Monarch of Profound Toxin [Progression, LitRPG]

Chop looked at Eik as if he had just ordered a pizza and not obliterated a mountain range with three strikes. "Well, your turn."

"Wait, you're serious?" Eik asked, still trying to catch his breath after that mental ordeal. "You just did… that, and you want to see what some measly S-ranker like me can do? Why?"

"Oh, don't sell yourself short, lad. There's nothing measly or ordinary about a Worldbreaker," Chop said. Eik froze in an instant, his stomach tying itself into a knot. Chop saw his eyes flicker frantically to the still stunned audience. "Relax, kiddo," he chuckled and waved his fingers through an invisible barrier. "I already made sure anything we say is blocked completely."

"How the hell did you find out? I've known you for like four hours!"

The scary, old man looked at him like he was an idiot. "Hello? I'm an X-ranker. It's pretty easy for me to tell that there is more than just you inside your spirit. You have a passenger, essentially."

"Seriously?" Eik asked, stunned. "It feels like we're merged perfectly into a single being."

"I mean, it's not far off, I'll admit, but you're definitely not a single being at this point."

"What about if I do this, then?" Eik asked and triggered True Toxic Harmony. Chop crossed his arms and pursed his lips as he studied him.

"Mmh, better, sure, but not perfect."

"Damn, really? I kind of thought I had that one in the bag already."

"Anyway, you can worry about that later," Chop said, waving his hand dismissively as he dropped the sound barrier. "Show me what you can do already."

"All right, all right," Eik said and stepped forward as Chop stepped back. The crowd behind them moved away as Chop came closer like magnets being repelled by an opposing charge. "They're moving back because you stink," Eik jabbed with a grin.

"Please recall the fact that I could literally dismember you in my sleep, you rude, little shit."

"Could you move back a little more. I don't want you to get hurt by accident when I show my power."

"Did you ever notice that you have a remarkable ability to grow comfortable with people who could kill you in a single moment?"

With a glance back at the old man, Eik nodded. "Actually, yes. It's a bad habit that I'm pretty sure only pure, dumb luck has allowed me to survive. A-ranked Atla when I was F-rank or E-rank, S-ranked Andihar when I was D-rank, and now you. Not to mention a whole host of other people I pissed off without regard for my safety through the years. It's actually quite a miracle that I'm not dead and buried yet."

"Meh. It shows an unwillingness to kneel for anything and to face matters head on, if a little too much so. Grabbing risk and danger by the balls and spread it on toast for breakfast is the only shortcut to power."

"Isn't it just?" Eik said with a smile. Then he turned back to the valley and the collapsed mountain range. "I'm so busy that I haven't actually had the chance to test out anything that takes more than a split second to prepare, so this is a nice opportunity."

"Anything slower than a split second is usually not worth it anyway."

"Not sure I agree with that, but the faster the better for sure," Eik said.

"Well, go on then."

Wasting no more time, Eik began his project.

First to form was the base, solid and heavy and perfect to support what would probably be his most powerful construct yet. Second was the primary structure—the weapon itself. More than a hundred and fifty meters long and with a barrel that measured about two meter across, the barrel of this gun was something that could hardly be compared to anything he had ever built at more than ten times the size of anything before it.

Until then, any projectile weapon he had created had been extremely simple in its function. A singular barrel supported against his shoulder, maybe with a handle on the side for ease of handling, but otherwise filled in one end with Living Manifestations and some type of projectile in the other with a flat disk in the middle for stability.

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It had worked wonderfully and there was nothing wrong with the design at all, but it could be improved upon. And he would.

At the base, he built a massive, sealed chamber that fed directly into the long barrel. It was so large that it could probably have contained all of the water from the diving basin at his local swimming pool back home. Then he reinforced the chamber with an additional layer of extra durable crystal toxin, and then another layer, and another, and another until his was satisfied.

At this point he was sitting on the barrel like he might have on a horse as he made slight adjustments to the aim while simultaneously filling the chamber up to the absolute brim with more than a hundred thousand tiny, eager Profound Toxic beasts—the smaller the better.

Finally came the flat disk on top of which he constructed the projectile. As far as shape was concerned, there didn't seem to be anything wrong with an almost bullet-like creation that slotted perfectly into the barrel down to the smallest of measurement.

For a moment he contemplated the projectile's interior and decided to simply go for the idea that had just struck him.

