Monarch of Profound Toxin

"I already said no!"

"Please, Mr. Magnasen. Think about all of these people who have come only to see you," said Guild Master Ganyak hir Gawak. "This is an event for you."

"They don't even know that it's going to be me, do they? How can they be waiting for me?"

"Well, no, we haven't exactly announced anything officially yet. It's only proper to do it at the actual event. But I honestly don't think anybody harbors any doubts about the final appointment. We haven't even put forth any other candidate after all, and your stunning achievements these past few years leave none other eligible."

"It just feels kind of strange, all right?" Eik insisted. "I don't know what else to say. I'm sorry, but I don't think anything could really convince me."

"I want to see you do it, daddy!" Bin told him, tugging on his fingers.

"Me too," Goo echoed.

"All right, I'll do it," Eik agreed.

For a moment, the guild master was at a loss but was then quickly overcome by a bright smile. "Perfect! That's amazing! I look forward to seeing what you will show us very much!"

Eik sighed. "Great. That's great… Now I just have to think up something to do…"

"Lovely!" the guild master said with an enthusiastic clap.

"Where's Chop anyway?" Eik asked, tapping into the nearby Living Manifestations. "I don't like that weird old geezer wandering around the city all alone and causing this and that kind of trouble."

"I'm not sure," Ihasu said, a tone of concern creeping into her voice.

"Oh, no, it's cool. Here he comes," Eik hurried to add.

A little over two minutes later, Chop sauntered in, carrying a large paper bag under his arm. It looked awkward to carry and as he kicked the door closed behind him, a large pastry made of some kind of crumbly dough fell out of the poorly closed bag. It broke and spilled crumbs all over the floor, revealing some manner of semi-solid filling that was a mix of bright green and deep purple colors.

"Hey, Chop, what's that?"

The old man frowned and shot him a look of suspicion. "What is what?"

"That," Eik said and pointed at the pastry coming to a rolling stop on the floor, still shedding ever-shrinking layers of crust.

With a movement so quick that only Eik's eyes were capable of following it, the old blade master snatched it up and devoured it even quicker. "These are mine."

Eik held up his hands placatingly. "Hey, hey, grumpy pants, I know, I know. I'm not trying to take anything from you. It just looks interesting and I would like to try it for myself—both to eat and to make. Where did you get it?"

Once it became clear that Eik wasn't trying to take his snacks, the old man calmed down a bit. "Oh, well, in that case, it was at a small store down one of those side streets of a side street. I found it purely by happenstance."

"Will you show me later?" Eik asked. "Did they have other stuff?"

The X-ranker held up his paper bag pointedly. "You're looking at it. And yeah, I'll take you there. I'm going to need to resupply myself soon anyway."

"Can I see what you've got in there?"

Chop yanked the bag back, hissing like an angry squirrel. "Hell no! Get your own! These are mine!"

Eik narrowed his eyes and shifted his weight slightly. Ever so slightly, the air in the room began to grow heavier and heavier as a hint of vibrant azure flowed out of Eik's body.

The kids didn't seem to care whatsoever, but the adults all showed signs of struggling to stay on their feet. But, then again, the very fact that they weren't toppling to the ground lifelessly or exploding like tomatoes squeezed under the tires of a truck was evidence of just how incredibly well Eik was able to control his aura.

"You know I could take you, right? You old fart," Eik said with a smirk, ferocity taking a hold of him. And he couldn't blame it on Profound Toxin anymore. They were one and the same at this point. This ferocity was entirely his own.

Chop scoffed and released a fraction of his own aura, but Eik crushed it into the ground forcefully. "Maybe you have finer aura control but in a straight fight, you wouldn't stand a chance against me."

"I'm a Worldbreaker!" Eik said, extinguishing the last of Chop's halfhearted aura with his own Profound Toxic aura and then letting it fade entirely. The room was tranquil once more.

"And I was an old X-ranker by the time your grandparents were born!"

Eik showed teeth. "You know, I've been thinking for a whi—"

"Eik, what in the world do you think you're doing?" Rasmus shouted. "Can't you see us all standing right here?"

"But dad…" he drawled.

"But nothing! You can settle your issues elsewhere and at another time! Now is not the time! And you too, Chop! I would have expected better from someone with your wealth of wisdom." Eik's father's voice was stern and irritated.

Chop stood at ease, bowing his head slightly. "I apologize. I got carried away."

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"Eik?" Rasmus said.

"Yeah, me too… I got carried away."

Rasmus crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, good, then."

Trying to avoid his father's gaze, Eik shot quick glances at Chop across the room. The old man frowned again in incomprehension. Eik wiggled and twisted his eyebrows frantically to get the geezer to catch on but the swordsman quickly grew tired of the farce.

"What?" he snapped.

Now with all attention drawn back to them again, Eik cleared his throat and muttered. "But we're still fighting later, right?"

Chop rolled his eyes. "Of course."

"Good. I've been wanting to spar with you."

"We need to find a world that we can destroy, then." Chop noted.

"How about we just do it the next time a world is flooded by miasma?" Eik suggested.

The old man nodded. "Sounds good to me. When was the last occurrence?"

Eik sighed. "We've only ever had those first three. We're starting to think that the Lord of the Moon might have changed his mind on that a bit since I cleared them so easily. It might have been more trouble than it was worth for him in the end."

"Damn. I hope there will be more soon," Chop said.

"Yeah, me too."

"I don't," Robert piped up with a raised hand, looking at them like they had lost their minds completely.

***

The place was buzzing like a bee hive.

Stalls had been put up absolutely everywhere the merchants could get away with it. And considering the party going on, it was good business too.

