"All I need is 100 more kills and the old man will be off my back…" James mumbled to himself, a pile of corpses all around him as he maliciously used his ice ability to freeze and impale everything around him with impeccable precision.

He had used the beasts on the planet as his own dolls to let out his anger on, so many of his kills were less than efficient.

He had nearly spent all of his mana defeating the beasts yet he had held off on using his spirit mode just in the case of emergencies.

And it seemed like such an emergency was now headed his way…

As if there was an earthquake all around him, he tumbled back and found it hard to even stand. The earthquake was then followed up by the sounds of howling, piercing the air.

"What the hell is going on?!"

He screamed in disbelief before the answer hit him in the face… All around him were massive green wolfs, foam in their mouth and their red eyes gazing directly into his soul…

"Wh-wha… Where did all of these come from!?"

There were not 10 or 20, that would have been manageable, in front of him was an entire army of them ready to tear him apart.

With his low reserve of energy, he doubted that he would be able to flee or survive for long, and with that, he was forced into activating his spirit mode…

There, before the attack, James stood still and gathered his spirit, forming a thick fur made of light blue energy all around him, claws on his arm with a yellow glow in his dog-like eyes.

That was when the battle started…

Swatting away many of the wolves like they were flies, James seemed to be holding his own.

But, the more and more he fought the worse it became… The horde of wolves seemed like it had no end in sight…

Things looked hopeless, he was bleeding out with several bite marks all around his body, and even a deep scar from a bite close to his eyes, nearly blinding him.

With nothing left but vigour, gloom, and desperation, he looked ahead with his beyond injured body at over 30 wolves ready to eat him alive.

"F-fuck… I can't let the old man be right… This can't be happening… How the hell is there so fucking many…"

He mumbled to himself once more, panting, a crazy, desperate look in his sights with small hints of determination.

That was when there, in the corner of his field of vision he managed to catch a sight of a purple flash of energy, which was followed up with 4 armoured people walking up a hill and into his field of vision.

He smiled.

"Heh… I'm saved,"

He knew full well what he did to them and what kind of disrespect he showed but that all did not matter now… According to the rules, if a party watched another one die knowing full well they could have helped, then they would be arrested. And, with the lie detector test after every hunting session, there was no way to bypass it.

There, in his moment of desperation, he hung onto his last hope and shred of light and yelled.

"HEY! YOU FOUR!! I NEED HELP! I MIGHT DIE HERE!! I'LL REWARD YOU FOR YOUR EFFORTS! IF YOU DECLINE AND LET ME DIE YOU'RE GOING TO JAIL!"

He knew that it was no way to speak to one's own potential saviours, but he knew that jail time was the best motivator and he could not care less about peasants.

"Oh! Oh my! We're coming to help! Please hold on!"

And, just like he expected, they came and helped him… He was saved!

The peasants seemed to be holding their own quite well, the wolves were undoubtedly going to die.

The relief in his heart was immense seeing what he saw as he could not imagine the look on his father's ugly face when he returned alive holding a massive bag of loot. He felt so comfortable that he even began thinking of what kind of punishments he should put upon his servant for being so late and making a mockery out of him.

But... that all changed when he witnessed the ability of that one dark, blue-haired girl as she killed the last of the wolves.

"Is that a shadow ability? Is she…"

*Qrinsh*

All of a sudden, he felt a deep pain strike him in the stomach, looking down only to see a glowing, black and purple katana strike him exactly where the pain resided…

"What the…"

The feeling of burning in his stomach felt surreal… Burning but with no heat or fire… He would have much rather been impaled by 1000 swords than what he was feeling right now as he threw up buckets of blood on the purple grass, dying it red.

His eyes suddenly began to tear up and become blurry as his body slowly kept on getting weak… The reality was only just setting in… He was really about to die… He was about to die and did not know by who or what.

His week legs failed him as he slowly tumbled to the ground, looking at the blue-haired girl run towards him, her expression unclear to him.

"Please! Jayden! Save me!" He put his bloody hands out in desperation as he was forced out of his spirit mode.

That was when some of his pain was relieved as the glowing sword was taken out of his wound, leaving him hurling on the ground, coughing up even more blood.

Using all of his remaining energy, he turned around to see the face of the person who did this to him… And he was very shocked to say the least…

It was undoubtedly the face of death… Or was it a demon? His purple and red gaze struck even more pain into his soul and his cold, almost indifferent expression like he was nothing but an insect made him shudder in fear.

However, when he looked past all of that… He managed to pick up on the face of that same man he called out for, noticing exactly who he was now that he had a closer look at him…

"W-what the hell is this… Moby Kane? Aren't you supposed to be a hero!? What is the meaning of this!? Is this for what I did to you at the reception desk!? I-I promise I didn't mean to! I had no idea it was you and miss Griffith all along! Please! Spare me and let me go!"

Moby did not speak a single word and simply smiled coldly at him as Jayden, Nags, and a nervous Ray joined his side.

through James's perception, they looked nothing but a band of demons sent directly from hell, ready to drag him down along with them simply from the looks in their eyes. He could not believe that he was looking at those same people that fought the shalkers and were praised all over the news...

That was when he finally spoke.

"Hmmmmm… let me think about it… No… I don't think I will spare you! But please don't take it personally! This is all for a worthy cause!"

The fear and shakiness in Jame's eyes multiplied 1000 times over, and tears of blood began to fall down them as his speech became like that of a mixture of a beast and a crying infant.

"W-what… Are you a fake? A traitor? W-what the hell are you gonna do to me!? It doesn't matter what status you have! You can't get away with this! If you kill me now you won't be walking out of here unscathed! If you heal me and leave me be, I'll forget any of this happened okay! I'll even pay you as much as you want!"

"..."

"hmph!"

"You serious? Does it look like I'm gonna spare you?"

Those few words almost shut down all the hope in Jame's heart… He still understood nothing of why he was going to die and he stopped trying to as he tried his last pleads before he finally gave into his fate…

"Please don't kill me… I beg of you… Please don't kill me… I beg of you… Please don't kill me… I beg of you…"

That was when the smile on Moby's face almost burst out into laughter.

"Kill you!? Oh no! Oh no, no, no, no, no! We're not gonna kill you! Why would we ever do that?"

Hope and colour was rekindled in Jame's eyes with a smile on his bloody face.

However… that was when all of his hopes were snuffed away like putting out a match, and what lingered of him was nothing but a faint smoke as he began to cry more and more…

"I won't kill you… I will do much worse… By the time I'm done with you, you would have more than served your purpose and you would have wished you were now dead…"