I'd met Abel a few times now, and every one of them he'd come across as a carefree, somewhat loony man, who just did his own thing and didn't much care what anyone thought. He was friendly, polite, and most likely laughing at you behind that mask even if you couldn't tell, but not in a malicious way. Seeing him here like this though, I didn't see any of those things. The mask was still a black rabbit, it should have looked ridiculous. It should have been impossible for him to be intimidating.

But he WAS intimidating. Despite being a G-ranker standing before a higher ranked enemy and a group of similarly ranked thugs, Abel Castleton wasn't losing out to any of them in sheer momentum of presence. It wasn't Impact, he only had the same twelve I did based on how he felt, this was something less definitive. An aura of barely restrained violence, of bloodlust and the willingness to do harm, as well as the absolute certainty that harm WOULD be done if he chose to inflict it. Standing in front of Abel was, almost ironically given his prey like mask, like standing in front of an enraged predator on the hunt.

The version of him I'd seen in the Labyrinth had been kind of scary, but it was more wild. He'd been a big blunt instrument. Maybe with some edge, like a heavy axe, but his presence had been impersonal. He was dangerous and violent, but it was just a fact. Water was wet, the sky was blue, and Abel was going to fuck you up if you gave him a reason. This was much less universal. Abel wasn't radiating the ability to fuck up everyone, he was radiating the INTENT to murder these robed assholes, and that intent was much more terrifying for how controlled and sharp it was.

There was a shifting of stone in the background as the leader stood up from the rubble of the building he hit with Abel's first blow. Even behind his mask, I could tell that he was seething, and he stalked back down the street to take his place between the last two members of his entourage, and among the unconscious and restrained bodies of the other six. As one might expect, there was barely restrained fury in his stance as well, though not the amount of fear that I felt was warranted here.

That wasn't exactly a shock though. Abel's reputation wasn't exactly something universal down here. People knew him, but he wasn't at the front of everyone's mind after so long away. Most people just thought of him as the wacky sausage seller. They had forgotten exactly who Spruce Bunny used to be, but judging by the faces peeking out of windows in the surrounding buildings, there were more than a few of them about to getting a stern reminder today.

"How dare you?" The leader spat. "Do you know who I am? What I am capable of? How dare some pissant G-ranker put his hands on me. Do you morons even comprehend what the rank difference is? I might as well be a god down here. How dare you ignorant plebians sully my robes with your filth, inflict your absurd delusions of relevance on me in the discharging of my duties? I'm going to show-"

There was a flicker, and another train sized fist smashed into him like an oncoming locomotive. He didn't go flying this time, having dug his feet into the concrete beneath him. He was still forced back easily a dozen feet, tearing a long furrow in the ground as he glared through the beaten bronze, nearly panting with rage. Abel just glared at him, so angry it was almost palpable. "Are you done? Because I have to say, the 'you're all ants to me' monologue is hardly original, and I can't begin to tell you how annoying it gets after the first few times you hear it."

The leader sputtered with fury, so angry he had to take a second to form coherent words. "I am PHANTASM you rodent. I've walked this world for decades, wreaking havok and inflicting misery on my enemies. To think to subdue me, especially with a rank difference." He reached up, removing the mask to show a wild eyed man with pale features and green and purple hair. "I'll enjoy crushing you, seeing the humiliation and shame in your eyes when I murder your so called teacher right in front of-"

And then Abel was gone. No. Not gone. Somewhere else. He'd used that weird spatial fluidity to step across the intervening distance in a single motion, appearing right in front of Phantasm and his cronies. Phantasm reeled back, eyes wide as he threw up his hands, a wave of corrosive black gas swallowing the area in front of him. Rather than try to break it with force, Abel simply stepped to the side and kind of...swerved. It was hard to understand as it was happening. I could only assume he'd created a sort of half moon shape of spatial lubricant and stepped into it, because in a flash he'd looped around behind the other man.

A fist smashed into Phantasm from behind, and it hit as if it was the size of a bus, but due to Abel's ability completely avoided any intervening space. It kind of made my head hurt just watching it. I knew that even if Abel was punching him through a single fist sized hole in a wall, he could still land that same titanic blow without damaging the wall around his hand, it wasn't a size changing power after all. The fist crashed into Phantasm, shoving him forward into his own corrosion, which he hurriedly dispersed into wisps of mist as he caught himself.

Unfortunately his footing was unsteady, and he caught himself in an unbalanced, forward leaning state. Abel swerveds again, and drove his fist up as he appeared. Due to his forward stumble and momentum, it almost looked like Phantasm threw himself onto Abel's fist chin first. The ascending fist exploded up from under the falling man with the force of a plummeting mountain, and I heard a sharp crack as the hand made contact.

