The spawn of the Lord of the Moon lay in a hole, the dust from the impact still billowing about. Its deep frown sat more pronounced than ever.

  Even in the brief amount of time it had been allowed to be undisturbed within the thick miasma above, its skull and face had managed to regenerate to a remarkable degree. Even Eik’s powerful healing ability Panacean Quintessence couldn’t have done something this insane.

  Considering its frighteningly high power rank, it should have taken a long time to heal that quickly. But at least it hadn’t managed to regenerate completely. Yet.

  Eik honestly couldn’t have said how he managed to pull off what he did. All he knew for sure was that it was an actual, pure flex of his will.

  As always, the titanic Monarch manifested by the Tyrant’s Pressure trait of Monarch’s Will moved exactly according to Eik’s own body as he floated inside its form. The purpose of the manifestation was simple. Pure, crushing force of aura, deployed to intimidate, suppress, and even outright kill.

  But that wasn’t all it could do anymore. It wasn’t just for show.

  With strength that broke the earth like fingers digging through soft clay, the gigantic fist of the aura Monarch hammered into the creature, now more than capable of causing direct, physical destruction.

  Eik directed the titan’s fist down again with force, and then another forty times before lifting it again to see the carnage he had wrought. With Profound Toxin still coursing through its system, so long as he remained focused, Eik could tell that it hadn’t been able to make a stealthy escape under the cover of the devastation, giving him the freedom to simply hammer away without worry.

  The relentless assault had completely altered the topography of the Dayarunar estate grounds and the whole place looked like the site of a gravel pit immediately followed up by a thorough carpet bombing.

  With the creature buried under tons of soil and debris, Eik had to direct the enormous fingers to dig deep in order to get a grip on the monster. It struggled vigorously as Eik lifted it into the air and began to squeeze. Eik still couldn’t believe that it was alive and even conscious given the absolutely terrible head injuries it still sported.

  As Eik tapped into the massive reserves stored in his inner spiritual storage and topped up the grade 6 Potion of Mighty Strength surging through his system, a rather peculiar thing became apparent to him.

  When his strength grew according to the ingested potion, the strength of the physically incarnated spectral fist crushing the spawn of the Lord of the Moon increased as well. How the hell did that work?

  The spawn screeched shrilly as its gaunt body began to fracture under the immense pressure. Any open injury on its body, such as the hole in its skull, was constantly flooded by Profound Toxin.

  With the level of aura force exerted by the spawn, a lot of the fluid toxin had trouble flowing in like that, but the creature had been suffering the horrifying effects of Profound Toxin for a while now and it was clearly showing. Any form of struggle it attempted to put up, but with its aura and with its body was growing steadily weaker.

  The bastard was finally nearing its end.

  Noticing a buzz on his forearm, Eik allowed the glowing text to appear as he held the enemy fast. Just a quick look.

  [Reached threshold]

  [Natural skill evolution triggered — Monarch’s Will]

  [Evolved skill Monarch’s Will. Skill acquired trait Corporeal Incarnation]

  Huh. So it was official then. He had been pretty desperate at the time.

  Eik heard a bone snap in the creature and redoubled his efforts. It had been fortunate that he had been able to threaten the thing enough to tear it free of the empowering miasma and prevent it from reaching a level of power he wasn’t prepared to handle. But now he needed to finish this.

  Reaching out to the Profound Toxin present inside the spawn’s system, he tried to force it to crystallize but unfortunately there was barely a response.

  While he could still sense the blue substance with no issues, a more significant gap in strength between him and the victim seemed to be required to force his influence through a personal aura.

  Well, there were certainly other ways to get the job done. There was that thing he had done back during one of their cult elimination missions. That had been… rather effective.

  Now that the concentration of toxin had grown, the creature had become weary and weak, giving up on the struggle.

  With that hateful frown, the spawn met Eik’s eyes. “My death will be of… no consequence… My kin will… claim your head in… my place…” it rasped, clearly prepared for its end. It opened its mouth to continue speaking but with a force that nearly overwhelmed the grip of the aura Monarch, the spawn was yanked hard toward the thick miasma in the same way as before.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  But with a hiss through clenched teeth, Eik managed to keep a solid grasp on the gangly bastard. It continued as if it hadn’t just been violently interrupted. “We are… ancient… We are… forever…”

  “Shut the fuck up, you dumb, chuuni piece of shit!” Eik growled as a mental command formed crystal sheets that closed around the spawn of the Lord of the Moon one layer after the other. It howled incoherently but he quickly shut it up by covering its head completely.

  Dozens of needles of crystal pierced its body and delivered even more toxin as Eik’s homemade prison chunk grew denser and larger. After about ten seconds of construction, the aura Monarch now held a block of crystalline poison that it had to grasp with both hands.

  It was at least fifty meters across and almost a perfect sphere with the spawn encased in the center. With the focus of a professional athlete, he directed the spectral Monarch’s partially manifested lower body into a deep squat, like the starting position of a dead lift.

  Between its legs it held the blue prison, knuckles resting on the battered ground. This was going to be awesome.

