Eik waded through the murky, knee-deep swamp water from the coffin to the bank where he stamped off the worst of the foul sludge. This really was the same place he’d woken up when he had been offered the Acolyte of Toxin alternative evolutionary path.
An enormous mountain towered in the clouds in the distance. It was that mountain. That mountain that had inserted itself into his mind the first time he’d come here. As he looked at it now it was hard to believe that it had taken him hours to even notice that it was there last time. Something must have stopped him from seeing it.
With a thought he reached out for the multiversal matter, half anticipating another deep dive into his own head, but the connection was established seamlessly. The whirling energy eagerly moved into his fingers where it waited for him to give the signal to come out.
Radiating from his skin, testing the air, it finally had time to spread itself out over his body. It felt nice. Incredibly nice, actually. The active aura provided him with a layer of fresh, flowing air that kept the tepid waft from sticking clammily to his bare skin. He kept it going as he started toward the mountain.
The same urge to reach that peak blanketed in sickly green clouds that had consumed his thoughts completely before was now returning with intensity. His thin aura made no sound as it bubbled away.
The wind blew through the trees, rustling the leaves. But the wind seemed to only touch a single tree. Eik wasn’t going to fall for that trick twice.
A lightning fast streak of blue shot out from the canopy, heading straight for his nose like a ballista bolt. Seeing it coming before it ever moved from its position among the dense branches, Eik got into a stance of readiness and wound up a clenched fist for delivery.
The little F-ranker he had been last time he was here would probably not have been able to react in time even after noticing the ambush. The Acolyte of Toxin though?
It hurtled for his face but the moment it entered the range of his fist he hammered it into the ground with a crack, bouncing it off the soil like a basketball. As expected, it was yet another blue snake made entirely of Profound Toxin.
When it still twitched slightly as it lay there, he stomped on it hard, its body bursting like a water balloon. “Damn. You’re early this time, and not nearly as tough,” Eik spat as the now formless remains of the snake dispersed into motes in the air before storming toward his body, exactly like it had done last time he was here.
But as it tried to enter his skin, the glowing blue particles seemed to be obstructed from entering by the aura. Without Eik ordering it, the energy rushed in and gathered on the front of his body to create a pulsating barrier. The multiversal matter didn’t appear to be any more willing to mesh with the Profound Toxin than the other way around.
Apparently Profound Toxin did not subscribe to the notion of giving up, returning and coming in from behind. The aura came around and moved the barrier to Eik’s back where it blocked the flying poison’s ingress once more.
“Hey, stop, stop! It’s fine! He’s with me!” Eik yelled. In the blink of an eye he had a mental grasp on the aura and forced it to flatten out and let the Profound Toxin enter unhindered. Feeling the toxin permeate his system elicited a sense of correctness, like it was supposed to be there.
With everything that had happened, the last few months had provided him with enough tense situations, memorable meetings, and terrifying realizations for the next many years and it had made time stretch to a crawl. The sensation of the poison was already so natural that he could barely recall what it had been like to be without it. It was right. The Worldbreaker had become an intimate part of him.
But just as he thought he had gotten it under control, the two opposing energies began to spiral and twirl around inside him, each trying to push down and kick out the other to take sole residence within his core. With their ethereal power they ripped and tore at the hull of their vessel — his poor body — like enraged beasts locked up in a cage.
“Will you guys calm down in there? I’m not a buffet. This here landlord would prefer amicable cohabitation, alright?”
Neither force seemed to get the message as they kept going at it, putting intense, palpable pressure on his organs, blood vessels, muscles, and bones. His heart quivered as he attempted to bring them both under control with a focused exertion of willpower.
Initially they resisted, riled up into senselessness by the rivalry, but eventually his concentrated efforts got them separated. “Why the hell has it suddenly become time to go at each other’s throats like this? There wasn’t a problem until now when I worked on my alchemy. What gives?” he asked the empty air.
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He wasn’t expecting an answer and he didn’t get one. “Don’t make me come in there,” he finished and started walking, keeping a tight grip on both of them.
He liked to anthropomorphize the two powers but he was well aware that the multidimensional matter and Profound Toxin were not animals he was keeping as pets. Both of them were more like forces of nature. Two hurricanes clashing for control of an orbit.
Maybe Profound Toxin possessed some semblance of sentience — some manner of primal hunger — but it wasn’t enough for communication. Actually, there was that time during his evolution trance where it did its best to conspicuously nudge him in into choosing Acolyte of Toxin as a his path instead of the regular E-rank.
