Green Forest

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 92

Now it was time to find out what he could do at the rank of Instinct of Toxin.

As he swallowed the poison pill, the start of his minute was called and he leapt up onto the neck of the monster. Using the newfound control over Movement Boost, he focused the full effect into only his arms and shoulders and rammed Viper Fang into the skin of the A-ranker where Profound Toxin was already working to weaken the tissue enough for him to penetrate properly.

Wiggling the blade around in the...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 91

“Fifty one seconds!” Michael exclaimed excitedly. Heath pulled Eik’s arm over his shoulder as Sonja looked on with a smile.

“Solid strategy, Eiky,” she said.

“Yeah, that was nuts. He pummeled you good at the end though. What a treat,” Heath laughed good-naturedly.

“Fifty one!” Eik breathed, unsteadily trying to keep his legs under him. “Hot dog! I guess it’s time to go home then. I’m beat! Literally.”

“Nope, we’re going straight t...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 90

Merry Christmas, guys! Here's a Christmas chapter (not really)

Just like how it had been set up down at F-rank, the E-rank endurance test consisted of an Awakened specializing in close quarters physical combat paired with a support type debuffer who would cast enfeebling magic on the fighter to bring him down below his actual level.

Neither of them were the same two people who had conducted the test when the Earth team had gone through at F-rank, but the close quarters spec...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 89

“Where’s Heath?” Michael asked, feet up on Eik’s kitchen table with Mis lounging lazily in his lap. She had an uncanny ability to ingratiate herself with literally anybody she met and recently had even managed to recruit an alien named Mikla into her army of loyal cat worshippers.

“He should be just around the corner;” Sonja said as she peeked out the kitchen window. “Ah, there he is!”

The cling clang of the tank’s heavy armor could be heard clearly a good thirty...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 88

“Rumors?” Heath asked.

It was hot. Almost unbearably so. Heath seemed completely unaffected by the temperature that had caused Eik’s entire body to become drenched in sweat within a few minutes. And the noise too was deafening and constant. Perhaps excitement and anticipation of his new weapon had functioned as a sensory blocker last time Eik had visited, but it certainly didn’t this time.

As he stood there, sweat dripping continuously from his chin to the hot floor, Eik s...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 87

“No.”

For a number of seconds, Robert simply stared. Then he swallowed hard and looked back down to a note in his hand and repeated his message. “It is with the greatest pleasure that we inform Eik Magnasen of his reappointment as liaison of Earth as it relates to the dealings with the Nid—”

“No.” Eik deadpanned.

“But—”

“No.”

“Please, at least just con—”

“No.”

“Eik, stop that,” Olivia said. “Robert’s not the o...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 86

“How’s it coming along?”

Eik smiled brightly as Olivia walked into the new Eik’s Excellent Elixirs. Ever since she’d recovered she’d been spoiled by all of her friends, and she was enjoying it immensely.

For the first few days after waking up from the coma she had taken it easy, brain fog making her languid and confused. At this point she had been treated thoroughly by a B-rank healer and the injuries she’d sustained from Bart’s senseless beating while unconscious....

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 85

Olivia’s face was a bruised and bloody mess. If not for her hair, Eik wasn’t sure he’d have been able to recognize her. He couldn’t draw breath. Everything stood still. Why? Why did she look like that? Why?

Eik just stared, blood draining from his face as his brain tried to comprehend the scene before him. Slowly, subconsciously, blue bubbled up on his skin and rose into the air like a cat bristling its fur.

Rock Fist Bart’s fists were still dripping with blood. An ember...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 84

None of the manticores seemed to pay Eik any mind as he ran along the edge of the clearing. Many of the weaker monsters did but with the effects of Potion of Mighty Strength, Noxious Invigoration, and Movement Boost stacked, they didn’t have a chance of catching up with him.

Unlike at F-rank, Movement Boost didn’t seem to be waning anytime soon as he pushed himself to the limit. He couldn’t let the fight go on like this.

Circling the battle, he came up behind wounded mantico...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 83

The other B-ranker, a man in heavy plate armor, was already present in Travis’ office when Eik arrived. He didn’t carry any weapon that Eik would have expected from such an outfit. In fact, he didn’t seem to carry a weapon at all.

