Monarch of Profound Toxin [Progression, LitRPG]

Just as the Oracle had said, the Life Harvesters seemed to lack any kind of hostility toward them. And as a matter of fact, it didn't even seem to be aware that he was there. With the exception of the gaping flesh sack awaiting the deposit of yet another victim for absorption, it had no visible reaction to his presence.

It really was bred by the cult to be nothing but a meat battery. Eik would have said that he felt bad for the beast but he honestly wasn't sure if it even had the capacity to feel pain, fear, or despair for its own situation.

With a sigh he began the process of a safe kill that the Oracle had instructed them in and which they had relayed to all of the Awakened coming along for the raid.

First to prop up the main body to avoid a collapse that could damage the massive abdominal sack. Eik made a suspended bowl of crystalline toxin for this. On this particular Life Harvester the abdominal sack had a diameter of more than five meters and almost scraped against the ground. It already looked ready to burst.

The Oracle wasn't very knowledgeable about the more detailed anatomy of the beast but knew that what organs it did posses were not fixed in place like in most other organisms, but rather floated around inside the blubber, shifting about in response to the growth of its abdominal sack and the size and number of Awakened stored in its body.

However, Moon Shall Swallow had developed a kill switch, so to speak, for cases where the sack might become unstable. If the Life Harvester perished with its abdominal sack still intact, most of the stored energy would disperse with far less destructive consequences before the tissue of the membrane began to break down. This was the best way for a safe kill.

Cradling the Life Harvester's body, Eik conjured another pedestal to get up to the monster's shoulder level. Feeling around for a lump around the left shoulder closest to the circular maw, he found the kill switch.

"Sorry, boy. Not a fun existence, was it?" Gently but instantaneously, he shot a needle of crystal no thicker than a finger deep into the body, piercing the kill switch completely.

There was no attempt to struggle against it. No convulsions of death. No reaction to Eik's attack whatsoever. Instead it simply fell limp the moment the kill switch was pierced, losing all of what little signs of life it had had.

Eik held his breath, half expecting the thing to detonate. When it didn't and his improvised bowl held the body up, he released it again in relief. As if it had been holding it in, all of the nasty slits loosened and spat out numerous unmoving, slime-covered bodies in various states of emaciation. Some appeared to be beyond saving while others might not have been in there long enough to suffer fatally from it. Eik flooded the space with Panacean Quintessence, just in case he could get them back on their feet. No reaction.

Constructing another, smaller dome around the deceased Life Harvester and reforged a door into the original, outer dome. He opened it and walked out, knocked away a ball of flames nonchalantly before closing it behind him.

Despite Eik's deployment of Profound Toxic beasts, there were so many cultists that far from all of them were occupied by the massacre of the blue guardians. Even while he had been inside the dome, he had been ignoring clanging of weapons against the wall from the moment he created it. Now they were pouncing on him from every side.

Eik barely looked at them as he walked toward the stairs leading down into the underground space where the future victims of the Life Harvester were being held. Ranged and magical attacks rained down upon him, interweaved with close-quarter fighters coming into melee.

Anything from afar was interrupted by a shard of toxin and then returned with another shard. Any melee attack he ignored completely and simply punched right through their weapons and then through them, killing them instantly. B-rankers and above were sent flying back at speed, corpses before they landed, while anyone below B-rank were mostly vaporized by Eik's extreme strength. Profound Toxin flowed across his body near constantly to continuously clean his skin and clothes of blood and gore.

When that became too tedious, he released a blast of aura incorporating a fully powered Tyrant's Pressure. It was the first time he had gone all out on his aura like that at S-rank and something strange happened.

To begin with were those closest to him when the blast went off. The weakest of them literally had the skin ripped from their flesh as they were pummeled into the ground by the immense force of the S-ranked aura. But those who were far enough away and strong enough to not immediately collapse looked high into the sky above Eik's head, mouths opening and closing like beached fish and eyes wide and terrified as they stared.

Curiously, Eik looked up and nearly choked on his own saliva. The crown of Monarch's Will, which had been activated along with Tyrant's Pressure, wasn't just that one meter above his head, but now more than forty meters up, its size increased twenty times over as it hung shimmering in the air.

And it wasn't Eik who was wearing the crown any longer. A titanic, ghostly figure of blue had risen up above, a dreadful gaze from piercing, glimmering eyes boring into those who stood before the Monarch.

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Billowing vigorously behind the silhouette was the extensive cape of a great cloak whose deep hood enveloped its head and concealed its face to the point where only the glowing eyes were visible within. Despite its height of about forty meters, the figure's form actually cut off somewhere around what would be mid-thigh.

Indomitable power flowed from the being—the Monarch—like water from a spring, unending and uncaring as it washed over the masses before them. And it was the Monarch, in the same way that Eik was the Monarch. Of that there was no doubt. Their unity at the deepest level was natural to them both. They were one.

"Alright, well… You stay there, large me," Eik said. "Keep 'em at bay or something, yeah? I'm going down." He started toward the stairs.