Then Abel proceeded to beat him. It wasn't flashy, or awe inspiring. It was brutal. Phantasm didn't even have a chance to react. Where Alden had been barely managing to exploit openings and weaknesses, Abel was methodically hammering every weak spot the other man had. Not just obvious ones either. Each blow set up the next, and the one after, creating openings that hadn't been there and exploiting them before Phantasm even knew they were there.

It wasn't a power difference, as much as it looked like one. Oh, granted, Abel's Might was probably in the higher end of G-rank, and I imagined he had a dozen Skills to improve and heighten physical damage, but that was irrelevant. I think even with my strength he probably could have managed it. He could see exactly what the other man was going to do and each move was designed to restrain Phantasm before he could get a speck of momentum.

The purple and green haired man tried to kill him too, multiple times, but he could never bring his power to bear for more than short bursts, because Abel was ringing his bell hard enough to make conjuring any significant amount of concentration impossible. The worst part was I was pretty sure Abel could have killed him with the first blow, but he didn't. He DESTROYED him. Every blow broke something or caused excruciating pain, and Abel just kept hammering away.

The others tried to help, though one of them died pretty quickly, his head melted off by a burst of black gas Abel effortlessly avoided. I felt my stomach turn at the sight. He wasn't the first person I'd seen die, but even the head exploding in the underground arena hadn't been quite as gruesome as this. The rabbit masked man killed the other one with a sharp punch to the chest, hitting him so perfectly that I only realized he'd actually stopped the mans heart when the body fell over, seemingly undamaged.

Even then, he didn't stop. Phantasm became less and less able to resist, his attempt to fight back wilder and more violent, but none of them touched Abel, despite the horrible corrosion damage to the street around them, and the few times I saw him try to target Alden from a distance Abel attacked hard enough to force him to reorient. Eventually the other man was lying on the ground, seriously injured, even his Vitality overcome by the sheer amount of damage inflicted despite lower ranked wounds not being as effective.

He stared up at Abel in horror, blood bubbling from between his ruined lips as his eyes shone with fear and pleading. "I...I'm sorry. I didn't know someone like you was here. Please. I'm with Sanctuary Hall, please don't kill me. We can pay you! We can give you healing, resources, anything you want. You don't need to do this." His voice was choked and labored, his eyes streaming tears, but credit to him, he didn't try to threaten or bully Abel. I think he could tell as well as I could that it wouldn't work.

Abel just stared down at him from behind his mask. The fury was still there, but it wasn't hot anymore, it was cold, and I felt the icy chill of death radiating off him as his voice rang out, a single clipped syllable with such a frigid hate radiating through it that it scared me just listening to it. "No." Then his foot lashed out like a striking snake, catching Phantasm's head at a very specific angle and twisting it along the rotation of his neck, snapping it and killing him instantly. Abel stared down at the body for a moment, breathing heavily, and I could almost so the bloodlust inside him clawing to get out.

But instead, he took a long, slow breath, and it all just...vanished. The anger, the hate, the violence, it all melted away like that ice had been exposed to the bright summer sunshine, and as it did,Abel pretty much transformed. Between one breath and the next, the terrifying predator vanished, and Spruce Bunny, the friendly sausage seller, was back. His shoulders drooped, his smile became more friendly, and a dozen other imperceptible things shifted, turning him into a completely different person in the blink of an eye. I blanched. If anything, that was the scariest thing he had done tonight, and I'd just watched him literally beat a higher ranked Ascendant to death with his bare hands over the course of several minutes.

He shot me that same friendly smile from when I'd been to the sausage cart. "Well, hello there! Sorry I seemed to have missed your friends. I appreciate the effort you went through to help my teacher." He cut a sardonic look at where Alden was laying, healed up from that least heal burst after being left alone for so long, but obviously absolutely exhausted as he lay on his back, gasping for breath. "The old man is a bit of a busybody, but he dotes on his students, and it's always good to see that kind of loyalty repaid."

Casually sauntering over to where the bearded man was wheezing on the ground, Abel knelt down, looking into the eyes of the exhausted man with a grin. "Just can't help sticking your nose in everyone else's business huh Alden? What exactly did Mel do this time? You're too old and careful for me to believe this is your fault." Alden didn't answer and Abel rolled his eyes. "Fine. I'll ask her myself." Alden's eyes widened, and mine along with them, as Abel extended a hand and pulled him to his feet. "I suppose it's time to go home."