Travis was tightening a pair of vambraces. “Good, there you are. Are you sure you want to come along? We might not be able to protect you.”

“I’m sure.”

“Alright. Let’s get going then. Don’t get yourselves killed.”

They...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 82

The building was small. Eik had specifically asked for that. The property, however, was quite large and pretty centrally located. This small place was all he really needed right now and he could always build extensions if the operation grew beyond capacity.

He circled the building. It was a simple structure of wood consisting of a large main room accessible from the front door as well as a back room that he intended to use both for production and storage. In a way it was quite similar t...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 81

The flimsy wooden box rattled and creaked under Eik’s weight as he gazed out over the crowd.

“What the hell is this guy doing now?” Heath groaned from his place in line at a stall that sold grilled skewers of meat.

Eik stood in the middle of the busiest street of Forest’s largest marketplace so people were forced to walk around him as they passed. He dug around the rucksack of holding and pulled out two vials.

“Does he always have to be so conspicuous?” Sonja agr...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - chapter 80

“Worldbreaker, huh?” Heath said, lips pouting as he digested Eik’s story. “I mean, that sounds absolutely awesome but why are you so worried about it?”

“Didn’t you hear me, dude?” Eik said, throwing his hands in the air with exasperation. “If a strong force, like a nation or an S-ranker or- or… an X-ranker catches wind of it and doesn’t like the sound of someone like me getting too big to handle, they’ll kill me and they might kill you in the process.”

�...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 79

“What the—…” Eik whispered as the barrier moved up, down, and from side to side in response to his will. Was this a new aspect of his ability brought about the evolution to Instinct of Toxin?

“What the heck is that?” Michael yelled from the side line.

“I don’t know either!” Eik answered. Another arrow came flying and the shield instinctively maneuvered up to deflect it.

Instinct of Toxin, huh?

“Wait, wait, stop shooting! I don’t know how to get th...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 78

[Reached threshold: Evolution to ??? possible]

[Evolve?]

Hands trembling, Eik initiated the evolution while his cat honed her claws on his shirt as his eye lids began to grow heavy. The last thing he saw before the world went black was his cat’s tongue go straight for his face.

***

Plip. The sound of a droplet of water.

Plip. Plip. Again they fell.

Now the gentle drumbeat of a spring shower.

A d...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 77

As soon as the reinforced door clicked shot and the locks began to slide into place, Eik leapt to the door and took the handle, hoping they had done it correctly as he pulled on the door. With a quiet sound, it opened. The golden strings of Bind still held the lock firmly in place.

“Alright, alright, we’re good, Mikey. You can release the ability,” Eik said in a low voice. Michael breathed as the lock popped back out and joined Eik in the door.

It was warm in the office and,...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 76

They woke up at the crack of dawn and headed for the prison to try to get their hands on information about Menka’s final sentence.

Eik’s evolution from Acolyte of Toxin still didn’t seem to have finished “estimating” and he was beginning to think it would never happen. If this was one of those situations where it was stuck at 99% loading until the end of time he would be… pissed.

He had tried to force himself to not think about it but that had only made it take up even...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 75

Heath and Sonja continued fighting for another forty seconds before the effects of the potion began to wane — first from Sonja, despite having consumed the drug slightly later, and then from Heath shortly after.

“Holy crap, that was absolutely insane!” Heath exclaimed as he jumped down from the raised platform. “Dude, can you make more of those?”

Eik recalled the mind-breaking agony of the purple miasma crawling up his arm, shivers running up his spine. “… Yeah, of c...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 74

Thank you so much for reading! <3

As if it had been waiting for his call, like a little horse waiting to be let out to gallop on a field of flowers, Profound Toxin rushed through his system with anger. It tore through the purple miasma like a chainsaw annihilating a stick of warm butter. The discoloration running down his arm dissipated into the air in seconds.

Profound Toxin detached itself from him and was about to assault the mixture itself when Eik got a mental hold ...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 73

Eik flew to his feet with a sharp gasp. His heart was racing away like a hammer as he frantically scanned the room. It was quiet. It was dry. This was not the lake in that strange world. He was back in his apartment in headquarters.

Allowing himself several deep breaths, he let the smoky white aura flow to the surface and cover his skin. Feeling that control was calming.

