“I want her dead! I want to kill her! I want to tear her to pieces!” Poison screamed.

Noxious green gas spewed from Poison’s mouth as took a heavy swig of the cup of beer in anger. Vio pitied her but at the same time took great enjoyment in her suffering. Daemons weren’t known for compassion or sympathy but that didn’t mean that they weren’t capable of it. Not that he felt bad for Poison. She was just unlucky. That Boxer Human was much stronger than the two magjistars somehow. It was also enjoyable to see her be beaten so thoroughly without a chance of fighting back. He spotted a fatal weakness in Poison’s fighting style.

Vio took on the two magjistars himself and didn’t nearly have as much trouble as Poison did with the Boxer. If he didn’t step in to save her, she would’ve died without a shred of doubt in Vio’s mind. Normally, he would’ve just left her for dead to save his own hide but deep down, he felt that he owed Poison. This teaming-up thing really was beneficial to himself. Life has become way easier ever since he teamed up with Poison. Humans are just helpless little sheep against them and killing magjistars has never been easier. If they couldn’t take on a particular group of magjistars then running away was even easier with Poison’s poison.

Even strong magjistars couldn’t ignore her poison.

“You’re going to have to eat a magjistar as strong as those kids from before or at least a hundred humans.” Vio told her.

“You don’t think that human is that strong, do you?” Poison asked.

“You and I don’t stand a chance against her by ourselves. With how quickly she took you out, she’d be able to take me down in no time as well. Unlike you, I'm not a daemon with any special magji. All I have is my body.” Vio answered.

“What if we found another daemon to team up with us?” Poison suggested.

“Another daemon? You know any daemons nearby? The magjistars have been searching through the city more often so, most have gone into hiding.” Vio asked.

“I don’t. But I know you do.” She smiled.

“I’m not getting involved with that scum.” Vio put his foot down.

“If we managed to convince a daemon like him to team up with us, who will be able to stop us!?”

“If we can’t convince him, we’re going to die pointless deaths. So, I'm not doing it.”

“Don’t tell me you’re scared? The proud daemon Vio? Eviscerator of humans and magjistars alike? Scared of a little daemon that doesn’t even feed on humans.” Poison mocked.

“That freak is nothing like us and you know it! He’s a mistake that should’ve never been born!”

“A freak with strength that we need!”

“We don’t need him! All we need to do is avoid that Boxer Human and continue what we’ve been doing for the past month! Bringing him into our deal will only bring trouble!”

“Bringing him into our deal to fight any strong magjistars will only help us. Can’t you see that you giant idiot!? He kills the strong magjistars, we eat their heart and grow even stronger!”

“None of that matters if he suddenly decides that he wants to kill us because of how strong we’ve gotten! Do you think you stand a chance against him? I know I'm not willing to pointlessly waste my life messing with that freak.” Vio argued.

“Why do you have to be such a daemon!? Only caring for yourself. Never taking risks because you’re afraid for your own life. Being scared of the slightest dangers. You sound like a coward! Just trust me on this one! I’ve already shown you the benefits of working together.” Poison yelled.

“Unless you can guarantee that I won’t die, I'm not doing it.”

“Of course, I can’t guarantee that! It's Him, we’re dealing with after all! All I can say is, our future as daemons won’t go very far unless we take this risky step. You think that freak won’t be interested in a human being able to defeat us even though she barely had any magji at all? He’d be all for working along with us to fight her. He only cares about fighting strong opponents.”

“Fine, damn it, fine! I still don’t want to do this but I don’t see how else I can become a powerful daemon...” Vio had to give in to the temptation of obtaining a higher power.

Being a frog in a small pond didn’t sound as appealing as being the next Daemon King of this era. There might come a time where Poison threatens this position but as long as she acts right, he could settle for making her his queen. She has a sharp mind and good instincts. That will be useful during his reign as Daemon King.

Plus, without her, he would’ve definitely died by now to a group of magjistars. His human disguise as working as a bartender was almost ruined by two magjistars coming in for a drink. They had a magji tool that allowed them to sense his daemonic magji. On his own, he would’ve been overpowered and killed without a doubt. It was only because of Poison’s poison that they managed to weaken and eventually kill the two magjistars together. Devouring those two increased their strength so much that the two realized that they could’ve taken them both on their own at that time. But because of this, they had to flee the bar and move to a new one. Poison pointed out that whenever magjistars die, wherever they died becomes the first location investigated by other magjistars.

“You won’t regret it. Just follow my lead and if things do go wrong, I'll cover our escape.”

“The things women are willing to do just for revenge... Freaking insane, all of them.” Vio sighed, downing all of his alcohol.

A sharp sound came from Zoey’s punching bag. She smiled as sweat dripped from her forehead down to the floor, making a puddle underneath her that she would have to clean up when she finishes this portion of her training. Ever since she’s got the Box, Zoey has spent every single day training for a certain number of hours. The type of training changes every day while the number of reps increases every two weeks. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday were all upper body training. Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday were lower body training. Sundays were her rest days. Zoey’s dad bought her some weights to use for her training and even started to work out along with her from time to time because of how often she did.

It wasn’t just him that wanted to get fit either. Everett and her mom also became interested in getting fit too after seeing the changes in her body. Her family could obviously see the difference in her body from when she started boxing from before she started. Seeing how healthy and happy she’s become since then, made them think maybe it wouldn’t hurt for them to exercise daily too.

After the end of working out her body, Zoey practiced her boxing. Combinations on Mondays, hooks on Tuesdays, uppercuts on Wednesdays, crosses on Thursdays, jabs on Fridays, and combinations once again on Saturdays. At the start of her training, she only threw 50 punches but now she pushed herself to throw 1,000 punches. She just finished throwing her 1000th jab and could finally say she was finished with her daily training.

Zoey once read a quote that said, ”I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” It was this and a healthy amount of research working out at home along with various action anime that structured her training. If Zoey could master every single aspect of boxing, then it shouldn’t be that hard to evolve it from a sport to a fighting style that could take on daemons and magjistars. The key to bringing herself to a higher state of boxing was more and more experience. She needed a lot more fights against martial artists, daemons, and magjistars.

But that wasn’t as easy as it seemed. In today’s culture, people with fighting skills don’t just search out for the next strongest fighter. Zoey’s barbarian type of drive wasn’t what most fighters had. Most people did it for the paycheck, the fame, or because they didn’t have anything else but fighting. Very few wanted to test themselves against stronger and stronger fighters to see themselves improve and grow to unmatchable levels. Finding these people would be impossible for someone like Zoey right now.

She was only a 17-year-old girl. Realizing this, Zoey felt that she was the only person around her age to have insane thoughts like this. What other teenager would be so obsessed with fighting people without some form of monetary gain? Zoey still had much of her life to experience and go through.

‘So, I need to find a way of finding more daemons and magjistars to fight... I’ll have to find out through Alexander and Lindsay if magicians fought each other in like a friendly exhibition or something.’