Hopping back down, he wandered over to Chop who was admiring his handiwork. "I give you… EBARG! What do you think?"

The old man frowned. "EBARG? Am I supposed to know what that means?"

"No, because I just made it up. It's Eik's Big Ass Rail Gun! That's what I'm calling this baby."

"What's a rail gun?"

"Kind of a really big gun, but I also think it specifically uses electromagnetic force to launch its projectile or something crazy like that, so maybe I'm kind of off with my design but I'm still calling it that."

"I can't claim to care, m'boy, but it did take you quite a while to build that thing. About twelve seconds by my most generous estimate."

Eik rolled his eyes. "Could you at least pretend to respect the incredibly creative process I tapped into here? I don't like this silly nitpicking you're doing. Really doesn't suit you, Choppy. Plus, I reckon I could do it in two seconds, but since it was my first time making it, I had to make it up as I went."

"Did you just call me Choppy?"

"I did. Congratulations. Welcome to the nickname club."

"Just fire your Big Ass Rail Gun already, will ya?"

"All right, all right, ugh. Give me a moment, please," he ughed and turned to the spectators. "Ears, everybody! I'm pretty sure this is going to be loud!"

Hands went to ears and sound barriers shimmered into existence as they heeded his warning. "What are you aiming for?" Chop asked.

Eik pointed at one of the mountains that was still largely intact with the exception of the horizontal cut along its middle. "The center of the upper part of that mountain there, I guess, broadly speaking. Honestly, I'm just hoping to at least hit it at this point. I'm not even really sure if this little experiment is going to work or not. It might flop spectacularly, or even just explode where it stands… Speaking of," he said and turned back to the audience once more, waving his hand wildly. "Move back more, actually! This could get a bit hot!"

"I'll stay and watch from here," Chop said dismissively as Eik tried to persuade him to retreat a bit with him. "This is a much better view."

"Suit yourself," Eik conceded. "but I ain't staying here."

"Chicken," the old geezer muttered with a smirk. Eik couldn't help but smile as well.

"Wind speed…" Eik muttered as he stepped slowly backward, sucking on his index finger and sticking it in the air. "not that speedy, check. Wind direction… literally no clue at all. Distance… uuh, maybe, like… three kilometers? No, four kilometers. Probably. Visibility… really, really big mountain definitely visible. Temperature… sweater weather, or at least a nice blazer if nothing else. Additional ballistic factors… uuh, note to self… figure out what that means later—"

"Will you get on with it already?" Chop snapped. "I'm going to die of old age before I get to see this little thing shoot! What are you waiting for?"

Eik threw his hands up. "I'm stalling, okay? I'm stalling! I'm nervous as hell! What if I embarrass myself in front of all those assholes back there?"

"You're already embarrassing yourself by taking so long! If you're that worried about it, then just kill them all, test your little gadget there, and then pretend it was an accident when we go back!"

"Wh—! Huh…? No, are you crazy? All right, fine, I'm setting off this thing!" Eik shouted back. "Fire in the hole!" With a snap of his fingers he triggered possibly the most powerful simultaneous Accelerant he had ever done. True Toxic Harmony along with all other personal buffs and less effective A-rank potions pumped his total output into the extremes.

He felt it with his entire being as the multi-reinforced containment chamber at the base of the mega gun only barely remained intact around the ridiculously potent explosion. As the entire ground shook, he heard a few of the onlookers gasp in surprise.

To call what cracked from the mouth of the Big Ass Rail Gun a simple muzzle flash would have been an insult. Rushing at least a hundred and fifty meters out, brilliant blue motes of vaporizing Profound Toxin completely filled the air for a single second like an ethereal eruption before scattering into nothing.

In that same moment, a pang of disappointment stabbed Eik's stomach as realization hit him. God damn it. The projectile must have been annihilated in the explosion instead of fir—

But before his mind could finish the thought, the mountain side erupted in dust and debris as the five meter long bullet struck the rock face at hyper-sonic speeds. Only his S-ranked reaction speed allowed Eik to trigger the secondary command he had placed inside the bullet, a secondary command that had been one of the primary reasons why it had taken him so long to construct the weapon.

From the tip to the base, a super dense rod of ultra concentrated crystalline Profound Toxin made up the center. And making its way through a mountain as it still was, Accelerant had only one way to go. Everywhere.