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Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 34
🕑 Added 2024-10-05 16:00:14 +0000 UTCHeath’s breathing was growing more ragged by the second, the affected skin bubbling up into angry welts. Profound Toxin probably wouldn’t kill him very quickly without access to his circulatory system, but that didn’t change the fact that he would become unable to fight if his skin was flayed from his flesh.
“I don’t feel so good, Eik. It’s like my whole body is crawling with insects,” Heath whined and tried to scratch at the sensitive skin. Eik slapped his hand away without opening his eyes.
“Don’t touch it. You’ll only make it worse than it already is.”
“The monster’s are coming, Eik! We don’t have time for this!” Sonja shouted as she released a barrage of arrows at the approaching horde. “We have to run!”
Eik’s grip on the tank’s arms tightened as he dug deeper into his own mind, hoping to get back to the foreign world where he had met that shitty little snake made of Profound Toxin. If it refused to listen to his commands, then he’d simply have to go back there again and beat the shit out of the bastard. Down he dove, toward the depths of consciousness, searching desperately for a hole, a gate, a fracture, anything that might allow him to pass into the world of the Profound Toxin.
“Eik! What are you doing?” Sonja yelled, grabbing him by the shoulder.
He snarled and cracked open an eye, pulling him out of his own head completely. “I don’t know either, Sonja! I’m just trying something because I don’t know what else to do, god damn it! You broke my concentration and now I have to start over from the beginning!”
“No, you’re not,” she said and shoved him towards the closest team before taking her brother’s large hand and guiding him along with them. “We’re leaving, now!”
“Shit!” Eik shouted, stomping the grass and taking Heath’s other hand. Michael was already sticking to the tank’s back and showering him with the soothing light of his Heal skill. “And Michael, cast a Single Protection on him as well already!” Eik snapped.
“R-Right, sorry!” the young man stammered and hurried to comply, the silvery glow humming gently as it pulsed once across Heath’s body.
“Hey, don’t talk to him like that, bro,” Heath rumbled through clenched teeth while they ran as fast as he could follow. “He doesn’t deserve that, We’re all stressed out right now, and you shouldn’t take your frustrations out on him.”
“That Single Protection skill could be the difference between your death and your survival, and by extension ours,” Eik said, the harsh tone still present. “It’s too dangerous to not say something!”
Sonja nodded, her eyes constantly glancing back to check how much the monsters were gaining on them. It would be a matter of seconds now. “I agree. It does need to be said, because it could prevent crippling injury, or even turn a fatal strike into something survivable,” she said and Eik was glad to have her support, but then she continued. “But, what you’re doing right now is just as bad, Eik.”
He was so taken aback by her words that he almost stopped running right then and there. “What? Just what in the world do you think I am doing that’s as bad as that?”
She gave him a raised eyebrow as if to ask if he seriously couldn’t figure it out on his own. “Eik, when you confront him with such hostility in the middle of a battle like this, do you think he’s going to perform better? We’re not soldiers in the military here. We’re just people with super powers trying to do our best,” she said as they signaled their arrival to the other team. “All you’re doing is lowering morale, hammering a wedge into our team, and hitting him right in his confidence. There’s a place for criticism, and this particular case certainly warrants it, but not the way you’re doing it. Calm down, Eik.”
Michael stared at her with a jaw dropped so low that it could have come off its hinges. He looked ready to kiss her. Eik chewed on her words. He felt a pang of shame in his stomach as he realized that she was right. Michael’s eyes caught his for a moment, but he looked away immediately, unable to meet the healer’s gaze.
“What’s up? What happened?” a woman with a great sword called as she jogged up to meet them. Her four teammates were finishing a gangly, insectile monster, four of the same variety already staining the grass purple with their sticky blood. “Can’t handle your portion?” she grinned.
Sonja just gestured wordlessly over her shoulder with a thumb. The woman’s grin quickly fell, replaced by pale alarm. She signaled for her friends to join them, but it was quickly determined that even with the combined strength of their two teams, it would be nowhere near enough to handle the entirety of the horde traveling in fragmented groups of monsters.
Wasting no more time, Sonja led them all on a further retreat toward the main fight, which was still raging just as violently as before. Several projectiles struck the serpent along its body before a human leapt from the beach to land on its body, climbing rapidly up its back while attacks continued to rain down up the beast. Another round of the slow-moving balls of electricity floated across the surface of the lake, roasting any weaker monster that made the mistake of coming within attack range.
When the crazy high-ranker finally made it to the lake serpent’s head, they began to pound away at its thick skull, the booms of the swift impacts reverberating like a deep bass.
“That’s must be Boulder Fist Gary!” one of the guys on the other team hooted, excitement painted as clearly on his face as a fresh dog turd on a white tile floor.
“Dude…” one of his friends mumbled, elbowing him in the ribs conspicuously.
The man blanched slightly as he remembered who they had teamed up with. “Ah, right, sorry, man. I wasn’t thinking…”
Eik just waved off the apology nonchalantly. “Don’t worry about it, mate,” he said, his eyes wandering to the close-quarter onslaught. “The man’s one of our strongest fighters no matter how you look at it. I’m just surprised he’s already up and swinging after Atla beat the pants off him so effortlessly.” He couldn’t suppress a grin at the other team’s nervous chuckles.
