Rey and his friends hadn't encountered a group of guards in a few hours, and for some reason, that tingled Rey's spidey sense. It could be nothing, or his sixth sense was screaming at him to run and hide under a box, waiting for a group to show up. Then CQC them, cut off their little wieners, and feed it to them. As much as his demon side would relish in such behaviours, his friends might take that the wrong way.

  So, he decided to do something else. After all, they were in a place where he had all the live subjects he could want. Live subjects that couldn't and wouldn't object to being experimented on.

  They were walking through a back alley, as they mostly did. They had started avoiding the main roads as much as possible, because of Aearbon. The hulking behemoth of a pussy cat was too recognizable. He moved about the open streets camouflaged, basically invisible, but that drew on too much of his Mana. After their stunt at the guard tower, the whole city was under tight surveillance, and word had spread that a towering demon had brought about the destruction of the Tower. Now, this miffed Rey a little, since he did all the hard work and Aearbon took all the credit. It's like he stayed up all night to bake the cookies, and someone else gulped them all down before Rey even had a chance to get a whiff.

  He had planned to test out the extent of his Gravity's Domain skill. He had never gotten around to doing that. He didn't know how far he could push the domain, nor how high he could crank up gravity. So, he would try that now. After all, it was better than doing nothing and strolling through stinky, garbage dumps of back-alleys with street thugs waiting for them. All of whom were about as threatening as a fly with a broken wing.

  He stopped abruptly, and Filomena walked right into his back.

  "Hey, watch it," she said.

  "Thank you," he replied, earning a glare from Kassandra, who was walking beside him. He passed her a calming smile. Man, this girl gets jealous if another woman so much as even touches me, or is it my fault? Nah.

  "Why have we stopped?" Kassandra asked.

  "Because I'm going to flatten this entire neighborhood," Rey declared, earning incredulous looks. "Don't look at me like that. I've already told you guys, we're here to destroy as much shit as we can. We're basically here to break all the princes' buildings like they are Lego."

  "Lego?" Aearbon asked.

  "They are like toys for kids, where they can put them together to make shapes," Ajay explained. "I used to love them as a little kid."

  "That must mean I'm a little kid, because I still love them," Rey said. "Or you just calling me immature?"

  Ajay frowned in confusion. "What? When did I call you anything?

  "Can we focus on the part where you said that you want to destroy this entire neighborhood?" Filomena said.

  "Rey, are you sure about this?" Kassi asked.

  Rey shrugged. "We have nothing better to do. We haven't even come across a Sniffer or a guard all day, let alone wet our blood with their beaks, or is it the other way around? Anyway, so we need to do something to shake up the city. So, I figured, I might as well test out the extent of my skill. So, who's with me?"

  Kassi shrugged. "Now, that you put it that way. It doesn't sound so bad."

  Filomena squinted her eyes at Kassi. "Why do I feel like the longer you're together, the more you're turning into him?"

  Rey gripped Kassi's hand and raised it into the air. "Well, they do say that couples that grow mad together stay together. Just look at the Joker and Harley Quinn."

  Kassi chuckled. "I wouldn't say that's a good example, babe."

  "Hmm, let me think of another. What about—"

  She interrupted him. "Let's just bring this place down first. Maybe we'll draw enough attention our way that we can fight some stronger demons."

  Rey grinned. "Now, you're thinking like me." He rubbed his hands. "Okay, Gravity's Domain, let's test out your game."

  He activated Gravity's Domain with a measly one percent gravity underneath him. He only did one percent because he didn't want the demons to feel its effect, or well, not enough, until it was too late. One percent was so small that most of them shouldn't feel the weight increase, and he could stomp them into the ground, like the boot of God had smited the shit out of them.

  He pushed the domain outwards and away from him. Of course, he couldn't see the end of the domain, but he kept going for a whole minute. If he still hadn't reached the domains' limit after that, then his skill was truly overpowered.

  "Everyone step back five steps, actually make it ten steps," Rey declared, and they followed without question. This put them well out of the domain. "So, how much gravity do you think is needed to bring this motherfucker down?"

  "Two hundred percent," Filomena said.

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  "Maybe close to five," Ajay added.

  "Can you even go that high?" Kassi asked.

  Rey shrugged. "I don't know. I've never tried to go that high. The skill's description never gave an upper limit. So, you guys want to see five hundred percent gravity, then five hundred percent it is. But I think we should step back even more."

  They stepped back until they were entirely out of the alley, then Rey did his magic.

  "Five hundred percent, here we go." He snapped his fingers and was not expecting these results.

  All the buildings shook, the ground began to sink into a crater from their weight, and then, as if an earthquake had rocked the whole place. Then, without warning, every single building in the neighborhood crashed to the ground. Rey was hit with so many notifications that his head swooned. He had to grip onto Kassi's arm to steady himself.

