The three tigermen shot off into the opposite mud huts, which promptly crumbled on top of them. There were some cries from the demon as their dinner was probably rudely interrupted by the very people they were hiding from.

  "Have you lost your fucking mind?" Grixi screamed in his ear.

  Rey leaned away from him. "Calm your pecker and stop unloading it in my ear."

  “You just…you just attacked…”

  "A bunch of kittens that have been very naughty," Rey finished for him. "Besides, they hurt my friends, so they have to go."

  "They're going to kill this entire town!"

  Rey had seen some scared demons in his time, but Grixi took the cake. It was like he had turned sober in a hearbeat, and he didn't even thank Rey once.

  "Well, it is infested by demons," Rey countered. "It would be nothing but a makeover, if you ask me."

  Grixi turned on him. "You ingrateful little shit—"

  He never got to finish as he was rudely cut off by the walking nightmares, who jumped out of the collapsed houses, all at once.

  They snarled with their pointy teeth all on display, and they clearly needed to floss and definitely brush, as they were as yellow as the sun.

  The one in the middle stepped forward. "Your life is forfeit."

  "Hey, it wasn't me. It was him." Rey pointed at the blacksmith, who immediately blanched.

  "Wh-What? No, it wasn't. It was him, I swear."

  "You're a demon." Rey shot back. "Only an idiotic half-breed cat monster would believe a demon. And do they look like idiotic half-breed cats to you?"

  No one said anything as if that should've been obvious, but no one wanted to say anything, especially the walking cats, who just glared at Rey as if he was dead meat.

  He probably had bitten off more than he could chew, but he shouldn't have let his intrusive thoughts win. Though the anger that rose in him after he saw Kassandra's dagger could only be rivalled by the anger he felt when he saw Unokir killing off his friends.

  He knew that Kassandra was fine. Ajay had given him proof that she was, and he knew from the past that she had emerged from the skirmish with the tigermen with minimal injuries. But still, he couldn't just let any cat walk all over his ex.

  He quickly used Identify.

  [Baaghror (Exiled) – E+6]

  [Baaghror (Exiled) – E+7]

  [Baaghror (Exiled) – E+6]

  There's a joke in there somewhere...

  The one on the left with a scar over his left shoulder tensed up. Rey didn't have much experience fighting them, for not a lot of them existed outside of Purgatory that weren't demons. Their story was very much like the Vorclaws'. Though there were still some tigers remaining who hadn't fallen to demonhood, while all of the walking, talking lions had.

  The tensed-up Tigerman dashed forward, and Rey was genuinely surprised at his speed. It was almost like one moment, he was standing beside his leader, and the next, he was lunging for Rey.

  But Rey wasn't so slow that an attack like that would do him in.

  [+1 Perception]

  He swayed to the side and caught the Baaghror's beefy arm. His eyes widened in surprise when he tried to pull his arm back, but Rey held on firmly.

  "Oh, come on, you don't expect me to just return it to you just like that," Rey said. "Here's a little present from me to you."

  Rey still had Kassi's dagger in his other hand, so he stabbed the Tigerman's arm three times in rapid succession, followed by a long gash along his arm, giving it a proper dissection. The Baaghror cried out, which was a mix of a scream and a roar. Even in so much pain, the tiger sounded so manly.

  "I basically filleted your arm, and somehow you've unlocked deeper voice DLC. How do you sound like that even in so much pain?" Rey asked with genuine curiosity.

  But the rude tiger responded with an ear-deafening roar, followed by swinging his other clawed hand in a motion that would've taken off Rey's head, if he hadn't ducked in time.

  "Man, for creatures that are all about respect, you sure don't know how to return it in kind."

  Even then, the creature didn't stop and think for even one second. He kept swiping at Rey with his claws, who kept dodging and slashing at his exposed chest, any chance he got.

  The Tigerman was slowing down as all this flailing about was making him wince in pain. Not to mention, he was leaking so much blood like he was a water hose with a leak about the size of a plot in a bad anime.

  Finally, the tiger stopped, as he huffed, swaying as he barely stood on his feet.

  Rey took this opportunity to look at the other two. "Are you not going to help your brother? I hope he is your brother and not the camp drunk that you send out first to get butchered."

  The other two said nothing. They stood resolute like statues. Statues that might as well have been sponsored by Natural Selection. The two that weren't bloodied yet looked to the one that was just about dead and raised their heads high. Even if Rey wasn't so adept at reading tiger faces, he was sure they said, die with honor or something akin to that.

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  The injured Tigerman stood straight and thumped his chest with a fist. "Bare witness."

  Then he charged. Well, charged was putting it mildly. He nearly went invisible. The thing moved so fast that it was damn near impossible to see him. But Rey could still see his general outline.

  The only reason Rey survived was because he shot Kassi's dagger with a Repulsion wave in the direction the Tigerman was coming from. The dagger found its mark, and the next thing he heard was an audible crunch as the dagger broke through the bones of his opponent.

  The Tigerman fell to his knees, looked to his brothers one last time, and fell dead to the ground.

  [+1 Perception]

  [+1 Dexterity]

  [You killed a Baaghror (Exiled) – E+6]

  His dagger and the Baaghror's speed had worked against him. Kassi's dagger was sticking out of his back. It had gone in through his chest and nearly out the back, all because the Tigerman was running so fast.

  "And kids, that's why you do not go into battle baring your tits to the world," Rey said to the others.

  "You dare mock his death," the other rank sixer growled.

