I found the Kurimao easily because of its strong scent of blood that stuck to it from hunting too much. Its blood l.u.s.t must be driving it insane. It was prowling the forest and had to chase after it. This time I did not fly but ran. I haven"t used my full speed in running ever since I got here so I want to try what happens when I do it as well.

The basic thing that would probably happen is that my clothes would catch fire. I have a lot of spare clothes so it"s not a problem. I made an initial movement of running and then willed myself to run at full power. The effect was amazing.

The whole world turned silent and I mean totally silent. Not even a sound could be heard in this state. There were lamps that had insects swarming over it but the insects were not moving at all. The lamps here use magic so they don"t have fluctuations unlike fluorescent. The insects were stationary in mid-air which gave me the feeling of being the only person in the world.

The stall-shop keepers had mouths open wide as if shouting, their veins in the neck showing. Those who were trying to cut something on the chopping board had their hands stay in mid-air.

I am currently just jogging. I"m not even moving that fast just normal jogging, but they are already like this. I wonder what would happen if I wanted to run.

Anyway, I jogged towards the direction where I could smell the strongest scent of blood from. This kind of slow motion is actually cool for instant moments but if it lasts for as long as I"m moving at this speed then this is not fun. I"ll still be running at full speed towards the destination then, it"s not worth it for traveling. Yep, let"s stick to flying huh?

However, that"s a decision meant for later. Losing focus on the surroundings actually deactivated the slow motion world and instead made it flow so fast that only my sight was strained just to keep myself from crashing on trees.

Well this is better. It seems that having all of my senses on overdrive makes the world go into super slow motion even when I don"t actually move huh? Let"s take note of that for later.

The Kurimao was still gorging itself on prey that it caught freshly. A type of deer that had two heads. I arrived on the spot it was feeding and immediately sent the strongest punch I could dish out with my current self.

I gathered force in my fist and imitated my favorite caped-baldy"s signature move. Putting my right foot forward in a step along with the fist"s throw directing force from my feet towards my fist giving rise to even more power from the momentum it brought. The Kurimao was still unaware of my presence but finally when the air pressure that built up behind it raged, it turned around baring its fangs or in this case its face.

*shaaaa*

It wanted to hit my arm with its claw in response to counterattack however; it was too late for anything as my fist is not something that can be stopped easily when unleashed in full. I even imitated some anime moves for this punch. I"d really be embarra.s.sed if this did not make impact.

*BOOM* *RUMBLE* *CRUMBLE*

A giant dust cloud rose behind Kurimao"s body with the impact of the collision between my fist and its body.

The Kurimao was still alive even with that and it was still trying to turn into mist. I wonder if it can. I already saw it turn into mist earlier when its whole body crumbled after being hit though, so if it can still go ahead and regenerate I"ll just give it another shot. Let"s freeze the thing then.

Inhaling a lot of air into my body, I blew it towards the Kurimao with as narrow an opening in my mouth as possible. Everyone knows on earth that if you open your mouth wide and breathe out the air it produces is warm while if you make the opening as little as possible then the air breathed out would be cold. Well I think that"s the essence of Superman"s cold breath so this is going to be the first time I"m using this.

I could have Isaac make a run for his money with this ability I have. He can freeze through magic; I can freeze through simply breathing, just awesome.

The Kurimao immediately turned into a lump of ice sculpture when I finished breathing on it. It"s not the ice-covered kind but the statue kind instead. I think even its blood had been frozen plus all that breath blew away the dust cloud behind the Kurimao"s body revealing what"s behind.

Whoa!

The sight behind the Kurimao"s body is something that I did not expect. Did that punch really not just imitate the form and stance but also the power behind it?

The once overgrown with thick-trunked trees forest had a spherical shape opening directly at the center of where the punch was received by the Kurimao. As if a big a.s.s mouth got a huge bite off of the forest.

"Whoa! This is Awesome, this is too cool! I am very pleased to have made this discovery. I can actually remodel the land if I wished to with this amount of power right?" I mumbled out of astonishment.

The child in me resurfaced just seeing that awesome scene being reproduced by my own hands which is cause for celebration.

Knocking over the frozen Kurimao, it broke into pieces and then for good measure I boiled the remains with some heat manipulation and voila, problem resolved.

I should report to Kangkuro and start heading out towards the Swamp lands that nests the Lord of the Swamps itself, Agamemkeru.

I simply flew off this time to not waste any more time in experiments. Thus, I arrived in Atbangkeru in less time than I had taken earlier.

Arriving at the gates I descended and started walking towards his office when I heard some chatter by the local demons.

{Have you heard? The hero that"s been summoned to be the representative in the upcoming Racial Battle Royale to be held at the center of the continent where the borders of all the realms meet, Hark, the river that connects all, has already gone out from the dungeon after finishing the training to get used to the rules of this world. I hear the Hero"s power levels are off the charts this time and even the emperor himself would get a run for his money if they were to face each other in mortal combat.}

{Eh? They said the Hero was a she, not a he though?}, said another gossip.