  [+1 Magic Power]

  [You killed a Demon (Exiled) – E+7]

  [You killed a Demon (Exiled) – E+6]

  [You killed a Demon (Exiled) – E+5]

  [You killed a Demon (Exiled) – E+8]

  [You killed a Demon (Exiled) – E+8]

  [You killed a Demon (Exiled) – E+6]

  [+1 Magic Power]

  [You killed a Demon (Exiled) – E+5]

  [You killed a Demon (Exiled) – E+3]

  [+1 Magic Power]

  [You killed a Demon (Exiled) – E+2]

  [You killed a Demon (Exiled) – E+1]

  [You killed a Demon (Exiled) – E+7]

  [+1 Magic Affinity]

  [You killed a Demon (Exiled) – E+8]

  [You killed a Demon (Exiled) – E+7]

  It went on and on. The whole world shook as dust rose into the air. Rey tried to shut off the notifications, but he knew that was next to impossible. It was a good thing they had stepped out of the alley, as the buildings they were standing between crumpled as well. After a whole five minutes, the world stopped shaking. Kassi was saying something, but her voice was drowned out in the rumble of what everyone thought was an earthquake, or in hell's lingo, a hellquake.

  They were commonplace in the Kingdom of Volcanoes, but he had never experienced one in Purgatory. So, this must be a new one for them. Even though the buildings stopped falling, the notifications didn't stop. At this point, he was only standing because Kassi and Ajay were supporting him. He wanted to vomit from this constant stream of words and numbers jammed into his head, but there was one among them that caught his attention.

  [+1 Magic Power]

  [You killed a Demon (Exiled) – E+7]

  [You have gained one rank. You are now at E Tier Rank 8.]

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

  [You killed a Demon (Exiled) – E+8]

  The stream of notifications continued until the buildings finally stopped falling, and the earth no longer shook. All that he could see in front of him was a massive dust plume that rose into the air.

  "Are you okay?" Kassi asked again.

  Rey nodded. "I'm fine, mostly. The stream of notifications just sent me for a spin."

  She hugged him so tight that his ribs would've cracked if he hadn't solidified them by training in a hundred percent gravity.

  "You had me worried." She pulled back. "Are you in Mana Fatigue?"

  He checked, and his Mana had taken a considerable dip. He had lost nearly three-quarters of his Mana, but he had enough left that he wouldn't feel the effects of Mana Fatigue any time soon.

  "No, I'm all good." He cupped her worried face in his hands. "I'm fine, Kassi. It's cause of those notifications. They were a little too much, but hey, I went up a rank because of that."

  She raised an eyebrow as she no doubt used Identify on him. "Well, what do you know? I'm jealous now."

  There was a tap on his shoulder, and Rey looked up to see that it was Ajay. He pointed in the direction of the alley. Rey turned to stare open-mouthed at his handiwork. Nearly two blocks had been levelled into a crater that looked like the handiwork of an invisible meteor. It was like a small nuke had gone off in the neighborhood. There was nothing that was left standing. Demons stood on the edge of the crater and watched in horror, grateful that they could escape this terror attack.

  Rey wasn't one to mince words. It was a terror attack, if he ever saw one, and the best part was, he was the terrorist. Was he happy about what he'd done? A little. Was Demon Rey happy? He was laughing like the maniacal genocidal demon that he was.

  "Remind me, never to get on your bad side," Filomena said.

  "Same here," her boyfriend added.

  Rey turned and placed a hand on each of their shoulders. "I could never hurt you. You're two of my closest friends."

  Filomena shivered. "Why does it sound like a threat when you say it like that?"

  "Rey, I think we should leave." Aearbon pointed to something across the crater. "Or get ready to fight."

  Rey followed his finger and found himself staring at a large contingent of guards who were equally transfixed at the horror that they had just narrowly avoided. But then again, maybe not. Right below them were the crushed bodies of some dozen or so guards. Not all of them had been lucky.

  "They're on the other side too," Kassi pointed to the right.

  "And on the left." Ajay pointed out.

  Each time they did, Rey was sure that this big group of guards wasn't just patrolling the city. He couldn't help but feel that they were there for them. For now, they were watching the horror and the screams coming from the crater. They weren't sure of what to do. Now was the time that Rey and his friends could quietly slip away, but something told him that these three weren't the only groups.

  "So, if they're coming from three directions of the crater, it would only make sense that they would be coming from our side as well," Rey said. "If I were a three-eyed mutant that liked to pleasure his mother, then I would ensure that if I were sending all these guards to take out someone or a group of someones, then I would send them from each direction so they couldn't escape."

  "You're right," said a gruff voice.

  A demon girl that could pass for a human was pushed aside. A meatball of a boar-headed demon, wearing a guard's uniform, stood there. From behind him, a whole company of guards rushed forward, moving to surround Rey and his friends.

  "I am Brudiel," said the demon. "Captain of the sixth guard tower and tasked by His Highness Prince Razgorel to deliver his vengeance upon you for striking against his soldiers."

  Rey looked to his friends. "Well, now we know where they were hiding."

  "There's more than enough for each one of us," Aearbon growled. Even with his voice muffled by the wrappings around his face, he still sounded more manly than that guard captain.

  Rey chuckled. "Looks like the ambushers have been ambushed."