But had that been intelligence? Had it been sentience? Eik had a suspicion that it was a phenomenon conjured up by his own mind, perhaps spurred on by whatever ancient drive moved Profound Toxin to behave the way it did. At the very least he was not quite ready to proclaim his ability to be a clever little guy with a penchant for murder, torture, and a conscious desire to mold him into its ideal host.
And if it was, then there was no way he was going to let it do what it wanted. He was in control and he would stay in control.
The landscape changed slowly as he kept walking. Stinky pools of murky water and dead, rotting plants gradually gave way to a forest of old, gnarled trees, branches decorated with a balanced mix of both bright green summer leaves and orange leaves already hung crunchy on the stem.
As the multiversal energy and the Profound Toxin had settled down inside him, he had begun to release the aura again. It was just a little bit to begin with but when the Worldbreaker didn’t make a move to ruin it for him he let more and more of the aura come out.
Something struck him hard on the back of the head and he stumbled forward, catching himself on the protruding root of one of the trees. A swish from behind warned him of another incoming attack just in time for him to twist around and bring up a sharp elbow.
There was no time to register what the attacker’s shape had been but his swift counter nonetheless reduced it to a blue splatter that spilled across the fallen leaves on the ground.
Two more came at him, this time from the front, both of them the same snakes of Profound Toxin. His hand went to his waist where he grabbed for the handle of Viper Fang, only to realize that no pants meant no belt, no belt meant no sheath, and no sheath meant no weapon.
Gritting his teeth, Eik instead raised his hand and simply slapped the crap out of the first one. Flowing smoothly through the same movement, he snatched the second out of the air as it rocketed toward him and pulled its body violently apart.
This time the aura that was now as dense as he had ever managed to make it did not make a move to block the particles of the decimated toxic snakes as they surged into his body. The feeling was invigorating. As if a part of him that had been missing was reunited with his soul.
He removed the aura covering his face and took a few deep breaths. The smell in the air had become much more pleasant now but he still kept the aura up. Judging by the landscape alone he had made it about as far as he had on his previous trip here.
It didn’t appear like he had made any progress toward the mountain whatsoever but he still kept walking. Although the urge to reach the peak was similarly irresistible this time, the almost hypnotic state that he had been thrown into during his last visit had not come over him as of yet.
It was more like being on the way to the super market on a Saturday evening to get snacks for a movie night on the couch. You know that maybe you shouldn’t do it, but even as that thought swirls around in your head your feet continue to carry you down the cookie aisle.
As he walked, there was no real downside to keeping the aura flowing around him as far as he could tell. In fact, it was almost effortless as ripples across his bare skin and the sense of it grew more natural with every passing minute.
At this point he couldn’t even really recall what had been so difficult about it when he had first begun his alchemy practice. It had taken him days to even recognize the existence of the dimensional matter inside his body and now it had gotten to the point where he would catch it moving according to his subconscious wishes.
Wasn’t this whole control of the multiversal matter supposed to be more difficult? Wasn’t it supposed to take months to even get started properly? He’d been at it for a few weeks at most. Ironically enough, this brand new power was much easier to control and magnitudes more obedient than Profound Toxin that he had had by his side for much longer.
He played around with their compatibility a bit, trying to get the two forces to mesh. Gathering the aura into just his palm, he held it there as he, as slowly as he could, let a sliver of Profound Toxin come out further up his arm.
Immediately, the antagonistic toxin writhed vigorously against the will of its master, doing its damndest to get at the hazy white energy like an attack dog. Allowing just a bit of metaphorical leash, he let the thin tendril of toxin slowly approach as it repeatedly lunged at its rival.
He sighed when it was apparent where this little experiment was going but he still carried it to completion and loosened the restraints enough for the two of them to come into physical contact with each other. The moment Profound Toxin touched the multiversal matter the white aura dissolved into nothingness like cotton candy dumped in water by a raccoon.
“Crap…” Eik mumbled as he forced the toxin back into his body and let the aura spread across his body once more.
What the hell was he supposed to do when his powers literally hated each other to the point of one destroying the other? There had to be something he could to make them play nice.
He stopped walking and sat down to close his eyes and focus on their shared environment inside him. Even as he tried to focus he felt the pull of the mountain tug at his mind. If they didn’t want to get along on the outside, then he’d just have to force them to on the inside.