Without warning the powerful fiend whipped its neck with such explosive speed that its head became a blur, hurling Boulder Fist Gary away and into the forest like a round launched from the largest catapult to ever exist. Judging by Odor Fist Gary’s trajectory he must have landed at least a kilometer behind the front line, so it would take him a while to get back into the fight if he was even still combat capable.
When they linked up with the second team, Heath’s condition was becoming concerning. Some of the welts had begun to discolor with splotches of blue, purple, and green spreading out from their centers.
“I really don’t think we can delay Heath’s treatment anymore than we already have!” Eik said, his hand on Sonja’s forearm.
“I agree,” Michael said as he came to stand next to Eik. “The longer we wait, the worse his prognosis becomes. I already can’t do anything about this without Eik getting the poison out first.”
Sonja’s face was conflicted, her desire to stop everything and take care of her sick brother as clear as day. She looked ready to agree when a robed man from the team they had just met up with broke in. “There are dozens of monsters coming at us if I’m counting them right. If we hang around here much longer then none of us will survive, not to mention your man here. He’ll have to suck it up for now and keep moving because we won’t be waiting here to die with you.”
Eik clenched his fist as his jaw tightened in rage and frustration. He was ashamed of being the cause of Heath’s pain and it made him want to lash out. He wouldn’t, but the urge must have been visible on his face because the robed man sized him up with a frown. “Do you have a problem with that, bro?” he asked, two of his friends stepping up behind him.
Eik felt Profound Toxin flow out, unbidden, between his fingers almost as if the blue fluid was encouraging him to confront the vexatious man. With a thought, he forced the poison back into his skin, imagining a huff of displeasure from the unruly substance as it withdrew. “Yes, I do, actually, but let’s leave that for later, shall we?” he said with his hands raised placatingly, hating that he was backing down from this asshole. Even if the guy was right, Eik still wanted to punch him in the mouth. “We’ll figure something else out, how about that?”
The robed man harrumphed and took the lead this time, moving further along the beach. The next link was obscured by a dense copse of tress, but if they could cross through that barrier some of the monsters that were still far away might give up the chase if they lost sight. Even now, the throng of monsters wasn’t actually charging full tilt, but rather meandering at a relatively slow pace. That didn’t mean they could actually afford to relax, however.
Looking at Heath’s face, it was evident that he was choking back pain, but Eik still didn’t have any other ideas. “Heathy, I’m sorry to ask this, but do you think you would still be able to run with me on your back?”
The big man looked at him uncomprehendingly while Michael and Sonja’s expressions didn’t hide how ridiculous they thought that sounded. “What? You want me to carry you? Now?”
Eik shook his head, panic tying up his tongue and refusing to let him form a proper sentence. He had trained his mind to endure and keep cool during tense situation by poisoning himself day after day for years, but this was a first.
The horror of being responsible for the poisoning of a friend. He knew that the best solution would be hatched by a calm mind, yet his was a whirl of chaos. He knew that the best results were accomplished by a steady and determined hand, yet his were trembling with indecision and doubt.
“I’m—, I’m afraid… We can’t stay here and take proper care of you because we have a literal surge of monstrous bastards on our asses, I understand that, but I’m scared that if I don’t begin now, it’s going to be too late. I’m good at antivenom but this magical poison stuff is still a complete mystery to me, and I can’t think of anything better than this. I don’t know what else to do, guys…” His voice trembled just like his hands.
After a second of genuine surprise, Heath managed a grin despite the pain and knelt down on one knee, offering his back to Eik. “Well, get on then, man. Sonja and Michael can give me a hand if I stumble.”
Eik did, putting his hands on Heath’s shoulder and once more connecting to the Profound Toxin that still ravaged Heath’s skin, looking for a way into his circulatory system. With frayed nerves he mentally crushed the Profound Toxin underfoot. He had never attempted to withdraw the poison from a victim before, but while it was clear that the nature of Profound Toxin was not one that ever let a prey go, he would not allow his own damn ability make the decision to kill his friend.
He felt it let go for a moment, only to dig its metaphorical claws in even deeper, but now he knew it could be forced. Not knowing how, he applied even more mental pressure on the ethereal poison and sensed its self-mastery erode bit by bit.
“Do as I tell you to, you damned puddle of blue piss!” Eik screamed right into a frightened Heath’s ear, momentarily forgetting about his existence in the physical world. The members of the two other teams turned their heads to glance at the psychotic man riding on the back of his injured teammate.
With a final spike of psychic compulsion, the Profound Toxin rushed up Heath’s red, swelling skin and disappeared into Eik’s. A deep sigh of relief escaped the tank’s body.
“Guys, I did it! I got it out of him!” he exclaimed. No answer came. “Guys?”
They had made it through the dense woods, but on the other side was not a team that could assist them with the monster horde. Two specimens of the jet black, crocodilian beast that had been sent crashing through the facade of Eik’s Excellent Elixirs on the day of Eik’s Awakening were chewing absentmindedly on the remains of a five-man group of Awakened.
The two fiends noticed Eik’s provisional group just as another outfit of Awakened crashed through the vegetation on the opposite side.
Leading that group was Rock Fist Bart.
Comments
Rod
I wonder if he shouldn't just go solo! seems like the team is a burden! Michael needs to cowboy tfu!
