Rey was running on the roofs of the huts when a dumbass part of him told him to stand and fight. He told that part of him to kindly shut the fuck up. If he stood and fought two Sniffers, one of whom was Wolfzilla, he was not making out of the fight, especially since they both had two ranks on him, and who knew what classes they had.

  He jumped down from the roof into an alley just as the two reached the zenith of their flight and started their landing procedures. Now that he was safe, he realized he could have activated Gravity's Domain under them, making their fall even harder.

  Good job, Rey, but next time, think of this shit on the spot. Not when you are three streets away.

  It took about a minute more when he heard the two Sniffers crash through the hut. There were some startled cries as the hut's owners weren't expecting two additional and uninvited guests. There was some commotion, but Rey was gone before he could figure out why the residents were mad.

  He was far enough away that he had a few moments to think through his next steps. Wolfie had his scent now, which meant that he couldn't even hide and play it safe. He would know where Rey was, no matter where he tried to hide. But that didn't mean he couldn't ambush them anymore. He just needed a solid plan.

  A plan formed in his head. Something he had used multiple times in the past, and to great effect. After everyone else perished and he was left alone, he used this method to kill many higher-ranked demons that tried to make a meal of him, but ended up in Rey's belly instead.

  But for it to work, he needed a place with a wide-open area and someplace where there wouldn't be any bystanders to witness what he was about to do. With the demons knowing there was a human in town, he needed to take this fight outside and do it in such a fashion that everyone knew where he was going.

  So, he did the most natural thing. He drew a deep breath and shouted. "I'm a human and I'm running away from the Sniffers."

  He repeated that all the time as he ran down the lane. Demons stepped out of their houses to see what the commotion was about. After all, they wouldn't give up the chance to feed on a human soul. It was the rarest delicacy in Hell.

  A demon jumped at him, and Rey skewered him through with his scythe.

  [You killed a Demon (Exiled) – E+3]

  Seriously, what glitch dumped your squishy ass here?

  He wasn't being mean either. That demon belonged in the forest, not in here. They would make a meal of this thing here. It was a good thing Rey came when he did, or this weak ass chump would've continued to hide in this horrid, quaint town. Now, he would at least be filling up the belly of some of his fellows, which happened almost instantly. The ones who had come out of their homes to see the human had forgotten all about him and jumped on their neighbor's corpse right away.

  It worked out perfectly for him as he needed them distracted and clogging up the streets to let him set up his trap, which wasn't that sophisticated to think of.

  He turned into a tight alleyway and 'tripped', falling to the ground.

  Now, my watch begins.

  It didn't take the Sniffers long to find him. It was just as Rey had predicted, okay, maybe he thought they would take a smidge longer, but no one would know that. After all, it wasn't as if he could see this particular future.

  In the past, he ran from any Sniffers at first sight. There was no point in fighting them, even if they did have lots of great gear and resources in their satchels. However, now he had all the reasons. These people were intruding on his precious side-quest.

  "Oh no, you found me." Rey shivered as the demons appeared on each end of the street.

  The werewolf was coming from the front, while the Leather Coat was coming from behind him.

  Rey crawled away from them until his back hit the wall of a mud hut that looked to have been abandoned and was crumbling. Loose sand fell on Rey, but neither of them found that odd. He had to stop the urge to smile.

  Leather Coat drew his sword. It was a thing of beauty. Well, it wasn't like an elvish blade from the Lord of the Rings movies, but from a demon standard; it was pretty good. Its serrated blade would've been enough to make any self-respecting human shit his pants. His partner, however, kept his sword in its sheath, for he didn't need it. His claws would've been enough.

  "Yes," Leather Coat said. "You killed our partner."

  "No, that wasn't me," Rey said. "He did that all on his own. I just helped clear the blade that was stuck in his gut."

  "Oh, you think you're funny, do you?"

  "A little bit."

  "Enough," barked the werewolf. "No matter what you did. Your crime of being a human is enough to condemn you."

  "Okay, that's not very nice."

  Rey had made sure he had dropped his scythe far away in his attempt to escape from the demons. Wolfie kicked it out of his path. It skidded across the ground and got wedged in the mud wall. That should've been a little concerning, but maybe it wasn't so bad.

  I should be worried, but honestly, I've seen raccoons do worse.

  The demons closed in on him like a pair of hungry toddlers who just spotted an unguarded cake. Then, when they were around ten feet from him, they both face planted into the ground. Rey stood with no difficulty at all. Well, there was a little difficulty; he was still getting used to seventy percent gravity.

  "W-what is this?" snapped the werewolf, as he struggled to get back on his feet.

