Eik sat on a roof, knees pulled up to his chest with his coat buttoned all the way up. It wasn’t exactly a cool night but sitting still for so long sent a shiver through him nonetheless. Sitting hidden in the shadow of the slanted roof, he hoped this was enough to not be noticed by whoever was coming to check that the thief had successfully robbed Eik of his belongings.

  He looked down to the street below. The balding thief, whose name was Jeff, stood shivering near the corner of an abandoned house, forced to wait at the agreed upon location for almost two hours ahead of the contact’s scheduled arrival.

  The street was remote and with no traffic to speak of. It wasn’t the same neighborhood as where Eik had stashed his bait supply of potions to be stolen, but it was another outer district that had suffered the same fate as a result of a monster invasion a couple of years ago. Anybody who could had already moved elsewhere.

  It had been more than an hour and a half since they arrived when a hooded figure appeared silently from a small alley and walked briskly toward Jeff. Judging by his posture, he was actively resisting the urge to run away into the wilderness.

  “You’re here early,” the hooded figure said. The voice was clearly that of a woman. “Do you have the goods?”

  “Of course I do.” Jeff held up the sack and the woman stepped up to take it from him and look inside.

  She riffled through the contents, the rattling of glass ringing noisily in the crisp night air. “Is this really all you could get away with?”

  “This was all the guy had left there in the first place,” Jeff said. “If you wanted a bigger haul you should have waited longer before requesting the lift.”

  “No, this is fine.” She slung it over her shoulder and started back toward the alley. “Someone will take care of your payment within a week.”

  “Excuse me, miss,” Eik sang into the hooded woman’s ear, appearing right behind her like a ghost. “Do you have a moment to talk about a certain incident?”

  She swallowed a yelp as she whirled around, blade in her hand sweeping up to catch Eik in the neck. He took a single step back, the edge whirling narrowly past his chin. When she came back for a second attack, he slapped away her hand and stepped in, pushing her to the ground hard.

  “Why don’t you save the both of us some time and come with me, lady?” he tried but she shot back to her feet and charged him once more.

  She was fast as hell. Definitely a D-ranker judging by the speed and smoothness of her movements alone. Unfortunately for her, being a D-ranker wasn’t quite good enough to fight a fully loaded Eik to a draw.

  He had already taken a handful of poison and washed it down with a Potion of Mighty Strength class 2 as well as a Potion of the Metal Body before engaging.

  Eik cracked a sharp elbow into her wrist as she went for a downward slash and followed it up with his own attack, Viper Fang impaling her through the forearm.

  She groaned in pain but managed to hold most of any kind of reaction. Impressive. But she did lose focus for a moment — a moment he seized to slog her in the face and send her tumbling away with a powerful kick to the ribs.

  When she flipped back to her feet, she suddenly held an opened potion that she put to her lips. She downed it but instead of trying to stop her, Eik simply pulled out another three vials of his own and drank them all.

  There was an additional boost to his physical strength to be sure, but the three extra potions together weren’t even as potent as the first one had been on its own. That was some pretty serious diminishing returns. Fortunately, the toxic side effect of the stacked drugs activated Noxious Invigoration further, cleansed to a certain degree by Resistance: Toxin.

  A scratching sounded from inside his shirt and faded quickly as his aura suppressed the Ak’ki’s attempt to deliver the message. That was probably the resistance skill leveling up.

  When she rocketed forward again, leading with the blade, Eik kicked up a cloud of dust. She briefly closed her eyes but when she opened them again Eik had vanished. Frantically, she looked around for him only to feel a pair of boots land on her shoulders.

  “Did you know that humans almost never look up?” he asked. “I guess it’s true.”

  “Fucking coward!” she huffed and lunged up at his thigh above her but before it could reach him, he leapt off and sent her to the ground, her shoulder joint cracking audibly.

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  “Who are you?” he asked, standing over her, hands in his pockets as if to show just how little he thought of her abilities.

  “Fuck you,” she gasped, fingers gripping her injured shoulder.

  “You know, if I was in your position, I would have just said what you wanted to hear.”

  “Oh yeah?” she spat.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I wouldn’t, but then again, I have problems, so… And you seem smart. I mean, we both know where this is going, right? Why not just spill the beans and get the knock to your pride over with?”

  “I’m not telling you shit!”

  Eik rolled his eyes. “Well, isn’t that a surprise?” he said and kicked her in the face. “I already told that guy over there, but I really also don’t like you.”

  She held a hand up to her nose as blood poured out onto the ground. “Who are you?” she asked, voice muffled.

  “What?”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “You’re kidding me, right?” Eik questioned in disbelief. “You order this third rate thug to rob me blind and break into my home and you never even bothered to find out what my face looks like?”

  She looked up with wide eyes. “You’re Eik Magnasen?”

