Monarch of Profound Toxin

Andihar and Gul exchanged concerned glances as the rotational velocity of the Death Star grew and grew along with the pitched shriek it emitted.

Even though Eik had an infinitely better handle on the destructive sphere and its passive leak of aura than he had had back when he had first tested it out in front of the large crowd, the two S-rankers still felt pressed into the earth by the heavy force at such close range. But at least they weren't dying.

Well, rather, at least they weren't dying right now. In a few seconds, when the bomb of the Worldbreaker went off, they both reckoned their chances were a lot slimmer.

"Are you, uuh… Are you going to use that right here, or…?" Andihar stumbled as his feet subconsciously began to pedal back and away from the orb of annihilation.

With an expression of puzzlement, Eik looked at the two S-rankers, then at the swirling ball of senseless ruin spinning on his palm, then back at his companions. "Well, I mean, where else would I use it?"

Gul threw his hands up in exasperation and swept his arm toward the opaque veil obscuring the horizon. "Oh, I don't know! How about over there? Where it won't kill us!"

"I did tell you I was going to do this, didn't I?"

That made Gul stop short. There really wasn't much he could say to that, no matter how insane he thought Eik was.

Andihar pushed the old geezer out of the way with a hand and took his place to try a different strategy. Puppy eyes.

"Please, lob the Death Star really far that way, Eik. That would just be so nice," the beefy elf begged.

Eik frowned. "That's just… weird, dude…"

Andihar developed his own frown and clicked his tongue with a mix of annoyance and embarrassment.

"What's with you, man?"

"I'm scared, for crying out loud!" the elf exclaimed. "I know I said I wanted to come along, but now that I'm here, I'm convinced this is the end."

Eik rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to kill you, obviously."

"You say that, but the level of control you demonstrated last time I saw you use the Death Star was abysm—"

"Anyway, here we go," Eik interrupted in a deadpan manner and launched the Death Star into the far distance, its glow quickly fading in the murky miasma.

Both S-ranker threw themselves to the ground with helpless yelps as Eik followed the trajectory of the super powered projectile through his connection to it as it sailed through the air, putting kilometer after kilometer between them.

"Three…" Eik muttered under his breath.

From where he had been burrowing into the ashen ground, Gul's head spun around as if mounted on an axle, his face painted in the colors of pure anxiety. "What are you doing?"

"Two…"

"Hey! Wh— Stop, you damned imbecile! What the hell do you think you're d—"

"One…"

"No, wait!" Andihar joined in, peeking out from his hole in the ground. "It is still way too clo—"

Eik snapped his fingers with a crack so sharp that it threatened to shatter eardrums and windows alike. A moment later, the sky burst at once, shining through despite the seemingly endlessly thick cover of miasma. In a second, the horizon arrived right in front of them, like a wall of blindingly bright, azure light.

Andihar screamed.

Gul screamed.

And Eik just could not stop cackling like a maniac.

Just as the pulse of destructive force erupted upon them, a flex of Eik's will snapped a wall of crystalline toxin into place and, taking a page out of Andihar's book of creativity, shifted it into transparency. Extending into a sharp half-dome, the shell's X-ranked durability combined with its relatively aerodynamic shape allowed the region-ending blast to flow around and past them without harming anything but their ears.

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Terrified as they were, Andihar and Gul's nails didn't fare particularly well either as the two of them chomped away at the speed of a chipmunk feasting on a grilled and buttered corn cob.

"We're so far away, guys. This impact strength is nothing to me at this distance."

"Say that earlier!" Gul spat.

"Mmh. I'm pretty sure I did, though?"

"You most certainly… did not." This time it was Andihar who spoke, his tone full of tired confidence.

"Oh, all right, well, I just did."

"Jerk," Andihar hissed under his breath.

"Sorry, what?" Eik asked, cupping his ear with a hand.

"… Nothing," the elf whispered, wiping away a single tear.

A second Death Star whirled into life at the tip of Eik's raised index finger as his smirk widened. "Good. Then you won't mind…"

"You fucking jerk!"

The outburst was so unlike Andihar's usual demeanor that Eik couldn't hold in the giggles as he sent the second Death Star soaring toward the opposite horizon.

"You bastaaard!" the muscled elf cried as he dove headfirst into his hole in the ground again.

Three more Death Star blasts obliterated the distant landscapes and shook both the earth beneath their feet as well as Gul and Andihar's nerves.