With so much in his life being a whirl of total chaos recently, having that to hold on to provided a sense of s...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 72

As Eik sat there he hoped that the attacks by the snakes made of Profound Toxin had stopped. At least for long enough for him to try this.

To help him visualize the attempt he put his hands on his chest and felt around for the two opposing forces. They were aligned across from each other, keeping completely away from each other.

Eik first tried to simply mash the two together, but all he got out of that try was an extreme case of heartburn that tore through his torso as if he had ...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 71

Eik waded through the murky, knee-deep swamp water from the coffin to the bank where he stamped off the worst of the foul sludge. This really was the same place he’d woken up when he had been offered the Acolyte of Toxin alternative evolutionary path.

An enormous mountain towered in the clouds in the distance. It was that mountain. That mountain that had inserted itself into his mind the first time he’d come here. As he looked at it now it was hard to believe that it had taken him h...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 70

“You want to walk?” Mikla asked with a raised eyebrow. “You do know that it’s almost a four and a half hour walk back to your apartments?”

“You shouldn’t have to open portals for us all the time like this. We know that it’s very taxing on you, yeah?” Heath said with a smile. “We can walk just fine. And if it’s four and a half hours, then we can make the trip in no time at all if we run.”

“At these distances, and within an area that I know well, I’m okay...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 69

Inside was a tiny room, no more than four meters by four meters, even at a generous estimate. Besides the door they had come through, there were two other doors. One seemed even more heavily reinforced than the previous one while the other, of regular smooth wood with a metal lever handle and a single common keyhole, stood in stark contrast.

Eik thought he was beginning to understand a little about how things worked inside headquarters. With the exception of private quarters and other r...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 68

She held his gaze firmly. “We need to know for certain, Eik. We need to know if she’s actually going to die this time.”

“I know.”

“It’s dangerous to snoop around. Very dangerous. But if Menka wasn’t properly dealt with… she’s not going to botch a murder attempt three times in a row. She will kill us next time.” Sonja was pale. “I can’t take being in the dark. I can’t sleep.”

Eik could see her hands tremb...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 67

No… it couldn’t be, could it? After all of that effort, it was his most jaded and apathetic attempt yet that finally hooked something? Only he who is willing to tear his gaze away from the goal on the horizon will have the awareness to see the next step at his feet. Was that how it went? No, that was a bunch of bull.

“Profound Toxin?” he asked out loud, feeling dumb for calling out to a glob of quasi sentient blue poison. “Are you still messing with me? It was funny t...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 66

“And these dried bas’akar’ar leaves are the best in this side of town. And I’ll throw the roots in for half off if you buy all of this now,” the plant breeder of Leafy Sundries with the graying shoulder-length hair said as he counted out everything on his counter that Eik had chosen.

There was enough there for seven new stamps on the stamp card. “Yeah, I’m getting it all now, thank you. I’m going home to experiment with some new things.”

“Oh yeah?” the shop...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 65

“And how does it do that?”

The plant breeder, who was an older man with gray hair falling lightly around his shoulders, tapped his gloved fingers on the fleshy leaves of the plant Eik had asked about. “Do you see these tiny black dots here, sir?” he asked Eik.

“Yeah.”

“These self-regenerating pods are capable of exploding to spread spores which, when coming into contact with the olfactory senses, trigger a reaction in the brain that tricks it into thinking that...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 64

“This is a—”

“bag of holding!” Eik exclaimed before Atla could tell him. “That’s a bag of holding, isn’t it?”

“It is, yes. Good eye,” she said with a smile. “This particular one is not that big on the inside, but it should be able to carry this cauldron as well as a few extra items.”

She demonstrated the use of the bag of holding by pinching the rim of the large cauldron and lifting it up easily in one hand. As she began to stuff the cauldron into t...

Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 63

“Now, who wants to see the rewards? Two times compensation and the reward for the rescue mission!” Atla said and clapped her hands.

“Wait,” Eik began. “Atla, I know you didn’t make the decision to release her back then, but this shit was not okay,” he said somberly.

Even as he uttered those words he knew that wouldn’t change the need to join the Nidafjeld Alliance in the slightest. The alliance could have given Menka Tokanami and early birthday presen...