The guards didn't waste a single minute in encircling them. The other demons snarled, whether at the guards or at the humans, Rey couldn't tell. It could even be both. He was sure their smell was quite thoroughly covered. Only a Sniffer could sniff them out, which meant either that each group had at least one or even more than one. With the amount of ruckus they had been creating, he wouldn't be surprised if there was a whole platoon of them in each group.

  It didn't take them long to encircle them all. Rey quickly used Identify on all that he could see. Most of them were around Rank 7, with some Rank 8 and 9 spread among the group. The guard captain, Brudiel, was also Rank 9, which was good, if not great. Once they made it through this fight, all of them would bump up a Rank. This would be ideal, but it was a high-risk, high-reward situation.

  His friends had been in so many situations like these that they weren't worried at all. They stared the demons in the eyes, making sure they knew they were looking at their deaths. As the demons surrounded them, they stood back to back, forming a circle, leaving no blind spots. He couldn't be prouder of them.

  If worst came to worst, he could create a Gravity's Domain, and that would be goodnight for the demons, but if he did that every time they fought, then his friends wouldn't grow. And he needed them to grow at a rapid pace.

  "Surrender and your deaths will be quick," Brudiel said. "Fight, and we will strip the flesh off your bones."

  "Yeesh, I surrender." Rey held out his hands. "Take me prisoner, oh big, strong, boar demon."

  He squinted his eyes, but didn't make a move. None of them did.

  "What? Are you worried that I will retaliate and fight back? Trust me, pal, I know when I'm beat. I'll take a quick death any day of the week over being ripped apart."

  Brudiel motioned to a soldier. "Tie them up. Bring the women to the prince's harem. I'm sure he would like a taste."

  "What is it with you demons and SA-ing everything that moves?" Rey shook his head. He activated Gravity's Kiss, and the demon that was coming forward with chains to tie them up was dragged off his feet and impaled himself on Rey's scythe.

  "The deal's off," Rey stated and then frowned at the demon's expression. "What? You said you would give us easy deaths, but no one talked about that. You should've told us that in the first place."

  Filomena shot a lightning bolt at the demon beside Brudiel, who was blasted back into the soldiers behind him, dropping them all. "Sorry, this horse rides for only one man."

  "Well, that concludes negotiations," Kassi stated.

  "Kill them!" Brudiel yelled.

  "Then aren't you giving us quick deaths, anyway?" Ajay called.

  Rey blocked the spear thrust of a demon before spinning his scythe and taking him in the abdomen. "You're trying to use logic on demons, that's like trying to teach a rock calculus."

  The first of the demons reached Rey. Since he was running relatively low on Mana, he would need to make do with his trusty scythe and use his gravity skills sparingly. So, it was back to the old school days, where he was forced to become a master swordsman because he would squirt out three lightning bolts before his little gun ran dry.

  If only Kassi had given me the bright idea to take the Gravity Element last time, I would have dog walked the brothers at the end.

  There was nothing to it. Since the Maker or one of his boys had sent him back in time to redo everything again and set things right, no matter what Fate said, after all, he was only Fate, what did he know?

  He ducked under the sword of another demon and slammed his scythe into his thigh. The demon cried only for two seconds before Rey ripped his scythe out of the demon's thigh and jammed it in his chest. The next one tried to take off Rey's arm, but he found out the hard way that Rey was faster than it. Much, much faster.

  Not just him but his entire group might as well be running on easy difficulty. They were mowing down demon after demon like they were toddlers meant to be yeeted off the swing. If he hadn't gotten bored with staying in one place, he would've stayed back at the grove to train longer. After all, they still had half a year remaining.

  Rey blocked another sword blow on his shaft—the scythe's shaft, to be precise. He hadn't gotten stronger enough to block sword blows on his personal shaft. Though at the rate he was going, that time would come soon enough.