  The other humanlike demon wasn't having any luck either. Rey casually walked past the wolf and retrieved his scythe. He could've used Attraction, but then it would've been a waste of his Mana.

  He needed the Mana to maintain the Gravity Domain and keep these two locked down. Unlike their partner, he wasn't going to waste time with goading anyone else. He needed to finish them off quickly, or they might have some ability that might rob them of his senses like the Black Hand.

  Rey sighed internally. I'll be complaining about not knowing his name even on my deathbed. An unidentified fuckface lodging himself in my mental underwear forever.

  Once he had his scythe, he turned towards the demons, and what he saw was not good. The werewolf was on his hands and knees, and frothing at the mouth as he struggled to get up. But that was not all. He was multiplying in size. His back was getting bigger, and his fur was growing in thicker and coarser.

  While the other demon was nowhere to be found, the only thing that Rey saw in its place was a hole in the ground about three feet in diameter.

  Did he dig his way out?

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  If so, then why didn't he hear anything? This was getting close to out of hand. The only thing that kept Rey from panicking was his confidence in his overpowered skills. Though it was his overpowered confidence that got him killed the first time around.

  The werewolf had pushed himself to his knees now and, at any moment, would break through, his Gravity's Domain. To ensure that didn't happen, he upped the gravity to one hundred percent. To his credit, the half-wolf demon didn't drop to the ground right away. Only his clawed hands smashed to the ground, as it barked or roared or a mixture of the two.

  With the werewolf taken care of, for now. He needed to dig out the other demon, who was playing as a worm.

  Rey didn't have to look for him for long, and he learned two new things. The first thing was that his Gravity's Domain was only surface-level. It didn't penetrate the ground and only increased the gravity for things above the domain and not below it, because that's why the other demon had escaped by burrowing under the ground.

  How had he burrowed under the ground?

  Well, the answer was about to bite Rey in half.

  The demon-like Unokir, Rey's old departed pal, was a shapeshifter. Instead of a dog, the size of a gorilla, this demon could turn into a snake. A huge, anaconda-like snake. Though this one didn't have scales, but humanlike skin, and its very humanlike face was stretched out and lengthened to fit a snake's anatomy, so it made it even more horrendous.

  It hissed as it lunged for Rey. He jumped aside at the last moment, swung his scythe, and left a nice cut along its side. It cried out in a very humanlike voice.

  Oh, fuck! Don't tell me this thing can talk?

  To answer his question, the thing in question did talk. "You fucking mongrel! I'm going to swallow you whole."

  "Y-You better not!" snapped the werewolf. "You do that and our deal is off."

  Rey looked between the two demons and wondered if he could somehow get the two of them to take themselves out.

  "Yes, why don't you figure out amongst yourselves, who is going to eat me, first?" Rey said. "The specifics are important, you know."

  They both snapped their heads at him in a rage.

  Rey shrugged. "Or we can just do it the old-fashioned way—a free-for-all." He dropped the Gravity's Domain from the werewolf. "Come one, come all. Who will get to eat the human first? The masculine, but rage-mad werewolf, or this snake thingy with a hideous face."

  [+1 Magic Power]

  "Rage mad?" The werewolf barked.

  "Grotesque face?" The snake demon snapped.

  Rey shrugged. "Are we fighting, or are we going over the specifics of your demon-ness?"

  They both charged Rey at the same time, and he was amply surprised by their speed, especially the werewolf's. He didn't expect them to be this fast. But then Rey wasn't entirely without his speed either.

  He didn't run for either of them and tried something that he had trained for, under the tree, but never got to try out in battle, until now.

  As he ran, he shot small bursts of Repulsion from under his feet. They were tiny, nothing too great that would propel him into the stratosphere, but enough that it made his stride much longer. It also increased his speed greatly.

  One moment, he was standing, leaning on his scythe, and two moments later, he was swinging his scythe across the werewolf's midsection. He cried and retaliated with his claws, but Rey was gone, already.

  He jumped using Repulsion. This time, he used a little more Mana and cleared nearly fifteen feet, which was about the length of the snake. The demon looked up, and his eyes widened as Rey descended on him with his scythe in a downward swing.

  He tried to slither away in fear, but Rey wasn't about to let him go so easily. He pressed the silver orb in his scythe and activated Gravity's Kiss, making the demon's head attracted to Rey's scythe.

  With his head locked in place. Rey stabbed down with all he had. Neriath was worth every penny and then some. His scythe pierced the demon's head like it was nothing. He smashed his head into the ground, with his scythe buried in it, all the way till the shaft. He was dead long before they touched the ground.