As he began to move, he glanced over at some of the distant onlookers, seeing them follow him but with their eyes still skyward. Damn it. "No, no, you stay here. I'll go down alone. Watch them."

Another handful of steps and the figure was still stuck to his head, menacing as always. "Dude, can't you stay still?" It was unclear whether the almost imperceptible shrug actually happened or was a simple trick of his mind. "You can't, huh? All right, that's fine then. It's gonna be cramped as hell, but come along, I guess."

He sealed the staircase as he descended, the gigantic Monarch forced to squeeze into he relatively small space. Its form warped slightly to accommodate the position it was taking, seeming to lose a bit of its cohesion. It appeared to be semi corporeal and when he reached up to touch it, the sensation was similar to that of liquid Profound Toxin albeit significantly thinner, almost like trying to grasp a raw egg white.

Once he saw the rows of cages, prisoners stuffed into them like cattle, shivering in fear at the newly arrived S-ranker, he quickly dismissed his aura, the titan Monarch's form instantly scattering into motes of glittering blue.

Eik had never directed the aura force toward any of the imprisoned victims but the presence of the titan had been unmistakable regardless, all eyes now on him. He held up his hands placatingly.

"If it wasn't already obvious, I'm not one of those damned cultists," he said, letting his voice carry all the way to the end of the deep hallway. "I can free you if you'd like. I'll exterminate the cultists outside as well. You can come back with us," he promised, unsure if he could actually keep it.

When the only response he got was he spoke up again. "Well, what do you say?" The first step to survival for these people would be even the slightest demonstration of will and energy, even if they were exhausted and mistreated.

"Pl—… Please…" breathed a young, skeletal woman. If she had a bit more meat on her, he reckoned she would have looked twenty five at the oldest, but given her condition, she appeared to be twice that. "Please, I want to go… home. I want to go home. I want to go home!" With vigor unlike anything she had shown until then, she began to repeat it again and again, almost like a chant. And as she did, more joined in, the silence now suddenly overwhelmed by a thousand voices fighting to be heard.

"I want to go home! I want to go home! I want to go home!"

Eik lifted his arms up high and shouted through them all, voice reinforced by aura. "All right, good! That's exactly what I wanted to hear!" he grinned. "I knew you guys were alive in there!"

Like a whirlwind of crowbars, Eik flew down the corridor, ripping open each of the cell doors as he passed. At the same time, he spread Panacean Quintessence throughout the space, near instantly healing any physical ailments that might have tormented the prisoners. They would still need food and water, and although Eik made a point of keeping his bag of holding well stocked, he didn't have anywhere near enough to give to everyone here.

He watched them emerge like frightened animals, unable to believe that their time in torturous captivity might actually be coming to an end. The Panacean Quintessence had done wonders for a lot of them and Eik saw many tears shed.

There was no time to check right now, but it was possible that some of the people captured back during the raid of Forest two years ago were among them. He hadn't for a second forgotten his vow to help them come home, but it wasn't really until now that he truly had a chance to do something about it.

And he was afraid that it was already too late to do anything about it.

"Eik?" a frail voice said. "Eik Magnasen? From Earth?"

"You're kidding," Eik mumbled as he craned his neck to see the speaker. He hadn't been nearly as famous as he was now when the cult had come through Forest on their forceful recruitment mission, so if someone knew him just by sight… "Yes! That's right! Where are you?"

A very thin man pushed his way through the throng. He wore no shirt and his trousers were ragged and stained. His skin was gray with dirt and grime. "Mr. Magnasen."

"You… Who are you?"

"I d-doubt you would be able to remember someone like me, Mr. Magnasen. You've become v-very strong…" He seemed rather fearful for someone who had just been rescued by someone who happened to be from his own planet.

Eik narrowed his eyes, the gaunt man shrinking back as if the S-ranker's gaze stung like needles. "Aren't you…" Eik mumbled hesitatingly, the other prisoners looking on with undiluted confusion. "Ye— No, that's not. Wait! Did you have a bow or something? And my money!"

"That's r-right!" the man croaked, seemingly unable to decide whether being remembered was a good thing or bad. "You're so strong now. I can feel it. Much more so than Bart ever was."

"Yes! You bought potions for him the day I first met him! At my old shop! How are ya?"

"Well, I mean, not—…"

"Ah, yeah… sorry," Eik said sheepishly. "My mouth answered too quickly."

"That's okay."

"You were Bart's subordinate."

"Against my wishes," the man hurried to add.

Eik held up a hand. "Don't worry. I could tell from the first moment. Forest is a different place now—and for the better, I believe. A new life awaits," he said with a beaming smile.

Tearful and nearly falling to his knees, the man radiated gratitude. "Oh, Mr. Magnasen! Thank you! Thank you so mu—"

Abruptly, the ceiling exploded in a rain of rubble, a dust cloud billowing through the corridor as the prisoners screamed in agony and terror. In an instant, daylight streamed into the underground space.

And when the dust settled, a hulking figure stood up in the center of the rubble, the dust revealing only the precious stones glittering along the bands of a war harness and the outline of a Gohkamorian.