements perfectly, and it barely made it a few paces away before a crystal spear annihilated everything from the neck up.

Eik was already dashing for the fracture as the last man to leave when he felt them invade the discombobulated quadruped. As he leapt from the crest of the dune leading down to the oasis, he snapped his fingers, a deafening explosion echoing across the desert and spewing sand high into the air.

He turned as he fell and managed to get a glimpse of a titanic monster that looked to be more than a hundred meters tall galloping toward him as he disappeared below the hill. Its movements alone put it firmly above the S-rankers they had fought thus far.

He watched for as long as he could and just as it was about to disappear above the crest, a lone humanoid figure appeared in front of the charging monster.

"Wha—" No, no, that made no sense. Eik dismissed the thought. There had been none of their surviving people left there. He was absolutely certain of it. He had checked himself and so had several of the best scouting experts in the Nidafjeld Alliance.

A trick of the mind. That was all it had been. Or maybe another monster. In either case, there was no time to confirm it. It was time to go.

Sailing down on gliding wings, he headed straight for the final active fracture, a portal mage waiting dutifully by its side. "Go! Go through!" Eik howled to her, approaching fast as he waved his arms frantically. "There's a big fuckin' one coming so I recommend we get the hell out of here all quick like!"

Without a word in reply, she did as suggested and ducked through, leaving it free for him to dive in.

After a brief tumble through dimensional space, he was spit out in much the same manner that he had been the first time he had been pulled through. Right on his big, fat mug, teeth digging grooves in the ground as his mouth was filled with grass and soil.

"Did you get them?" Mn'Toakh asked before he had even had a chance to sit up. Still face down in the dirt he raised a thumbs up. "And were they the last of them?"

"Yes and no," he said, spitting and gurgling Profound Toxin to clean out his gums. "As I was leaving the biggest monster I've ever seen appeared. I don't know exactly how strong but definitely the strongest I've seen as well."

"So it's still escalating," Andihar wondered out loud. "With that kind of spawn rate, the world must be pretty close to the Chasm after all—just not quite close enough for the awakening ritual to be effective."

"So what do we do?" Eik asked. As the fracture died, he noticed that the entire army stood surrounding them.

"You took out five S-ranked monsters by yourself?" one of the nearest warriors asked him, gaping at the thought.

"It was no big deal," Eik answered.

"What we will do," Andihar said, pulling them back on track. "is go home. From there we assess the severity of this premature cosmic Expulsion and do everything we can to locate and evaluate the Lord of the Moon if, and I do mean if, he actually has come back."

"You think there's a chance that the ritual failed?"

Andihar tilted his head from side to side. "There's always a chance that a ritual fails, especially one so complicated and unique. They will have had to incorporate some unconventional segments to get such an effect. The fact that the primary caster wasn't there to observe in the final moments is also a positive for us. Not to mention the departure of the orb, which indicated a lack of fuel in the area—another thing that could lead to eventual failure."

"So…"

"So only time will tell whether it was successful. Diving headfirst into this situation would be too risky."

"Wow, that's great…" Eik deadpanned. "Well, if it's time we need, then I'm going home."

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