The soaring monster clipped his shoulder painfully as he ducked and dove, rolling and falling, the ground coming up to meet him with a meaty thud. Despite having the air forced from his lungs, Eik got to his feet and ran. If the dumb bastard had leapt for him at full power, it might well have cleared the roof entirely, allowing him a window of time, albeit short, to put some distance between them before it made it back to him.

This time he went for one of the watchtowers within the territory of Forest, usually manned and equipped with a bell to alert the population of impending attacks. Eik couldn’t recall hearing the bells tonight, but the whole thing might have been too sudden if the flyers launched the assault.

Rushing up the ladder, he only made it a couple of meters up before the ghastly baying approached at speed. The crisscrossing framework of the tower’s structure prevented the monster from leaping onto the middle of the ladder, so when it began to attempt the climb, Eik saw the awkwardness of its movements.

It might have been both strong and multi-limbed, but the clawed, paw-like appendages were not made for the relatively delicate task of ascending a ladder. Eik stopped momentarily and looked down, the beast’s ugly maw snapping viciously in anticipation of his demise. An idea began to form in his head, and he hurried up the ladder as fast as he could without risking a fall.

At the top of the tower, he laid down on the floor with his arm dangling down through trapdoor. Then he released as much of his Profound Toxin as was able. His entire arm from the elbow down lit up with the poisonous glow of the liquid as it flowed vigorously towards his fingertips. It gathered into thick, blue beads and fell.

Because the monster couldn’t be bothered to shut its pie hole whatsoever, dozens of drops entered its mouth and throat. The total volume of toxin ingested now was magnitudes more than the insignificant pelting from earlier. Almost instantly the monster began to react. It thrashed madly on the ladder, the many limbs tangled in the rungs.

Eik never stopped releasing his poison. He simply laid there above the macabre spectacle, staring open-mouthed as he called down a death rain. Within a couple of minutes, the ugly thing ceased its pointless struggle, settling into silence as it hung there like an otherworldly gibbet.

“Wha— Holy shit!” Eik gasped, letting the flow of poison trickle to a stop. His shirt sleeve was soaked through with the luminescence. He rolled over, breathing deeply to calm himself after one of the most anxiety-inducing experiences of his life. “Holy… Holy shit,” he repeated in disbelief. “I did it. I did it. I did it.”

The slightest of vibrations tingled inside his shirt, reminiscent of the mobile phones of old, a faint sound of scratching wood accompanying it. Fishing out the wooden plaque that hung around his neck, Eik read.

[Acquired (Unique) Profound Toxin — Lv. 2]

What would a higher level do for his unique skill? A single, incremental level up might not even be noticeable. He had to find more people.

Even though Eik knew the monster was dead, the climb down from the watchtower was eerie. In order to get around the ugly thing, he had to swing around to the opposite side of the ladder, which put his own face centimeters from the terrifying visage of the alien invader. Even as he came close enough to the corpse to sense the heat emanating from it, the fear that it would suddenly come alive again never became true.

Eik left the corpse as an example.

He ripped off his poison-soaked shirt sleeve and buried it shallowly in the ground, hoping to avoid any accidental poisoning of anybody who might come across it later. That whole encounter had been too dangerous. A fair, face to face fight with one or more monsters was not something his current skill set allowed him to do. For now, he’d need help in order to help.

He jogged through the streets, keeping to the shadows and alleys, hoping to avoid another unexpected encounter. There were a few corpses on the way, but it took almost five minutes of stealthy going before he heard the noise of fighting.

Breaking into a sprint, Eik headed for the sounds. Even if there were monsters there, that was preferable to being alone. Sliding on loose gravel, he turned the last corner, the scene of the battle coming into view. It was utter mayhem. Afraid of getting caught out by himself, he ran full tilt towards the center of the skirmish. A few Awakened were fighting in organized groups, but many were also engaged in messy, individual battles with monsters.

“Where can I help?” he shouted as he approached.

A woman with a gigantic spear, longer even than she was tall, glanced back for just a second to assess the newcomer. Hissing, she just barely managed to parry the lunge of a creature that, to Eik’s eyes, appeared out of thin air from one moment to the next, its deathly thin body and sickeningly long, scythe-like claws humming like a light saber as it moved with ridiculous speed.

When the monster dodged her horizontal slash, she altered the course of her weapon mid-swing to bring the pommel forth and into its chest, sending it flying back like a bullet, impacting the side of someone’s home. The wall collapsed and the thing ended up somewhere inside.

“Rank?” she demanded, this time without looking away from the battle.

“Uuh, mid F-rank.”

“Shit!” she swore, batting away a smaller monster as if she was an elephant obliterating a cardboard piñata. “What can you do?”

“I’m… good at getting poisoned, and I can use Toxic.” No need to tell the whole truth to this stranger.

She offered an eyebrow raised in puzzlement and tossed her head. “See that guy over there?” she asked, Eik’s eyes following her gesture to a large, red-cheeked young man with a gigantic tower shield. He’d seen him earlier, outside Mission Central. His name was Heath.

He was struggling to keep a couple of monsters at bay, nasty cuts adorning his face and parts of his body. “The guy behind him is the only healer we’ve got here.” the spear wielding woman continued. “We can’t let him get killed. Bringing my own fight over there will only put them in more danger, so I need you to help out. I repeat: Protect that healer!”

Eik nodded gravely, heart galloping away.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“You’re Heath, right? I’m Eik. Here to help!”

“Thanks for coming,” Heath huffed, exhaustion showing on his face.

“And your name?” Eik asked the healer. He was a young man, looking no older than seventeen. Maybe eighteen.

