“That’s more like it!” Eik grinned gleefully and watched the members leapt for him like a single entity operating under the order of Frank of the Black Fang.

  The moment the first person reached him, he created a thin protective shell around his entire body and let the rest of them get into range. Two narrow slits in the shell allowed him to see enough to watch the attackers start wailing on his barrier with an assortment of weapons and abilities.

  Supported by thin limbs of solid toxin, Eik created a huge domed sheet so big that it scraped against the walls and ceiling of the basement space. It might well be the biggest structure he had ever created, and it took some serious focus to keep it from crumbling into liquid.

  His attacker only barely noticed the construction when its breadth blotted out the light sources around the room. But by then it was already too late for them.

  Powered by his will, the dome collapsed in toward its center — Eik’s body, and more than half of the members of the Black Fang were caught in between, squished together like fish in a barrel too small to hold them.

  A woman’s face was shoved right up against the eye holes in the face of Eik’s shell. In the soft, blue glow of the toxin surrounding them, the fear in her eyes was unmistakable.

  “Thanks for coming, everyone,” Eik cheered as the protective coating around his body evaporated into deadly mist, supplied further by additional toxin spewed forth from every pore in his skin.

  That now familiar, terribly addicting sensation of systemic invasion washed over him as he felt his mind snap onto a solid connection with each cell of Profound Toxin, telling him the thrilling tale of their exploration of the victims’ bodies. Sounds of coughing and retching filled the blue cage until something broke the tight dome wide open.

  “How clever! I’ve heard some interesting things about you,” Frank shouted and tore the hole he’d made in the structure wide open. “Unfortunately, I think I’ve seen enough already.” He began to pull his subordinates out one after the other by hand, throwing them bodily over his shoulder into the back where the poisonous mist had yet to reach.

  That wouldn’t save them, however. Eik was blocking the only exit and even if he was occupied by Frank, they would still have to pass through the mist to get out. And outside waited his three teammates, all armed with Potions of Mighty Strength class 1 that could bring them up to a level that resembled a weak D-ranker. Addled by Profound Toxin, they would stand no chance even if they made it out of the basement.

  As Frank threw them into relative safety behind him, Eik ordered the toxin out of all infected systems — a decision he had to fight a brief but intense internal battle to force himself to make. Despite vigorous protests from his poisonous side kick that echoed loudly off the inner walls of his skull, he wasn’t actually going to murder everybody in here in cold blood right off the bat.

  Yes, he wasn’t going to put himself in too much unnecessary danger just to protect their lives, but until then, he’d do what he could to hold back on the total extermination side of his abilities. Frank might be a different story, however. The guy was clearly above the rest of the rabble in terms of strength, so if he died he died.

  When the first flying dagger took him in the shoulder, Eik barely saw it coming, a white-hot explosion of pain alerting him to the injury before his eyes did. Frank had thrown it between movements in his rescue of the lesser members of his organization.

  With a groan of pain, Eik pulled the knife from his shoulder with a wet squelch and sealed the wound up by filling it with toxin which became the perfect plug once it solidified. A second later he was struck by a faint feeling of nausea that faded again almost immediately, only to be replaced by a slight energy boost. Noxious Invigoration triggered. A poisoned blade?

  Eik looked down at the now sealed wound. “So you’ve noticed?” Frank squawked. “You’re not the only one who knows a thing or two about poison. What do you say to a taste of your own medicine?”

  “I say thank you. Just the pick-me-up I needed,” Eik grinned and stuffed even more poison into his mouth. He drenched the less that appetizing chunks in Potion of Mighty Strength class 2 and swallowed as he exploded forward, brandishing Viper Fang in the hand of his healthy arm.

  Two more daggers came for his eyes but this time he deflected the first one with Viper Fang and avoided the other. A trail of toxic mist trailed Eik as he leapt over a table to get to Frank, reducing the free space available in the confined space of the basement.

  By now, all of the members of the Black Fang had retreated as far away from Eik’s toxin as they possibly could. Many of them were clearly still suffering immensely from the poisoning and appeared to be no threat whatsoever.

  Frank looked to four of his healthy subordinates and threw his head towards the exit which was obscured by Eik’s toxin. “Go and find the rest of the guys. Bring them here and have them wait outside. Do not come back down until I come out again.” It seemed like the man was ready to take this seriously now.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Movement Boost accelerating him to ridiculous speeds in an instant, Eik appeared like a ghost above Frank’s head while he was still focusing on his comrades. Pulled in by an invisible force of attraction, the daggers Frank had already thrown flew back into his waiting hands in time to rise up and block Eik’s first strike.

  Three more times their blades clashed before Eik’s body exploded into even more deadly mist as he moved toward the trapdoor, hoping to get to the four bandits sent away before they could escape. He’d only made it a couple of meters before Frank grasped him by the ankle and hurled him into a shelf standing against the wall, knocking the air from his lungs.