  “Surprised?” he said with a scowl. “So I guess you’re not the brains behind this whole thing then. You’re just some worthless pawn.”

  Clenching her teeth, she exploded up, blade coming for his throat. A fist slammed into her cheek, and then another, and then another. On the fourth, solid blue toxin began to flow around his fists, making the next two punches hit extra hard. Her head lulled as she struggled to keep conscious. Eik paused.

  “I don’t really need you for this right now, buddy. You can go back in.”

  Profound Toxin did pull back from his knuckles but instead of retreating back into his body, a thin tendril hovered from his back, looking over his shoulder at his work of violence. He could swear that he could almost hear it whisper to him.

  “Anyway,” he said, looking back down at the woman whose hood had fallen back and revealed her face. She looked to be in her forties with dark hair. Eik had never seen her before. “I would be very appreciative if you could tell me the name of your employer. Then we can both go back to bed.”

  “I’m not telling you a thing, you cheap son of a bitch.”

  “Mmh,” Eik hummed with pursed lips. “I do believe you will.”

  Sitting down next to the woman, Eik called forth the thinnest needle of solid toxin he was capable of, surprising even himself at just how tiny he’d managed to make it. “This won’t be great for you. You just go ahead and tell me what I want to know any time and we can forget all of this.”

  She glared defiantly but said nothing.

  He shrugged. “Alright, then.” Without further ado, he stuck the blue needle into her thigh. Ever so slowly, he began to release liquid toxin into her blood stream. "Now, I must firmly insist that you lay very still since I don’t actually know how easily this thing could snap off inside you, and you really don’t want that thing floating around inside you unsupervised. He can be awfully cruel if he’s not kept on a short leash, you know,” Eik said and rested his head on his knees, looking bored.

  “You know, I should really thank you for this,” he said and she looked up at him with narrowed eyes. “I’ll admit that I’m pretty new to all this fighting stuff and my Awakened power is pretty, uuh… mysterious and difficult to understand. This is my first time trying this particular strategy. It’s a really great experience for me.”

  “You are literally an insane person,” she woman hissed through clenched teeth. Her breath came in ragged, shallow gasps. Cold sweat had already broken out on her forehead and drenched her hair.

  For a moment, Eik chewed on those words. “I wish I could say you were wrong but these days, whenever I get into the heat of things, I have this voice in the back of my head, you know. It’s like it’s pushing me to violence. Quite unsettling, actually. Usually my head gets all muddled and fuzzy with blood thirst but now… it’s like it’s as clear as a spring day. By the way, how are you feeling?”

  She didn’t answer but her face had gone pale and she looked like she was resisting the urge to throw up. “That bad, huh? Just so there are no misunderstandings, if you’re waiting for the toxin to eventually kill you, that’s not going to happen. I have excellent control.”

  As if to emphasize his point, Eik let the needle of solid toxin travel up her leg toward her groin and then further along her stomach. It was much more difficult than it had been back during the damage test now that the victim was human sized.

  “I’m not afraid of you!”

  “I realize that but the question is, why you aren’t afraid. I know I would be, so why? Is there someone you’re more afraid of?”

  “Uhm, excuse me, Mr. Magnasen?” Jeff said, approaching at a snail’s pace, hand raised for attention.

  Eik regarded the nervous man for a second. “What can I help you with Jeff?”

  “I, uuh… I’m pretty sure I know who she is, now that her hood’s off. Or, well, I should say I don’t know who she is, but I know who she runs with. I’ve seen her before, I think, maybe.”

  “Just spit it out, please,” Eik said, noticing the woman glaring at Jeff.

  “Can you put in a good word for me with Travis Lockwood if I tell you?”

  Eik tapped his chin contemplatively. “I’ll think about it. How about that?”

  Jeff didn’t look satisfied with that answer but started talking anyway. “I’ve seen her a couple of times before. She’s part of a gang of hired thugs.”

  “Like you?”

  “We’re thieves, not thugs!” the balding potion snatcher exclaimed indignantly.

  “Uh huh, sure thing. Go on.”

  “As I said, she’s part of a gang of thugs for hire. Anyone who can pay can buy their services. They’ll commit assault for you, blackmail, kidnapping, and I heard they even commit murder for the right price. They call themselves the Black Fang.”

  Eik glanced down at the woman. “Cool name. I think I’ve heard of you. And why would you bother hiring the Bankers to rob my place for you when you already have such a stellar reputation?”

  “Because we’re the best in the business,” Jeff answered for her, a tinge of pride sneaking into his voice.

  “So who’s your client, then?” Eik asked, eyes cold.

  “Uhm, Mr. Magnasen, I have a few guesses but I’m not sure.”

  “Alright, tell me, Jeff.”

  “Well, as far as the rumors go, several of the most influential merchants in Forest make use of the Black Fang from time to time.”

  Eik sighed. “What a surprise…”

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  The Green Forest