Needing to buy some resources, Ren and Aijasyl visited the common market in the center of the city. Of course, due to Ren’s human-like appearance, certain measures had to be taken to have him pass for a hornless demon. That being- wearing the robe with Karatengu clan crest. Of course, with three suns up in the sky, it was probably for the worst that the robe was dark colored.

“I told you I don’t want to wear that thing, it’s too hot outside for this… besides none is going to notice!” Ren tried his best to refuse to wear the robes Aijasyl was desperately trying to put on him.

“That will not do! What if someone sees you? Without this robe to show that you are a demon, who knows what might happen to you!” Aijasyl was quiet adamant about this.

“Aw c’mon, it’s not like it’s going to make any difference…Ahhhhh” Ren’s stomach growled, it must be because he ate a meal he made himself, and now his systems were not working correctly. “Uhm, I will be right back, it’s an emergency” Ren ran off as soon as he said that.

“Wait! Come back” the green haired demon maid chased after him, still with his robe in her hands, not knowing why he was doing something so reckless.

Meanwhile, Death Hand, aka Shengyn Finnerman was walking along the streets, with his single horn exposed.

“Strange, this might be the only place in the world where none is looking at me weirdly for having a horn on my forehead.” While he could conceal his horn inside his skull by retracting it, it was rather uncomfortable; the horn starts to itch after a while, begging to be let out.

“I hope they have a mask in this trading district, that Demon King… he sure was something in his prime, if I didn’t make a trap for him, without a doubt I would have perished.” Luckily the only damage he received was a little scratch, but his mask was destroyed. “damn, and it was my favorite mask.”

He approached the merchant who had masks lining up his store and asked for the price of the mask he saw on the front.

“That would be twelve ruby coins”

“I got gold coins, would that be sufficient?”

“Of course, how generous of you! I will give you an additional mask as a bonus!”

And just like that Shengyn ended up purchasing the masks. One was in his pocked, the other one he was examining on his hands. The mask was ok, it’s just it had a completely red face, green lips, long bulb-like nose, smiling maniacally.

“I am starting to doubt I made the right choice” Shengyn put the mask on, while instinctively pulling his horn into his skull in order to make it easier to wear the mask.

Just as he was walking towards the street he heard a yell.

“Come back here!”

Then he saw someone ran at the top speed, he ran by him so fast that Shengyn didn’t see his face. That someone ran across the street and turned to the left.

“Now that is weird.” Shengyn slightly pulled off his mask, showing his face, while looking in the direction of the runner.

Then a green haired demon emerged and ran towards Shengyn.

“REN!”

“Eh?”

She took him by his collars of his clothing.

“Why did you run away from me? I told you need to put the robes on!”

“Uhm, hi there” he noticed that this particular demon had beautiful bright green hair, small cute horns, wearing a maid dress, with some insignia on the left side. ‘A maid?’

“Please don’t run away again, you will make everyone in clan worried sick, that includes me as well…” then she looked at him with wide open eyes. “Why are you wearing different clothing? How did you get changed so fast? Is that the reason you ran away?”

“I don’t know.” Shengyn genuinely was confused. He had no idea who this demon girl is, or why she is acting so chumy with him.

“Regardless, put this on” she put some robes on him, he didn’t really resist.

“There, now you look presentable!”

She was looking at him with gleaming eyes while he was wearing black and silver robes of the Tengu clan. There were symbols of the clan on the front and back.

“Ok.”

Then, Aijasyl’s gaze caught five demons approaching, her eyes opened wide. ‘That symbol, he is from the Altyn clan, this is not good!’ Altyn clan was a clan that was the sworn enemy of the Karatengu clan, the ones responsible for most of Karatengu clan’s misery. If they see him here, right now, it could be disastrous!

“Ren, we must get out of here, right now!”

“What?” Shengyn asked in surprise, but before either could move far, a voice said

“Ren? As in Ren Karatengu?” Member of the Altyn clan approached them quite quickly. His four subordinates and he were wearing casual attires, but without a doubt they were very strong. The member of the Altyn clan was a tall, muscular demon with large dagger-length horns on his head. The most distinguishing feature he had was the fact that his arms, head, and most likely the body inside his clothing were covered in feathers. He had two folded golden wings on his back. His face however was humanoid. His subordinates looked somewhat similar; feathery but much less imposing than him.

They stood in front of two of them like a gigantic wall.

“I see, that symbol, there is no mistake about it, so you are the Ren Karatengu I heard so much about” the Altyn clan member said with somewhat mocking tone.

Shengyn said nothing.

“What’s wrong? Cat’s got your tongue?” His subordinates laughed, while Aijasyl who knew well of how strong and scary the Altyn clan is, was hiding behind Ren’s back; too scared to do anything.

‘Why wouldn’t you run? Why are you facing him out of all demons? What are you thinking Ren?’ She desperately wanted to flee but watching her leader stand before his greatest enemy without a hint of fear made her want to at least stand next to him.

“Listen up well, Karatengu brat, I am Kin Altyn, third son of the Altyn clan. A demon above you in so many ways you can’t even imagine…” Shengyn had no reaction. “What now? So scared that you can’t even give a greeting to your superiors now? Does my great self-seem to be too much for you to witness?”