  As it turned out, his scythe shaft hadn't been completely fixed. Wood couldn't stand up to iron, no matter how rusted it was. He needed to upgrade his scythe as soon as possible. He punched the demon in the head with all his might and caved his skull in, leaving a nice little imprint of his fist in the demon's grotesque face.

  He was once again getting so many notifications that he feared that he would get vertigo, but thankfully, they weren't coming as rapidly as they had when he became a mass murderer for the fifth time.

  Was it my fifth time or was it the sixth?

  It wasn't his first rodeo at killing demons by the dozens. His best feat was when he got drunk and killed the entire town whose name he couldn't even remember a month later. If he continued as he was right now, he would reach those numbers, maybe in a year. There was a part of him that couldn't wait to get there, and Rey knew precisely which part of him that was.

  Demon Rey cackled in the background. You really should let me take over.

  Rey contemplated that for a moment, and in doing so got himself nicked in the ribs. It wasn't too bad that it made him unable to fight, but it still hurt like a motherfucker. The first thing he did was rip out the throat of the demon that had hurt him, then he unleashed Demon Rey.

  Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

  Rey laughed. "Finally!"

  From the corner of his eye, he noticed Kassi look his way, as that 'finally' had come out in his demon voice. Rey did his best to avoid meeting her gaze. Then unleashed his demon side into a gory dance of blood and screams.

  He spun like death itself, reaping heads and limbs as if he were making a garland out of them. If he were a demon, he probably would've done it too. The whole thing was a bloodbath that even his friends cringed at. The soldiers tried to run away, but one Gravity Orb, and they were spinning in the air, just waiting for their turn to be sliced and diced. He pretended to be a lumberjack, cutting the demons down to size.

  No demon wanted to fight him, but that was out of their hands. Rey killed whom he wanted to kill. He fought with so much reckless abandon that he received many cuts and bruises, but he dished out ten times worse than he received.

  He fought so hard that he had left his friends behind and found himself surrounded by the enemy. They encircled him, thinking they had him. Rey let out his maniacal, Joker-esque laugh and hit them with a massive Repulsion wave, blasting them away. Then he fell on them with extreme prejudice. He dragged them on the ground as he ripped them to shreds, followed by crushing them in Gravity Orbs. Their screams alone were enough to make some of them run away, but they were more scared of Razgorel than they were of Rey.

  I'll change that up, soon enough.

  He had killed enough Rank 8s that he was sure he was getting close to the next rank; if not now, then he would get there before this day was done. He found that the demons had encircled him again; he cackled, and just as he was about to hit them with another Repulsion, they stepped aside. Out of the circle stepped their leader, Brudiel, with a vicious grin on his face.

  "You fight like a demon," Brudiel said.

  "Thank you," Rey replied.

  What the fuck! Snapped Demon Rey, having been stuffed back in the box.

  He had done his bit. He needed to take a nap now and let Rey do his thing. After all, he was enjoying himself far too much. Rey didn't want to get himself lost in the bloodlust…anymore than he already had.

  "So, it's your turn next?" Rey asked.

  Brudiel swung his spear around. It swished it in the air, spraying blood on the ground. Rey immediately looked to his friends, hoping they were okay. He could burn through the rest of his Mana and get back to them, but then he would be defenseless.

  Brudiel laughed. "No, human. It's yours."

  "Please tell me you are a Sniffer," Rey stated. "I just get such a thrill from killing Sniffers, it's almost orgasmic."

  "You are crazy enough to be a demon yourself," Brudiel said.

  "Oh, you have no idea how close to the mark you are. So, can we do this now?"

  The demon walked in circles and lunged forward at full speed. He was fast, but Rey had fought faster, namely Aearbon, who was much quicker than this boar.

  Rey caught his spear with the inside edge of his scythe, swung the spear around in a circle, and smashed his scythe on his snout, leaving a nice, long cut along his face. He would always be thankful to Neriath for giving his scythe an outer edge as well.