  He felt as the four thugs entered the swirling mist and the toxin took hold of their systems. They were moving through it quickly certainly, but they still all took doses that could kill an E-ranker quickly and an F-ranker near instantly. “Frank, if you let your friends go, they’ll die!” Eik tried, kicking away fragments of splintered wood.

  “What the hell are you on about?”

  Eik pointed at the bandits huddled up in the back. “You see those guys being alive? I pulled my toxin from their systems before. As a courtesy. If those guys leave, I won’t be able to do that. Even if you win here, you’re just going to find lifeless husks when you go looking for them.”

  For a moment Frank looked contemplative as the toxic cloud spread further before speaking. “Nah, I think I’ll take my chances on this one.”

  Eik’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Damn, you’re pretty cold, aren’t you?”

  Frank threw four daggers in quick succession and Eik had to activate Movement Boost to dodge all of them. Each of them hit the wall with enough force to bury themselves to the point where even the butts of the handles were lost inside.

  To Eik’s chagrin, the solid shields of toxin that had served him well in the Crucible defense test also didn’t do much against the projectiles with their ultra concentrated impact point, so instead he went on the offensive.

  It was clear that even with both the Potion of Mighty Strength and the poison coursing through his body, there was just no way that Eik could keep up with Frank in a purely physical confrontation. The Profound Toxin flowing freely from the ducts in Viper Fang, however, forced the bandit leader to constantly avoid becoming drenched in the substance that would ravage his skin horrifically.

  Throughout all of this, Eik had continuously been releasing mist in amounts that threatened to fill the chamber up before long and judging by the expressions on their faces the shivering minions in the corner were coming to the same realization.

  After a brief exchange, Frank kicked Eik square in the sternum and sent him flying back into the mist. A second later, a powerful gust of wind scattered the roiling clouds of poison out and up toward the ceiling where it began to slowly descend toward the ground again.

  “Out!” Frank roared, the volume of his C-rank voice ringing in the ears, “Get the fuck out right now, you gang of raggedy bastards!” Standing in the middle of the chamber, the man was swinging around a solid table like a common hand fan.

  Clearly used to taking and responding to orders, the lot of them broke into dashes without a single moment of hesitation, going directly for the ladder leading to the trap door. Frank swung the table a few more times as Eik got to his feet and gave chase.

  Heath, Sonja, and Michael were presumably still fighting the four who had initially escaped and Eik wasn’t about to let them be overwhelmed due to his mistake.

  The first few of the bandits had already jumped onto the ladder by the time Eik slashed the Achilles tendon of the rearmost person as easily as if he had been cutting melted butter. She, who must have been F-rank, went down screaming as Eik moved on to the next in line and severed his Achilles tendon as well.

  Before he could get to the third, however, Frank hurled the massive table and its momentum carried Eik to the ground, knocking down one of his comrades with a glancing blow in the process. Eik barely managed to get up a pair of blue shield, one in front of the other, when another flying dagger crunched through both layers and went a couple of inches into his abdomen.

  He gasped as Frank touched down on top of the table that was still laying across Eik’s legs. “Why don’t you stay down here with me?” the man with the black tooth said.

  “I’d prefer not to,” Eik groaned as he shoved the table away, forcing the guy to hop off.

  “I will kill you and then I will kill every friend and family member you have. I can promise you that,”

  “Funny,” Eik said as he felt rage bubble forth in the back of his head. “That’s the second time I’ve been promised that today. I have to say, it’s getting a little tiring.” He activated Movement Boost and whirled through the air to appear behind Frank, who used his own movement skill to get behind Eik in turn.

  But the Dane was ready for it and already spinning to meet him, Viper Fang raised high with toxin spurting from the ducts. Frank blocked the strike but liquid toxin splattered across his face nonetheless. The bandit leader shrieked, his fingers digging desperately at his eyes. He must have managed to close his eyes in time, because when he opened them, they weren’t melted into useless globs of tissue.

  Eik, however, was nowhere to be seen.

  “Shit!” Frank cursed and shot up through the shaft. Night was approaching morning and the crisp air was a welcome change from the stale, rancid musk of the underground.

  For a C-ranker like Frank, it didn’t take long for his eyes to adjust to the darkness and when they did, the first thing he saw was Eik standing there, foot on the bodies of two members of the Black Fang and a vial of his incredible potion at his lips.

  “No, you don’t!” he hissed and activated his movement skill, snatching the vial right out of the hand of the venomous asshole. “I’ve been hearing good things about this,” he chuckled and downed the potion, luminescent blue liquid flowing eagerly down his throat. What a strange taste. Not at all what he had expected and very difficult to describe.

  “Oh, no, Frank,” Eik gasped, mouth set in a surprised o-shape, eyes full of mirth.

  “I feel it!” Frank exclaimed excitedly. “I feel something happening.”

  “Yeah, and you’re not going to like it, man,” Eik said with a smile. “I’m sorry to tell you, but that wasn’t a potion.” His grin was so wide it practically reached his earlobes.

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