{That can"t be! I hear that the hero was a big man that stands 9 feet tall and has biceps as thick as my body and I"m fat!}, another one added in.

All this talk about heroes, if I remember correctly, the six G.o.ds summoned heroes to fight for them and be their champion right?

I may have some change of plans after remembering this bit of important information.

After listening to the gossip, I continued down the road towards the office and observed various scenes that played out in front of me. A pickpocket successfully lifting someone"s purse, a thug beating up some other thug and my favorite scene, a thug bullying a damsel; in this case three thugs surrounding a damsel.

The damsel though looked nothing like a demon and instead looked more human if not for the goat horn she has on her head. Other than that, she"s a shapely woman with utterly desirable face. I"m impartial to women, or so I want to be. She"s hot I admit so I have a very strong inclination to save her. However, looking at her stats and those thugs around her, I reckon she"s just trouble. She has the same affiliation to the rest of the guys surrounding her. Too bad, I might have helped if she was genuinely distressed.

{Help, please, help!} She called out. Out of my curiosity I maintained eye contact with her and her eyes told me not to come. There was hesitation there that I saw. So maybe it"s not too late to investigate? Dammit, I"m in a hurry, what am I doing?

I"m complaining to myself but my feet were already moving towards that scene where the men were extending their paws towards her goodies. I don"t like the "forced" genre so please spare me from this drama.

"{Please, release her. I"ll compensate you for the trouble if you do.}" Demon tongue would have been hard to understand with all the phlegm you have to p.r.o.nounce each time you utter a word. I"ll spare you the details.

{What"s this punk think he"s doing? Go teach him a lesson. Our business simply doesn"t let others dip their hands and ruin our clientele.} I wonder what he"s talking about but the situation calls for some kind of beating. I might kill them at this state; I don"t want to cause trouble just yet.

"{Fellows, please be calm. Let"s not escalate this incident more than how it should be. Release the girl and I"ll hand you something to help grease your hands, how about 20 gold?}" Trying to make them give up using gold would only get them excited and would want to take advantage. Surely, that Chinese idiom saying "give an inch, they"d want a mile" would apply here.

{20? That"s not going to be enough. 50 would more likely wet our hands more and release the woman, chump.}

Ugh. Why"s there a typical robbery by people of the same organization here?

"{Okay 50 it is. Just don"t hurt the lady.}" I slowly took coins from my pocket, even though there isn"t anything there; I just use my storage secretly and then extended my hands to show them the money. After which, the thugs gave smiles as wide as the gap between the heavens and the earth; okay that"s too much of an exaggeration, so just imagine thugs smiling with their ugly mugs.

One of them slowly took steps to claim their prize so I just stood there as if I was a little lamb. It"s not every day that I get to act like some helpless chap. Come-on; I have a lot of expectations from you guys. Like for example, I expect you guys to take the money but because of your hubris you would hit the woman once and get a good laugh at it, then of course I"d act angry and charge at you. Of course you"d expect that and then you"d kill me and take away my remaining gold on me. Greed, as expected would turn out this way every f.u.c.king time.

And so the one who took the gold from my hand was a snake-head with dark-green scale, and I really can"t distinguish between the snakes" faces from the last few I saw except their colors. Problem is their colors aren"t unique to them. A~nd I"ve been thinking to myself excessively for a bit now.

*chuckle*

Once he gave it to the one holding the woman, he gave a chuckle and licked his lips as if gold was delicacy; typical. He then violently hit the woman to knock her away from him and get closer to me. She"s part of them but she can still be saved from this, I saw it in her eyes, the hesitation and concern that she"ll be used to get another victim. I wonder what"s gripping her so bad that she had to resort to dealing with these thugs.

{Ah!} She exclaimed from the pain and then she was on the ground. Time to act I guess.

"{b.a.s.t.a.r.d! I said don"t hurt her! I"ll kill you!}" Ohhh~ I"m not so bad at acting myself.

{What"s this- } the leader of the thugs mumbled but then a smile on his face can be seen in plain sight. As expected he"s eyeing the gold that could be in my pockets that are left.

{Hey stop him!} He said as I charged towards him and then he made eye contact with the other two thugs and they understood as if practiced and drew their weapons to attack me from the back and kill me.

I guess this really is going to turn out like I expected huh? Time to end this,

"{It"s been fun little thugs, now if you just died quietly I would be very thankful.}" Whispering that, the woman heard me I think, because she showed a very surprised expression or that she did not expect the other two behind me to draw their weapons, either way, they"re the ones that"ll die first.

I turned towards the two behind me in super slow motion as I fully activated my every sense. The snake-head was the first to approach me as he was near the guy who held the woman earlier to give the gold, so he has a head-start. Something good can also be said here, like, "being first is not always good" or something along those lines.

Let"s see, if I just pluck their heads away from their bodies, that"d be too b.l.o.o.d.y and the woman might scream her lungs out. Let"s just mess them up inside and kill them that way huh? The easiest and fastest way to do that would be to use the palm instead of the fists isn"t that right kung-fu?

