"What's up, lil' bitch?"
The butcher extended a warm greeting to his only audience.
At first, the creature of wrath didn't react. But it slowly dawned on him that it was forced to take the order from the same guy he had come to loathe so dearly. It added to his fury that he couldn't do anything to Eren even when he wanted to tear the guy to shreds. This was because of his newfound physical might that was growing at an alarming rate.
Eren flashed a mild smile at Sid before continuing his talk.
"Do you still remember me? This is your deputy vice-captain, Eren Idril. I'm here to deputize your ass for good for all your sneaky attempts to stab me in the back."
Eren chuckled and started walking around the creature with his arms behind his back. He was observing the creature like it was some sculpted statue of intricate details carved upon its surface.
"And oh yeah. One way or the other, I'm gonna nail Altashia. Imagine that. Imagine is all you can do anyway. Since you won't stay alive after tonight. Haha!"
Eren said when he circled back to his previous position, facing the creature in front of him. Sid looked like he was trying to piece things together. When it did, it released another angry roar as its size expanded some more.
Roar!
The flesh of Sid's body started stretching way past its elastic limit. It wasn't long before his overgrown muscles were ripped out of the thin layer of skin that was holding them together.
As the butcher continued to spew venom under his Domain of Wrath, Sid's anger was pushed beyond the limit. Finally, his body burst into a million pieces of flesh, blood, bones and more. The butcher was ready for the implosion from the beginning. He had cast a thin layer of non-elemental mana in front of him to save himself from getting drenched in Sid's remains.
A pure flame of wrath was seen floating where Sid's body was. The guy was always angry at Eren from the moment he showed up. The butcher adding oil to that fire was what made the flame even more refined than it was supposed to be.
Eren welcomed the flames of wrath on his open right palm. He closed his eyes and let the flame get absorbed by his flesh.
Eren felt like his entire body had been set on fire. But he didn't feel threatened by it. He welcomed the feeling because of the effects he was producing inside his body.
His mana core started spinning at a rapid rate. His mana circuits started expanding and making new mana pathways. He realized that his ranking status was improving at a remarkable pace.
A dense cloud of Ace rank mana appeared and surrounded Eren. He soon broke through into the liquid stage of the Ace rank and kept climbing. But that was not all the gains he was digesting at the time.
Way of lightning!
Sid was a lightning-element user just like him. He had attained a sufficient level of mastery for his level in a different aspect of lightning. Now the butcher was digesting Sid's gains and making them his own.
Eren's body was coated in purple lightning all this time. Now streams of red lightning bloomed amid the mana cloud. One could see that Eren's eyeballs were still moving under the closed eyelids as he processed Sid's accomplishments.
Lightning's destructive aspect!
Eren was always familiar with the speed aspect of lightning. Throughout his previous timeline, he honed and perfected that part of his element as he rose to higher ranks. However, this time, his lightning acquired a new property.
Eren's gains didn't stop there either.
The butcher also received the soul of the red lightning bull from Sid, which was his contract beast. Since Eren knew how the beast contract spell worked, he subconsciously executed the spell and let it create a tattoo over his left chest peck.
Bellow!
A bull's bellow sounded in the surroundings as the beast got a new owner. Ideally, it shouldn't have been possible to get a contract beast even if you kill the original owner. But Eren's ability from the Sins series broke that common sense.
The bull retracted into its new home. For once, it seemed happy that it was free from its previous abusive owner. It didn't care if the new owner was more evil than Sid. It just wanted to be treated better by its owner now that it had been subjected to the fate of servitude.
Eren still had his eyes closed. He was in an epiphany-like state at this moment. But he wasn't having a conversation with the world's mana. This was an epiphany given to him by Sid's life experiences as a ranker. The butcher also received some of his memories along with his experiences.
Eren subconsciously smiled as he processed Sid's memories. He came to know that the guy had the same designs on him too. He was just preparing to use some veteran blacklisted bounty hunters to pull it off.
Eren opened his eyes after a while and took a long breath. He then looked at his hands before executing his go-to spell.
Blitz Bolt!
This time, the spell's feel was different from what he was familiar with. A red flash of lightning danced on the tip of his fingers. His arm was covered in red lightning streaks too.
Blitz Steps!
Eren used his movement spell with his newly gained red lightning element. In the next moment, the ground beneath him cracked more than usual, creating a spider-web-like small crater under each of his feet.
Eren realized that the red lightning wasn't suitable for his movement spell. His purple lightning did a better job while causing less damage to the surroundings.
But he was also sure that the red lightning would enhance the damage output of all his offensive spells without him sending his mana circuits to hyperdrive or overdrawing on his mana core.
"Perfect!"