“My n-name is Michael.” The boy was clutching the handle of a broom that he must have grabbed from his home as the monsters came. His knuckles were white as paper and he was clenching his jaw to the point that Eik feared the boy’s teeth might shatter at any moment.

“Give me just a second,” Eik bade Heath and jogged up to the blonde boy. He was built well for his age. He probably did some kind of sport, although life in Forest provided little freedom for something like that, unless you were Awakened.

“Did you just awaken?” he asked.

Michael swallowed hard, clearly holding back tears. “Yes.”

“That’s so cool! What’s your power?”

He looked down at the broom handle, his grip relaxing if only slightly. “I can make people’s wounds better. It’s just c-called Heal.”

“Okay, you are exactly who I was looking for!” Eik said and pulled down on the collar of his shirt, revealing the wound he had suffered when the many-eyed, many-legged monster had barreled into his shoulder. “Could you give me a hand with this?”

The boy nodded silently and held his hands up to Eik’s shoulder, a green glow emanating from his palms. It stung, the sensation of flesh starting to wrap in on itself foreign and unpleasant. It would take a while before it was perfectly healed, Eik knew, but it hadn’t been a bad injury to begin with. “H-How does it feel now?” Michael asked, trepidation clear in his voice.

“Much better,” Eik assured him, raising the tiny work knife high. “Now I can fight again.”

A relieved smile made its way onto the boy’s face. “If you get hurt again, you can just come to me, okay?”

“Sounds good, thanks!” Eik said and went to join Heath. “Heath, I’m here. How’s it looking?”

“Not so—” He was interrupted by the charge of a small, globular monster covered in thick, wide plates along its shoulders and down its back, bearing a resemblance to an Earth pangolin. Heath took the hit with his enormous shield and followed up with his sword, swinging the blade toward a gap in the armor. It connected well, biting into the monster’s flesh, eliciting a screech.

In that moment, Eik rushed in and stuck his fingers as far into the wound as he could while Heath still had the thing tied down. He let the Profound Toxin flow freely, the substance flowing eagerly into the gash, a faint blue glow emanating from the site. Eik noticed another wound in the monster’s side, presumable from one of Heath’s previous strikes. He tried the same there, but only managed to barely get a couple of digits into the opening before the fiend threw its body down and away hard, ripping free both Heath’s sword and Eik’s fingers.

But the damage was hopefully already done.

The pangolin monster bounded away, retreating into the darkness, a thin trail of blood marking its path. Eik hoped it would die from the toxin somewhere and never come back. There were other bastards to worry about here. Two monsters were approaching at speed, one of them caught off guard when a woman to Eik’s right hurled a massive chunk of condensed earth, hauling it off its feet and sending it crashing through the forest.

Heath bashed the second with his shield, striking it squarely in the cheek and morphing its grotesque smile into mush, but it was barely rattled, continuing its advance and carrying him bodily to the ground. With a ferocious, laughing roar, it began to hammer its fists against the massive barrier protecting Heath as he lay immobilized in the grass.

The shield wouldn’t hold forever. Eik did what he could to close the distance silently, but he had to hurry, lest Heath was smashed to a pulp. As he went, he let out more poison and covered his work knife from hilt to tip. And as soon as he could, he plunged the knife into the monster’s back.

Or rather, he tried to plunge his knife into its back. The dull edge managed to do no more than draw a shallow line across the pale skin. When that did nothing, all he had left was to smear the monster in Profound Toxin. Eik planted both palms on its large back and let the luminescent blue fluid flow, scattering to run down the fiend’s lanky body.

At first, the monster ignored him completely as it kept battering Heath into the ground, its brutal strikes echoing hollowly into the gloomy evening, but within seconds it ceased its onslaught, looking up and then back at Eik, milky white eyes, centered by a pitch black pupil locking on to him like a predator.

His feet were firmly on the ground one moment, and the next he was tasting blood as he slid up and over the roof of a nearby house. On the way down, the rim of the roof caught him glancingly in the hip, putting a rapid spin on his fall that would have earned him all 10’s in a gymnastics competition, if only he hadn’t stuck the landing with his face.

He didn’t know how long he was out, but when he was able to comprehend the world again, the sounds of fighting still raged, so it couldn’t have been too long.

Eik tried to push himself into a seated position, but his arm simply flopped uselessly, refusing to be of any assistance. Swallowing a scream that might have drawn something unpleasant his way, he settled for a hiss of agony as he used his feet to kick himself backward until he could lean against the wall of the house.

The sound of footsteps drew his gaze to the alley, dread rising up through his stomach. Michael, the young healer, appeared seconds later, fear painted clearly on his features. Eik breathed a sigh and let his head bump against the rough wood of the wall.

“Mr. Eik!” Michael gasped. “You’re hurt!”

“Hadn’t noticed, but now that you mention it,” Eik answered dryly.

The young man knelt. “Let me take a look.” Michael’s eyes were a portrait of determination.

“Thanks, but this is not something that can just be healed in a few minutes.”

“I know, but it’s best to start as early as possible,” the boy said, his tongue stuck out in concentration.

Eik couldn’t really argue with that. “The bastard didn’t see you come here, right?”

Concentration broken, the young man’s eyes whipped up, realization dawning. From the same alley Michael had come, a bizarrely elongated, pale face peeked out curiously, expression caught between a grin and a grimace. As it rounded the corner, milky white eyes never leaving the two humans, a repulsive mockery of a laugh rumbled up from its chest.

Michael fell back in fright, all strength seeming to have left him. Eik too felt lightheaded as he saw hope dissipate into nothingness.

Death had come to claim them.