I took a slapping motion and slowly walked towards the snake-head and moved his body to have his back facing a wall. I wouldn"t want the body to go towards the stalls just behind me. I then gave him a very light slap in the stomach and left him, going towards the other one. This guy had a lizard"s face without horns, unlike the Skyrim variety huh, or maybe he just couldn"t customize his appearance? Fufufu. As he was already facing the wall, I just tapped him lightly with my palm to the stomach as well.

Now for the leader-thug, I can"t kill him since he just might answer my questions you know. First let"s take the woman into our arms.

*BANG* *BAM*

Coming out of the super slow motion world, the sound of walls getting hit strongly resounded and the two demons got planted on each side of the wall. The commotion outside either did not allow for the people to hear or they are just very good at ignoring situations like this, either way, business was continuing.

The leader-thug had his eyes opened so wide that it was threatening to come out of its sockets.

"{Hey, I"m going to ask you questions now, and depending on your answer, you would either lose a limb or lose a finger. So answer me clearly and truthfully okay?}" I said to him trying to intimidate him, of course Overpower"s pa.s.sive effect is in play so it"s very effective.

{Hiii!} He stepped back three times and fell down on his b.u.t.t as I approached him step by step with the woman on my arms.

"{Okay, test drive. Do you want to kill me?}" I gave him a good glare saying that. Of course as expected, he"d answer me to save his life. Although that answer would be, {N-No, of course not!}… A big fat lie.

Entering super slow motion, I released the woman in the air and slowly walked towards the guy. I plucked one finger away from his right hand, bone and all. Then took my previous position of holding the woman in my arms, thereafter, coming out of super slow motion.

{Argh!} He screamed. For a wolf-head he really screams instead of a howl huh? His scream was like a burst of water from a tightly capped pressurized container. It hurt my sensitive ears.

"{I told you, you"ll lose a limb or a finger depending on your answer, so don"t give me c.r.a.p that I want to hear and instead bank on the truth so that you go free from this pain already. I am needed elsewhere you see.}" I gave him a warm smile that would look like a Noh"s mask if one would ever see one. Those things are creepy as s.h.i.t to stare at.

"{So, let"s try again, let me ask; what kind of hold do you have against this woman?}" I got straight to the point from just a finger. He will believe that I am in hurry and that I need a believable answer from him so that he"d be free, is what I"d expect him to be thinking.

{S-She"s in debt with us. So we had her work for her debt, that"s it!} He must really think that I"m an easy to fool rich person. Surely he"s realized that with my kind of strength I"d probably have more evil means under my sleeves, right? It"s p.i.s.sing me off that he still doesn"t understand his predicament.

{Ack!}

"{I told you already… so don"t test my patience and tolerance. I can"t tolerate bulls.h.i.t and such, just another heads up.}" I took his left limb and cauterized it in a blink of an eye while speaking. It"s not a normal wound since plucking a whole arm would take the base and maybe some part of the shoulders so I imagine that to hurt so much. No, in fact I have experienced it one time already and it hurt like a b.i.t.c.h. That would explain why he"s rolling on the ground wailing and screaming with tears and snot on his face, OH, he"s also drooling by the way. Ew.

{Puh-Puh-Pweesh shtoph. Aih, Aih-}

"{Stop}" I stopped him from speaking because I frigging could not understand what he was saying.

"{Calm your nerves and let"s try again. I want to understand what you"re going to say to avoid you saying, "I explained but you could not understand" which would be unfair right?}"

*Toss*

I tossed him a potion to take away the pain he was feeling. It"s not strong enough to regrow limbs like the pill, so this one"s okay.

After drinking the pot, he began breathing, slowly, in a calm and normal way.

"{Have you calmed down now? Let"s go, answer me truthfully now.}" I gave him a look. I really don"t have all day, but for this kind of fun, I would delay everything I guess? Fufufu.

{W-We have her daughter in our custody. S-She"s unharmed just that she will be made to work for their debt if the mother cannot pay for it. I can take you to her if you want.} Now he"s speaking like it"s the truth. Of course he could have just given us directions, but it"s easier if he takes me there himself.

"{Okay, I believe you. So you"ll take us to your hideout and I will meet with whoever the boss is and you will release both mother and child from their debt. Okay? No start walking.}" It would get boring if he still tries to lie to me by this point and I just might kill him if I get even more annoyed that this.

"{How are you doing? You"ve been really quiet since earlier Miss.}" the woman is named Asha, her stats are all banking on the Rare level just like the normal demon citizens huh. I"m really curious how they could lose to humans even with their numbers when in this city alone they can mount an offensive and annihilate a city or two just using the ordinary citizens. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.

"{My name is Clay, how about you?}" I gave her a smile but her eyes still has this look as if she doesn"t want me involved. Is it because I am going to the hideout to make a deal with the boss of these thugs?

"{Don"t worry. I won"t let anything more happen to you or your daughter. I promise.}" Here I go again making promises. Tsk. Women are dangerous. Really! So to all the men out there; don"t be suckers for hot chicks. Find an ugly b.i.t.c.h and love her truly, because even if she leaves you, you won"t cry.