"I take it back!" Andihar screamed, his voice only just audible over the far-off booms altering the planetary topography. "I take back what I said! I don't want to be here anymore! I want to go home!"

Eik just cackled, summoned Spaghetti Jones, and threw both S-rankers onto the titanic serpent's flat head. Abruptly, it shot into the air.

Once they reached cruising altitudes, the serpent rocketed forward like a fighter jet, Eik dispatching Death Star after Death Star and giving this blackened world the same treatment as the previous one.

Meanwhile, Andihar and Gul kept their heads down to the best of their ability while maintaining a continuous stream of pleas to stop the suicidal madness frequently interspersed with insults to Eik's intelligence. Overall, Eik was having a great time.

"Isn't this just so much fun?" Eik asked against the buffeting wind.

"I don't want to be here anymore!" Gul yelled, desperation clear in his voice.

"Your wish is my command!" Eik chuckled and conjured yet another Death Star in his palm, pointing it up into the sky. Whatever blood had been left in Gul and Andihar's faces drained at the sight. "As I mentioned before, I have something new I want to test!"

"Whatever you have in mind," Andihar shouted, eyes glued to the swirling sphere of destructive energy. "I urge you to reconsider. We might have survived all of the other ones until now but this is insane, Eik! Listen to me! If you detonate that thing above our heads, it will simply be too close to us to survive as S-rankers. This one will really kill us, son."

For a moment, Eik's grin fell as he considered the large man's words but it returned with a vengeance and split his lips like a laughing hyena. "I'm sure you will be just fine." And with that, he tossed the Death Star into the air, its own acceleration carrying it skyward at ridiculous speeds. "Just trust me."

Gul followed the glowing projectile as it disappeared above their heads. He fell back on his ass and sighed with finality. "Fu—"

As if the sun had just gone supernova, the sky lit up with blinding brightness and a crushing force so powerful that it would surely vaporize them in a single moment. But Eik simply reached into his spirit for his newest ability. One that had better do what he expected it to.

"My two, very old friends," he said to them. "I grant you Admittance to the Realm. Come on in," he said and put a hand on each of their shoulders.

As if someone had pulled the cord on a single light bulb in a murky basement, the light vanished from one instant to the next. The foul, almost viscous stench of the miasma that had hung so thickly and permanently in the air faded in favor of the fresh scent of lush vegetation and gentle breezes.

With the abrupt shift from Spaghetti Jones' constantly moving head to solid, unmoving ground, Andihar and Gul stumbled to their knees but quickly sprung back to their feet as the sudden change in their surroundings flung them into a state of high alertness. Blade and crystal-clad shield returned to Andihar's hands, and Gul's hands lit up with the familiar dark energy, now tinged slightly blue from his new Toxic Taint ability.

They had landed in the middle of a quaint, little clearing in the middle of what looked like an oak forest. The occasional wind took hold and rustled leaves and whipped across tall grasses in an almost rhythmic pattern.

Flowing in from the direction of a great mountain in the distance, a tiny little stream bubbled its way through the outskirts of the clearing and offered a cozy background soundtrack to a scene otherwise devoid of both the droning buzz of insect and birdsong.

Above, the cloud cover was thick and all-encompassing, yet light seemed to stream in from an unseen source and cast the world in a soft hue that reminded Eik of a lazy midday. And although there was no clear sign of a sun, something above the cloud shone through with a deep, azure glow.

First to strike Eik's mind was the thought that this little clearing was way… too… cozy! "I should build a house here. With a herb garden out front."

"Wh… Where the hell are we? This is not the world we were just in," Gul stated matter-of-factly as his eyes scanned the landscape with breathless wonder.

Andihar wasn't having much more success comprehending the situation, judging by the deep frown on his brow.

"This is mine," Eik told them with a smile.

Profound Toxic beasts watched them in curious silence from beyond the tree line, still unnoticed by the two S-ranked guests. Where the two might well have been more than capable of sensing their presences under normal circumstances, this was the home of those beasts.

Here, everything carried the same signature as them. They were as much a part of this world as the trees, the ground, the water, or the air.

"Yours?" Gul asked. "Your what?"

Eik chuckled. Even now, the truth of it was strange to think about. It still barely made sense to him. "My world. This entire world belongs to me now. This is Toxin. I am the ruler here. I am the Supreme Divinity of Toxin."