  "Don't take it personally, but I'll most probably mock your death too…and your brother's, your father's, and your uncles, but not your mother's. But I won't spare the rest of your clan. They're all getting mocked to death. After all, you're all going to give me so much sweet experience." Rey rubbed his hands and shuddered in ecstasy.

  The Tigerman nearly charged him right away, but the leader stopped him.

  "You wish to kill us because we hurt your friends?" he asked Rey.

  "I thought I made that quite clear."

  "They intruded on our territory."

  "Oh, I know they broke some laws of yours or failed to bow down and give you salutation with twenty-one farts. You're most likely in the right to attack them, but you see, I just don't care about your laws, and I'm just crazy enough that I'm going to butcher every single one of you and make myself a nice fur coat. Why, you may be asking yourself. You see, it's because you killed two of my friends, and not only that, you hurt the girl I love." Rey smiled. "So, which one of you wants to follow this fellow?"

  He did something that was probably very off limits in their culture. He kicked the body of the recently departed.

  They both roared so loud that involuntarily all the hairs on the back of his neck stood up on end. Grixi was gone, most probably hiding in the back of his shop, which was good, as he didn't want him to see this next part. After all, why reveal all his secrets to the demon, even if he was mostly trustworthy?

  This time, the tigermen didn't attack him one at a time. They came for him at once. Rey wanted to make them kiss the ground at once, but decided not to. He wanted to see if he could do this much. He was pushing himself to the extreme, and for good reason. He needed the Mana to face the coming horde. After a claim like that, he had no choice but to follow through.

  The Baaghrors raced in different directions, hoping to confuse Rey, but he activated Attraction and made them attracted to each other. The two smashed together like magnets.

  They groaned lightly, as confusion set in, as to what had happened. They looked at each other, then at Rey.

  "Aw, you two couldn't stay apart," he commented. "How lovely."

  They tried to pull apart, but found it challenging to say the least. Rey whistled as he took his time to retrieve the scythe. He had left it, leaning against the table, when he picked up Kassandra's dagger. All the while, the two tigers tried with all their might to drift apart. They pushed against each other and even got into a contest of strength. He was sure they were getting some Strength stats, which in the end would be useless unless he could steal them.

  Mental note, to check the Talents menu. I swear there better be a loot their stats skill in there somewhere.

  He couldn't find it last time, because that would be pretty overpowered, but like all things, there was a catch. So, he wondered what the catch would be.

  Would it be that I can only take the stat points from people lower than me or those whose blood I've drunk. That could very well be the case. It is Hell, after all.

  As he was pondering that, he noticed that the Tigerman had somehow gone back to back.

  Rey sighed. "You just couldn't make things easy for me, could you?"

  Rank sixer began. "I'm going to rip out your throat and—"

  "Yes, yes, drink my marrow or make a blood broth or whatever." Rey walked in front of the one who had spoken. "Since you threatened me, you get to die first."

  He raised his scythe high into the air and brought it down in an overhead swing, but the Tigerman caught it in his fearsome hands. No matter how much Rey pushed, he couldn't make his scythe move forward to finish him off.

  "You think your puny arm can win against my might?" the Tigerman boasted.

  Rey smirked. "I don't need to."

  He pressed the silver orb and activated Gravity's Kiss, making the Tigerman's face attracted to his scythe. One moment, he was holding Rey's scythe at bay, and the next, he lunged forward and buried his head in Rey's scythe...or so it looked.

  [+1 Magic Power]

  [You killed a Baaghror (Exiled) – E+6]

  Rey ripped out his scythe, and red blood poured out of the fearsome tiger's now split face. His body fell to the ground, taking the Rank 7 with him, who was still attracted to the dead Baaghror.

  Rey smiled, but before he could speak, something happened that he knew would happen, but he had forgotten about it in the heat of battle.

  The first Rank sixer's soul manifested from his body.

  Rey turned to him. "Oh, honestly, I'd forgotten that would happen. After killing so many demons, you forget that not everyone's a demon."

  "Let me go and fight me fairly," Mr. Rank 7 growled.

  "Yeah…no. Any second, this street is going to be packed with demons. So, you have two choices, either I can kill you or leave you here for the demons, who will no doubt, in their frenzy to get to your friend's soul, will forget that they should be scared of you."

  The Tigerman growled but seemed to have resigned himself to his fate.

  "What do you want?" He asked.

  "Where are the rest of your friends?" Rey asked.

  "If you think—"

  "We don't have time for that." Rey motioned to the demons that were poking their heads from the huts that Rey had destroyed. "If they are as strong as you think they are, then you have nothing to worry about, as I'm sure they'll kill me in the most horrific ways."

  The tigerman thought in contemplation. Rey didn't have time for all this. More and more demons were slithering out of their houses, and no matter how strong he had gotten, he couldn't take them all on.

  "To the east, by the river," Rank 7 finally spoke. "You cannot miss them."

  "Thank you, good sir." Rey raised his scythe to end his life. "I do hope you can find your soul."

  So I can kill you again. He cackled along with Demon Rey.

  Then he swung his scythe in an arc and cut off the Tigerman's head.

  [+1 Dexterity]

  [You killed a Baaghror (Exiled) – E+7]

  Despite his fear of the dead cats, Grixi wasn't able to resist the pull of a soul and was coming out of his shop.

  Rey waved to him. "Bon apetite. Also, goodbye."

  "You better not show your face around here, after this," Grixi barked.

  Rey lifted the head off the Rank 7 Tigerman and made off into the ever-present night, before Grixi remembered that Rey had yet to fulfil their bargain and pay him another gold ingot.