Monarch of Profound Toxin

Chapter 337 - 337: Duel

The weapon was large.Perhaps the largest solid object Eik had ever created. And it was as silent as death as it descended toward the planet below.

I started as a slow approach while Eik took a couple of seconds to decide how he wanted to go about it and Chop was still on the retreat from the aggressively expanding wave of the Death Star. But once the Death Star began to fizzle out and Chop became free to look for Eik for a counter attack, the Earthling launched the colossal rod of blue properly and sent it downward at a speed that warped the space around it.

Flinging himself into a steep dive, Eik hid his presence in the remaining mist again. The Death Star had dispersed a lot of it high into the stratosphere where Eik had been watching from, but Eik simply brought it back down with him in a massive cloud of the stuff.

To anybody with half a brain, it would be obvious that he was manipulating the cloud directly and most likely concealing himself within, but given its diameter of more than a kilometer, it wasn't quite as simple to tell where exactly he was.

Fortunately for Eik, Chop did not have the time to worry about anything like that at the moment. With an imminent impact that could wipe out not only him, but a small continent as well, he had enough to think about.

Nevertheless, the old man's lips were plastered over by a gleeful grin that reflected just how much of a battle-maniac he truly was.

With a breath, he dropped into an incredibly low stance, both feet sliding through the barren, exposed soil as his fingers twitched on the tattered handle of the old blade sitting in its sheath. As it was, with the new blade covered by the material of the scabbard—a rusted metal wrapped in animal skin sown into it with what must have been a damned strong needle—there was no indication that it wasn't just the same old, chipped edge inside.

Controlled by Eik's precise mind at every meter traveled, the leviathan blade was poised to annihilate the frail-looking old man but his eyes never wavered as he stared up at the point.

Brilliant, azure light streamed out along the opening when the sword master finally pulled free the weapon. So swiftly was the blade returned to its scabbard that one might even have been tempted to ask oneself if it had ever left it in the first place, but the terrifying result of its release was enough to put such questions to rest.

Red in color but tinged along the edges with the same luminescent blue as Profound Toxin, the wave of destructive force released by that one, blindingly quick swing made impact and continued through it like a hot knife through butter. In a fragment of a second, the crystal blade was cut in two and crashed into the ground with such power that the earth was blown apart like a fluid, splashing into the air like water in a lake displaced by a thrown rock.

Material super heated by the catastrophic collision surged skyward, whirling about Chop but diverted by his aura.

"You need to do better than that!" he called into the air where he knew Eik was hiding, amplifying his the sound to reach the edge of space. Hopping from boulder to exploding boulder was the most fun he had had in several lifetimes.

Seeming to come from everywhere at once, Eik's voice answered, the snicker clear in the tone. "I knew you were going to do that, gramps," he sang.

Chop's stomach sank the moment he heard those words and he inhaled sharply as he leaped into the air with all haste. It had been nearly impossible to spot in the chaos of the ruin, but the inside of the crystal blade was lined with an extra bright vein of toxin—one which now reacted violently as Accelerant brought it into extreme volatility.

Shrapnel struck him in the thigh and lower back, expelling the breath from his lungs painfully,. He spun in the air to block any other fragments that might be coming only to come face to face with another megalithic crystal blade.

Hissing, he met it with the tip of his own blade and used the brief contact to pivot his body around and behind the point before Eik could adjust the trajectory. With eyes constantly flitting from place to place in search of Eik's whereabouts, Chop ran up the side of the descending rod.

This time he predicted the detonation and launched himself away.

"Where are you hiding?" Chop the Blade roared at full lung as the detonation of the mega blade carried him skyward with incredible force. "Is shivering in fear like a cowering prey animal really all you are capable of, Eik Magnasen, so-called Supreme Divinity of Toxin? Reveal yourself and face me!"

"Well, since you asked so nicely," came the whispered reply directly into Chop's ear as Eik manifested from a single, tiny Living Manifestation hidden among the particles of azure mist.

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Almost like a feat of magic, the crystal blade of the Pristine Blade Saint was there to meet Eik's lightning-quick knife before it even made it halfway to the old man's throat. The residual energy of the blocked blow dispersed Profound Toxic Mist in a kilometer-long cone.

Whirling around to face Eik and deliver a counter attack, Chop felt something slither into his still bleeding wound. It had simply refused to heal, even after he had poured a strong healing potion directly into it. The substance had been annihilated before it could have any effect.

He hissed and deployed his aura with aggression, but it was no use. Eik used that moment of inattention to shank another knife into Chop's belly, the weapon immediately melting into the wound.

"I see you're feeling a little tired, my friend," Eik sang with an acidic smile. "Age catching up with you, perhaps? Should I help you home and into your chair?"