The setup was largely the same as it had been for the announcement of Eik's identity as the creator of the Legendary Mystery Medicine. A stage had been erected against the inner wall of one of the buildings in the largest open space within the premises of the Alchemist Guild of Gimleh.

The massive courtyard with a central lawn of tightly cropped grass left enough space for a thousand plus seats for all of the most important guests to actually be able to come inside and watch the whole thing up close. If you asked Eik, and he would be happy if you would, then he would have expressed his dissatisfaction with such a setup.

What about all of the other people?

So, since these guild folk had had the audacity to, a good hour before kick-off, spring on him an expectation of some kind of performance, he would make sure that it would live up to not just the hopes of the inside guests but to the hopes of everybody on the outside as well.

Next to the stage was a small curtain hung up to obscure a door through which they could walk up onto the elevated platform. Peeking out from there, Eik could conclude with a single sweep of the inside crowd that there were barely anybody he knew. Most of them were probably VIPs of the Alchemist Guild, wealthy business men, or high-standing socialites, invited to watch based entirely on the merit of their social status.

He recognized several of the prominent members of the Ougi clan. Most of them had expression ranging from mild interest to excitement. It was a widely known fact within the families by now that both Andihar Dayarunar and Gul Ougi had come under Eik Magnasen's Worldbreaker wings and it would only continue to elevate their status in society.

Gilim Ougi—Eik's former, brief, self-proclaimed rival—however, looked like he would rather be anywhere else.

Everybody in those seats were rich and powerful.

Yeah, no, that would not do.

To be fair, the alchemist had made sure that even those outside the gates of the guild would be able to watch by setting up a number of large displays but that still wasn't the same. Eik was also well aware of the fact that there was no way the guild could really have accommodated that many people equally so he wasn't really mad at it.

But that didn't mean he wasn't going to do something about it.

Applause crackled through the crowd as Guild Master Ganyak hir Gawak took the stage, back straight and stride stable as he waved to the audience. It took a few seconds for the people to realize that he was moving with the ease and spryness of a man more than a hundred years his junior.

Gasps of surprise mixed with the now growing applause and the guild master was unable to stop himself from grinning and doing a little hop to get the last few paces to the stand where he would begin the opening speech.

With both arms, he waved to the crowd with enthusiasm. He must have been in a pretty good mood.

"Everyone, thank you! Thank you!" he shouted, voice amplified to the point where it reached all ears. "Thank you!" he said again, and when the applause began to settle, he continued. "Welcome to this very special day!"

More applause.

"All of you watching from outside, can you hear me as well?" he called. Through his Eyes of the Beast, Eik saw how the streets erupted in cheers, easily heard from inside but experienced more intensely through the aerial view he had. "I wish you could all be in here and up close but unfortunately, we're having some issues with, well… space," he laughed. It was echoed by the audience.

Gesturing with his arms, he began to pace around the stage as he spoke, adding an energy to the whole thing that he hadn't been able to generate before Eik provided pain killing mist and an invitation to join the Court of the Supreme Divinity of Toxin.

For a moment he stopped and pursed his lips as he seemed to come to a decision on something. "You know what?" he said, then smirked with an arched brow. "The plan was actually to do yet another one of my notoriously long speeches that I know you all love so dearly, but maybe I should just skip that for today." he sighed and judging by the chuckles from the crowd, notorious might be too mild a word. "You all know what we're here for, do you not?"

The shouting and chanting started outside on the streets but it didn't take many cycles before those on the reserved seats in the courtyard joined in.

"Elixir King! Elixir King! Elixir King! Elixir King! Elixir King!" it resounded. Eik felt more nervous than ever.

"Please, I doubt it will come as a surprise to any of you, but I will introduce the new Elixir King nonetheless! If you would do me the honor, help me welcome the man, the myth, the Worldbreaker! Eik Magnasen!"

Desperately keeping his eyes on his friends and family in the crowd, Eik managed to maintain his composure as he nodded in this and that direction and tried to appear unaffected by the attention.

Over the years, he had become used to at least a modicum of general dissatisfaction regarding his position of power, first in Forest and then in the Alliance. People didn't like some rando from a fresh and with no background butting into the big leagues.

That had always given him something to go against. And for some reason, that opposition had made it easier to deal with the attention.

This… This was different. People were way too enthusiastic. Why was adoration so much tougher to handle?

He needed to do something about that. And luckily, that was included in his plan. If ever something felt awkward, the best cure was always to turn up the ridiculousness a few notches.

Where the guild master's voice had been thrown through the air, Eik's voice became the air itself, slithering into people's heads as if it was generated by their own thoughts.

"Before we continue, I believe Guild Master Ganyak hir Gawak was lamenting our incapability to accommodate all of you equally," he said, the guild master side-eyeing him with confusion. "It might be a bit uncomfy for all of the VIPs here at the front, but you'll just have to bear with me."

"Uuh, Mr. Magnasen," Ganyak hir Gawak whispered. "I would appreciate it if you could explain what you intend to do."

"Don't worry," Eik grinned. "You're going to love it."

With a large, upward-sweeping gesture, he sent a mental command to Profound Toxin and it reacted instantly. A gigantic pillar of blue crystal shot out of the ground, its flat top crashing through the wooden stage and carrying him and the guild master skyward.

Up and up it continued, carrying them to a height of more than a hundred meters. The guild master had tumbled to his knees by the time it stopped, gasping. "Wha—"

Activating Tyrant's Pressure without the actual aura pressure, Eik placed himself within the transparent chest of the titanic avatar of the azure monarch, its crown rising high into the air.

The crowd went crazy.

Aah, yes. This was much easier to deal with! The guild had asked for a show, and by Odin's sweaty nuts, that's what he was going to give them.

"Let's get this party started!"