  With the manliest of manly roars, he pushed even more grade 6 Potion of Mighty Strength through his veins and flexed his entire body as the aura Monarch followed his movements perfectly and hurled the gigantic sphere skyward above its head.

  Using his telekinetic control over all Profound Toxin, Eik accelerated it way past any reasonable speed, the scene looking more like a computer generated scene than anything else.

  It went into a mad spin under the momentum, the rapid travel of such a large object generating a loud, humming whistle that echoed through the air. With a rumbling goomph it entered the thick miasma, the layer undulating as the chunk disappeared and lost velocity.

  Extending his senses as far as he could, he felt for the moment the sphere reached the peak of its trajectory and began to fall back down.

  Then he ordered it to Accelerate.

  In the first moment he almost began to fear that something had gone wrong. That, perhaps, the thick miasma had interfered with however his mental signal worked, or that maybe it had incapacitated his Profound Toxin entirely with some kind of new ability he hadn’t seen until then.

  Then, in the next moment, the clouds and the miasma above suddenly plummeted, approaching at speed. The heavens were falling like a prophesized doomsday event. A glance toward the horizons revealed clouds retreating away as if swept up by a great gust of wind.

  Following that came the blue. Glittering motes of azure light practically covering the world in its hue. It was beautiful and terrifying all at once. There was a sense of power in each of them.

  And as if to hammer home the reality of it, the crack of an explosion boomed through the sky, bringing with it a shock wave that shattered windows and eardrums alike as it flattened grass and other light vegetation against the ground.

  Hundreds of winged Living Manifestations soared up into and above the clouds, scouring the skies for any trace of the spawn that might have survived the annihilation.

  They spent a few minutes of focused searching while Eik joined them and released copious amounts of gaseous Profound Toxin in the air, its aggression set to the absolute max. Any encounter with even the smallest sliver of the creature’s now familiar signatures would trigger a swarm like that of a trillion frenzied piranha.

  Nothing.

  If the thing had managed to survive it existed in a severely diluted state of itself or had somehow escaped at speeds Eik had failed to detect. In either case, there wasn’t really much he could do about it.

  It was as he was returning to the others that the most solid evidence of the spawn’s demise made itself known. A steady buzz of incoming communication along his forearm. Kill rewards.

  Eik read through the notifications as he walked, Bin and Goo ripping themselves free of Ihasu and Rasmus’ arms to run to their father.

  He smiled but focused on the messages while the Profound Toxic beasts continued their tireless search of the enemy to, if nothing else, be prepared for a potential counter attack. If, against all hopes, the spawn or some of its equally or even more powerful kin were to make surprise return, Eik would be ready to meet them.

  A small squadron of beasts broke off from the main pack to surround the two kids as they sprinted through the thoroughly devastated landscape. Good.

  The messages were many.

  [Acquired Living Manifestation — Lv. 249]

  [Acquired Living Manifestation — Lv. 250]

  [Acquired Living Manifestation — Lv. 25…]

  [Acquired Living Manifestation — Lv. 253]

  [Acquired Living Manifestation — Lv. 254]

  [Skill evolution available. Skill available for evolution: Living Manifestation]

  [Choose one]

  [Living Manifestation — Fortification]

  [Living Manifestation — Harass]

  [Living Manifestation — Empower Original Life]

  Due to the culling expeditions Eik had gotten levels here and there but this fight had done a lot for him.

  He left the evolution traits for later and moved on to the remaining notifications, but the Empower Original Life was very interesting.

  He read on.

  [Acquired Monarch’s Will — Lv. 334]

  [Acquired Monarch’s Will — Lv. 335]

  [Acquired Monarch’s Will — Lv. 33…]

  [Acquired Monarch’s Will — Lv. 340]

  [Acquired Monarch’s Will — Lv. 341]

  [Acquired Profound Toxin — Lv. 441]

  [Acquired Profound Toxin — Lv. 442]

  [Acquired Profound Toxin — Lv. 44…]

  [Acquired Profound Toxin — Lv. 448]

  [Acquired Profound Toxin — Lv. 449]

  [Reached threshold]

  [Natural skill evolution triggered — Profound Toxin]

  “Daddy!” Bin screamed and slammed into his chest, Goo following to wrap his legs and arms around his head. “Are you okay?”

  “More than okay, now that my two rascals are here,” he said with a grin and sped up, dashing back to the others as the kids laughed their heads off. Bin giggled like the schoolgirl she was while Goo cackled like a maniac, loving the dangerously high speed.

  Both Ihasu and Rasmus joined the group hug when they made it back but Gul immediately interrupted the moment. “Is it completely dead?” he asked with urgency. Considering that the spawn had recovered from what should have been a fatal injury combined with his own inability to deal with such a powerful enemy, his anxiety was reasonable.

  Eik flashed his bare forearm. “Yeah, I checked everywhere for it and I’ve already been awarded levels and evolutions, so I’m pretty convince it’s over for now.”

  “What did you get?” Andihar asked as everybody gathered around him.

  Eik saw no reason to conceal it now that he was this strong and flashed his forearm.

  [Evolved skill Profound Toxin. Skill acquired trait All Right, Come Back Here For A Second]

  “What the fuck is that supposed to be?”

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