  Brudiel stumbled back, but the demons behind him didn't let him fall. They helped him stand upright. He huffed and pushed them off, obviously angry that he needed any help at all, in front of their enemy.

  He grunted like a boar. With his spear held straight, he charged. Rey waited until he was close enough, then he sidestepped and stuck his foot out, tripping the boar. He went face-first into his demons on the other side. Some of them even laughed, and Rey accompanied them.

  Brudiel snapped up in an instant, and Rey quieted.

  "Hey, it was your own men, not me," Rey quickly added.

  Brudiel was pissed. All the veins on his face and arms snapped outward, and he hurled his spear at Rey. He sidestepped the spear, but in doing so, he didn't realize that the demon was coming for him. He avoided the spear but couldn't avoid the guard captain's fist. It sent Rey staggering to the side. In that moment, the boar demon somehow snatched his spear back and jabbed it in Rey's leg with a roar.

  Rey grunted in pain. Brudiel grabbed Rey's jaw and brought it closer to his ugly mug.

  "The jokes end now." He thrust his spear deeper. It was deep enough that Rey was sure it was sticking out the other end.

  "Damn, you really need to invest in some mouthwash," Rey retorted. "Also, the jokes never end, and P.S, I'm going to kill you now."

  He back-handed the spear, breaking it in half. He left the blade in his thigh, or he would bleed too much. It was already screaming bloody murder. Brudiel stumbled forward, Rey dropped his scythe, yanked his dagger out of his sheath, and shanked the demon three times in the ribs. Then he activated a Gravity Orb on his head, setting it to fifty percent gravity.

  The guard captain screamed and clawed at his face, trying his best to rip it off, but there was no playing with gravity. His head crumpled in a matter of seconds.

  [+1 Dexterity]

  [+1 Magic Affinity]

  [You killed a Demon (Exiled) – E+9]

  Rey bent down to pick up his scythe, but pain erupted in his thigh. He cried out and almost tripped as he tried to put weight on his injured leg.

  "Okay, that is not going to work," Rey said to himself, but the demons took that invitation to attack.

  He was ready to blast them away when he heard a roar that made the demons shit their pants. Hell, he knew the roaring Tigerman was on his side, and even still, he had to clench his asshole to not soil his pants.

  Aearbon jumped over the demon's ranks, and he was carrying someone. The Tigerman studied him, and his eyes landed on his thigh.

  "You are injured," Aearbon stated the obvious.

  "I need the tiger cab as well," Rey replied.

  Without a moment's hesitation, Aearbon picked him up, as if he were a kid, hefted him over his shoulder, and roared once more to tell the demons that it was time to get out of the way or he would do what nine-foot-tall Tigermen did best.

  "Oh, hey, pretty woman, do you hang here often?" He asked the occupant of Aearbon's other shoulder.

  "No, it's my first time. My boyfriend got us into this mess with the demons, and now he owes me a new bow," Kassi replied.

  "Damn, he must be one lucky guy to have bagged a babe like you."

  "Can you two please not do this in my ear, while I'm trying to save us?" Aearbon said.

  The two of them laughed, and Rey noticed that Ajay and Filomena were not following them. The only thing coming after them was a horde of demons.

  "Where are the star-crossed lovers?" Rey asked.

  Kassi's face fell. "We lost them in the fighting. I didn't see them get captured or killed, but I don't know what happened to them…"

  "Neither did I," Aearbon added.

  Rey's anger bubbled up to the surface. He activated a giant Gravity Orb in the path of the rushing demons and put its gravity at two hundred percent. It crushed the demons like they were grapes. His mood was so spoiled that even the final notification didn't improve it.

  [You have gained one rank. You are now at E Tier Rank 9.]

  [You gain 1 Talent Point, 1 Free Stat Point, and +1 to all Stats.]

  There was only one thought on his mind. Fate had course-corrected and finally killed them off.