  [+1 Dexterity]

  [+2 Magic Power]

  [+1 Willpower]

  [You killed a Demon (Exiled) – E+7]

  Rey turned a second too late. The werewolf was on him and slashed out at his chest with his claws. Pain erupted in Rey's chest, and he instinctively shot the mutt away with Repulsion as he fell to his knees because of the pain.

  His shirt was torn open, and bloody claw marks marred his chest.

  "Damn, that's going to leave a mark," Rey said, through gritted teeth.

  The wound wasn't entirely deep, but Rey would eventually bleed out if he didn't stop the bleeding. The problem was that he had no time, as the ravaging doggy with a bad case of the fleas was coming at him full tilt, blowing up dust in his wake.

  Rey stayed down, letting him think that he wouldn't be ready for him. When the werewolf lunged for him, Rey activated Attraction and slammed him into the wall of the nearby hut. The werewolf smashed through the wall, and the mud hut crumbled on top of him.

  Rey waited with abated breaths. He would be a fool to think that was enough to take the werewolf out.

  It was not.

  The debris rumbled and then burst apart. Wolfie roared as he jumped, body and fur dusty as if he had just a desert snake dust him all over with his love powder. He raced towards Rey on all fours. This had gone on long enough. He didn't have much Mana left, and it wasn't like he had an infinite amount of blood.

  He activated Attraction and made the demon attract towards the hut he had just destroyed, then used Attraction again to pull him towards the other side as well. Essentially, he was suspended in mid-air with his arms and legs outstretched as he was pulled in two opposing directions.

  He fought against the invisible force that held him captive. Rey was about to use his scythe to rip him in half, but then why do all that hard work, when he commanded the force that held the universe in place?

  He increased the pull on each side with Attraction. The werewolf's whole body quivered as he struggled.

  "What are you doing to me?" He cried.

  Rey smiled. "Returning the favor."

  The werewolf's exertion slowly turned to screams that echoed throughout the night. Then a small tear started from the left side of his neck and travelled down his chest. Dark blood poured out from his chest as he was slowly ripped apart. Then, with a sickening crunch as his bones gave way and shattered, the werewolf was torn in half.

  [+2 Magic Power]

  [+2 Magic Affinity]

  [+1 Willpower]

  [You killed a Demon (Exiled) – E+7]

  [You have gained one rank. You are now at E Tier Rank 6.]

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

  Rey raised an eyebrow as a slow smile split his face. If I'd known that it would be so easy to gain ranks with my Gravity Element, then I wouldn't have been dreading coming here so much.

  He opened his satchel and quickly drank a portion of a Healing potion. His wound closed, but it left a nice cross-work of scars. If he drank more of the healing potion, the scars would heal as well, but that would be taken care of later, when he reached the higher tiers.

  I wonder if it's better to become a demon now or wait till I get into Hell.

  It wasn't something he had thought about, and if he followed the timeline as much as last time, then he wouldn't be dying anytime soon. Besides, he couldn't just die on his own, or even orchestrate his death. He would have to die naturally, or who knew what would happen. His demon self might not even manifest.

  Fucking Hell and its rule about suicide.

  He put thoughts of becoming a demon out of his mind and focused on more immediate concerns. He looted the bodies of the two demons, collecting their swords and satchels. Now, he had three satchels and the demons' three swords, which he had just now realized were totally pointless for them to carry, as they never ended up using them.

  He shrugged. If they didn't want me to have it, they shouldn't have died so dramatically.

  Plus, three extra satchels were pretty nice as well. He put them all into his own and would rifle through them later. This alley would be swarming with demons any second now. He ran the other way and eventually found his way back to Grixi's.

  The blacksmith was lounging on a rickety chair, half-asleep, and stinking of booze.

  Rey jolted him awake by dropping the swords on the metal table beside him. He jumped up in alarm, ready to swing the bottle at him.

  Rey swiped it from his hand and took a hearty swig. "Ah, that hit the spot."

  Grixi yanked the bottle back. "Go buy yer own, freeloader."

  Rey squinted. "Freeloader? First, I fucking pay you to apprentice under you and then I get these nice, shiny swords for you and I'm the freeloader."

  Grixi's expression immediately changed upon seeing the swords. "You got them back? You might be worth keeping around, after all."

  "Wait? What do you mean, got them back?" Rey demanded.

  "I sold it to them Sniffers last week, and then I saw you, a human sauntering into my shop. So, I think to meself, that maybe this human can get it back for me."

  "Or die trying, so you don't have to teach me anything. Either way, you win." Rey shook his head. "You fucking pig."

  "Oink oink." Grixi cackled. "Now, I can sell it again to who might or might not be a Sniffer."

  "That's the last time, I'm going to kill some Sniffer for you."

  "We'll see…"