"Fuck off, punk!" the old man laughed and cracked the butt of his sword into Eik's ribs and sent him flying back down to earth like a meteor.

"It's a matter of time now. You know that, right?" Eik's voice boomed as he plummeted, Chop hot on his trail with blade crescents flying like machine gun fire. Precise micro detonations of Accelerant along Eik's body maneuvered him out of the way like a weaving fighter jet. "I bet you're already feeling a little woozy, aren't you?"

Chop just grunted as he redoubled his efforts. Eik took minor hits here and there since his mobility with the Accelerant didn't match the ridiculous weapon control of the Pristine Blade Saint, but none of them were anywhere near as dangerous as that first charged slash that opened his stomach. It was clear that he was growing more feeble as Profound Toxin began to take hold of him in earnest.

Halfway to the ground, Eik released a cloud of toxic mist that trailed him like the tail of a comet and hid him from sight and detection.

"No, you don't!" Chop shouted and sent a focused barrage of slashes directly into it, dispersing the mist before it could gather properly.

Now revealed again, Eik grinned up at the old man, doing what he could to hide the fact that he, too, was feeling the effects of his injuries. They might have been fully healed, but that healing drained his energy and would eventually grow sluggish and ineffective.

This was a battle of attrition, and Chop was more dangerous on that front than Eik had expected. The man was simply relentless in his assault, never failing to seize an opportunity to deal a blow. With aggression like that, it was a testament to his skills that he had survived long enough to reach the heights he had.

It was a fragment of a moment of realization that allowed him to avoid death before half of his lower body as well as his right arm from the elbow down were severed. From the hip bone and downward in a diagonal path, his right leg along with the entire ass cheek was sliced off completely. Eik watched dumbfounded as his body parts drifted away in the buffeting wind, the empowering effects of True Toxic Harmony and Backflow spluttering and fading from the limbs as they disappeared.

That had not come from the front!

The sight of a deadly crescent of energy traveling upward and away from him proved that as he whirled about in the air only to come face to face with another Chop.

He hadn't even seen the old man move. "What the f—" Eik managed to utter before he was struck once more, this time from above, where Chop had been just before.

Only his sensitivity to aura allowed him to notice the approaching crescent in time to avoid getting his head removed from his neck. This time the rest of his right arm was taken, severed at the clavicle.

Desperate, he curled up into a ball as super reinforced crystal hardened into a rapidly expanding protective sphere around his body, layer upon layer building on top of each other. Crackling impacts threatened Eik's ear drums as a rain of frenzied blows slammed into the outer shell, shaving away large chunks of crystal, but it was replenishing it too quickly for Chop to be able to immediately break through now that Eik was focusing wholly on it.

A brief tap into the senses of one of the many Living Manifestations scattered throughout the battlefield, Eik was able to confirm that the attacks from the back hadn't been a matter of speed. There were two Chops acting simultaneously and independently of each other.

After a couple of seconds, once the sphere had built up some mass, Eik Accelerated the whole thing along with his own body, his consciousness snapping awake inside the head of a tiny flying Living Manifestation a number of kilometers away. In that same moment, the detonation blasted the original Chop straight toward Eik who was already rushing back.

Chop knew of Eik's ability to essentially teleport like that, so he was already searching for him, but Eik still managed to get close.

An expert in close-quarter combat, the Pristine Blade Saint once again met Eik's katana with his own sword, but he failed to realize that there was more to Eik's attack this time.

As the low and pitched hum of the Extinction Zone began to whir uncomfortably and quickly rose to a near unbearable keening, Chop knew that Eik had changed tactics completely. His legs and arms were already whole again, and he was setting up to fight on the defensive until the old man succumbed to the increasing concentration of Profound Toxin.

Immediately, Chop disengaged, but Eik simply followed him, sticking to him like a leech as the strange blend of liquid and gaseous toxin slowly but surely penetrated the pores in his skin.

The Extinction Zone had an effect radius of at least four kilometers with the majority of the toxicity focused on the center where Eik and Chop were.

Frantically, Chop and his mirror image went all out to force Eik to drop the skill, but the resistant bastard kept avoiding and growing crystal carapace to protect himself. And strength was leaving him by the second.

After a couple of minutes, Eik, Supreme Divinity of Toxin stood at the bottom of a kilometer-deep crater, hemorrhaging glimmering Profound Toxin from multiple wounds. He was dead tired and barely able to support his own weight.

In front of him was Chop the Blade, Pristine Blade Saint of the Supreme Divinity of Toxin, slumped on his knees. He was struggling just to maintain consciousness.

"That's… my win…" Eik breathed as he converted all toxin in the old man's system to Panacean Quintessence.

Head hanging low, Chop's jaw was clenched so tightly that he couldn't answer.