Shengyn just looked at him thinking ‘Did someone hit him in the head?’

“As a compensation for crossing my path we will make only a short work of you, and” he paused. “We will be taking the maid with us, for some fun”

Aijasyl hid further behind Shengyn’s back, terrified, sweat running on her face from fear.

Shengyn just stared at the Kin Altyn with blank look on his face.

“What’s wrong? Can you even talk? Or have you forgotten how to speak as well?”

“Nope, I just thought ‘Man, you really are annoying!’” Shengyn said with completely blank expression.

“You bastard!” Kin Altyn charged at Shengyn with an extremely fast punch to the face.

Shengyn, an experienced assassin, casually used a flow like motion in order to dodge the punch, grab the demon’s arm and throw him over head.

With his motion being used against him, Kin Altyn ended up striking the ground hard, hard enough for the ground’s dust to come up.

“Boss!” the subordinates of the Kin Altyn cried out.

The dust quickly revealed the image of the Kin Altyn, standing up, cracking his neck. In his mind he was thinking ‘I didn’t expect that… Karatengu, he was not as weak as I thought. But it doesn’t matter if I kill him right now, without Demon King to protect the demons, each demon clan is for itself, and my clan is the strongest, meaning we can kill anyone we want!’ he smiled maniacally, happy that the Demon King was dead, not realizing he was fighting the one responsible for Demon King’s demise.

“Not bad, not bad at…” he didn’t get to finish.

“You really like to talk, don’t you?”

Shengyn teleported himself right before the demon, and with his hardened palm chopped at the demon’s throat, beheading him in the process.

“You!” the detached head screamed.

‘Oh, it’s a Phoenix type demon’ Shengyn thought as he saw flames flickering on the place where the head was severed from the neck and the detached head. The Phoenixes could regenerate their bodies to very extremes.

With a tiger palm, Shengyn used his right hand to deliver a strong push on the body of the Phoenix demon, who was holding his head with his hands, sending him flying towards the wall of a building. That was how much force was there in that push, enough to make the mighty Altyn clan demon flying and crashing on the wall.

“Do you think that is enough to kill me?” the demon managed to attach his head on his body.

“Catch!” Shengyn threw him a red glowing ball. It was a ball of his fire energy, concentrated and condensed tightly into a ball.

The ball landed in Phoenix demon’s hands, and his eyes opened wide.

BOOOOOOOOOM!

The explosion that could be heard by anyone nearby.

The force of the explosion made the wall of the building give out, meaning all of the heavy bricks of the wall ended up falling on the demon, thereby trapping him under the rubble.

“Boss!” his subordinates ran towards the rubble, trying to dig their boss out.

“Well, that’s that” Shengyn casually walked away.

A certain green haired demon who watched this happen couldn’t believe her eyes. “He just beat a member of Altyn clan! And he did it like it was so easy!” She looked at her leader’s back. ‘Ren, you really are worthy of leading Karatengu clan, now I see that without a doubt.’ The age old enemy of the Karatengu clan, Altyn clan always beat the Karatengu clan till the clan couldn’t fight anymore. Master Korgan lost his arm, Omir and Ymit lost their lives, the Altyn clan made it clear the power difference between them. It was as if they were sending a message that no matter how much they try, the resistance is futile.

But now, right before her eyes, a Karatengu beat Altyn. It was amazing. And he did it in broad daylight, so who knows how many demons walking on the streets have witnessed this. There were many demons there in the streets, but they were too scared to intervene, but seeing the outcome of the fight, they couldn’t help but start whispering among themselves.

“Now then” Shengyn took of the robes and threw them at Aijasyl. “Sorry, the robes are too hot to walk in when there are three suns up”

The robe ended up thrown at Aijasyl who caught it before finding her leader walking away, again.

“Wait!”

“Well, that was boring.” Shengyn used his Demon eye to teleport himself away from that street. He vanished in an instant, without realizing that someone who bore a striking resemblance was walking towards the spot he teleported from.

“Eugh, my recipes really are inedible.” Ren’s eyes were somewhat teary from disappointment. He spent the last half an hour in the toilet, having a rather nasty time.

“Ren!” Aijasyl ran up to him, Ren instinctively tensed from fear, expecting a punishment.

But instead, she grabbed his hands, with a gleaming, admiring look in her eyes.

“That was incredible! I never knew you could do that!”

“Well, there is more to this Ren that meets the eye, isn’t there?” Ren assumed it was something about the cooking causing him diarrhea. ‘Why is she so happy about that? Some kind of new sadism?’

“Of course there is! And you did it where everyone could see you! You really are the bravest!”

“Wait a minute, everyone saw it?”

“Of course, you victory was most inspiring…. Ren?”

She saw his face darken.

‘No way, everyone saw me do that… I thought the doors were closed…’

“Are you ok?”

“Yeah, let’s just not mention this to anyone, please.”

“As you wish, Master Ren Karatengu” She said it with a voice full of respect, unlike the voice she uses when she is mentoring him.

Just like that, new rumors of Karatengu defeating Altyn clan member have emerged, and this time, there were so many witnesses that none could dispute the validity of the news.