Rune took a look at the large demon who was seated on a throne. His throne was placed in front of the oval table where the four Majin were getting up from. The four Majin grabbed weapons from underneath their table and the large demon, who Rune guessed was the candidate of Asmodeus, put his head on his chin and laughed.

The four Majin leaped at Rune who was pulling out his swords. Right as their weapons were about to reach Rune, sword blades jutted out from Rune and entered the necks of the Majin. They stiffened momentarily, then went limp. The blades went back into Rune and the bodies fell to the ground.

Rune turned back to Hecate who was now leaning against a wall while sitting. She was trying to not vomit, but was definitely still sick. Rune turned back to the large demon. He spoke in a raspy voice to him.

“You have done well to get here. Using only your hands, you killed many of my subordinates. You seem capable enough to be my right hand man. What do you-”

His face turned from a relaxed one into one of surprise as Rune came at him with impossibly high speeds and took out the ruby in his chest. Then the demon smiled.

“You thought that that was the source of my power? My regeneration source is my castle!! You cannot hope to defeat me!!”

Rune moved back from the demon and placed the ruby in his storage. Then he turned back to the demon and thought of several ways to kill him.

“You see, I the chosen candidate of my lord, Asmodeus! I will become the Demon Lord for him and rule the world. Then every woman will be mine!!!”

“What?”

The Asmodeus candidate looked at Rune as Rune threw a small object at him. The candidate looked at it with surprise and caught it in his hand.

“You try and throw a chakram at me? You should know that-”

The circular disc that Rune threw at him exploded and dust surrounded him. When it settled, the demon was on the ground with his left arm blown off. It seemed like blood suddenly formed into tentacles from his arm and formed a new arm after solidifying.

He moved to get up off the ground when he saw Rune looming over him with a couple more discs.

Rune dropped them on the still injured demon and went to Hecate. Then he motioned for her to cover her ears and she did so. A moment later, a huge explosion rang out.

Rune looked past the doors and saw a huge smoking crater with a head in it. Rune approached and drew a large scythe. It was made of Fire and Earth magic crystals to have a very special effect when the blade touches blood.

“You… I can still…”

Rune drove his scythe into his face and it exploded. Nothing was remaining of the Asmodeus candidate now and Rune turned to look at Hecate.

Hecate was shaking out of fear and was watching how Rune killed Asmodeus with only a couple attacks. It was clearly obvious that someone who killed efficiently and without regard for life would be feared by many.

In fact, it wasn’t just the explosions that killed Asmodeus, but shrapnel. Rune had stuffed his explosive discs with Dark magic crystals which depleted a person of their mana at a high rate if there was a large quantity inside of someone. This and the fact that the candidate’s regeneration power may have been great, but it took time and mana to use. When Rune used his shrapnel, it took away his mana. When he stabbed him in the face quickly, it took away his time.

“D-do you want to rest before w-we kill him>”

With that said, the two of them left the castle. When they exited, they found that the two moons were now in the middle of the sky and that it was midday to the Majin.

“How are you going to take these guys now? This is a single temple with about two hundred Majin followers and fiends all together! You can’t possibly use stealth this time!”

Hecate was trying to make Rune take a less violent approach, but he wasn’t having it. There was so much experience points for the taking and so much raw material.

It seemed that Hecate wanted to disperse the Majin so that they wouldn’t kill as many of them. After half an hour of begging, Rune gave in to a compromise.

The two of them were standing on a floating platform. To be more specific, Hecate was crouching down and hugging one of Rune’s legs while watching the large group in front of Mammon’s candidate.

The platform was made using Wind and Light magic crystals to hover over the crowd and shield them from the eyes of the Majin below. Put in simple terms, it was an invisible floating platform.

No Majin could see them as they were hovering several stories in the sky. Rune had taken out a trident that had a black frame with white spikes. He was aiming it down at the Mammon candidate.

“Wait!!! We don’t know if he is actually trying to destroy humanity!! Also, throwing something from up here, you could accidentally hit someone else!!”

Rune threw down his trident at the candidate who was morphed. They had a snake’s lower body instead of legs and had four horns from either side of their head. He was holding a spear with an orange gem as its spearhead.

The trident rushed down towards the candidate when the candidate turned to block it. It appeared that his senses were better so that he could hear the whistling of a trident flying through the air. He readied his spear and blocked it as it glanced off of his spear.

The candidate started to look from where the spear had come from when they noticed that they were falling. With a thunk, it’s head fell to the ground and it’s body started to turn towards Rune who was behind him with an executioner axe.

While the head was rolling down the steps of the dark grey temple, the body thrust its spear into Rune faster than he anticipated and it went into his head.

Rune could hear an audible “Nooool!!!” From above as Hecate was screaming. From the neck of the candidate came smoke and a new head appeared that was more snake like with four eyes and had three horns on each side of its head with one horn on its forehead.

The new head seemed to smile by opening its mouth and its two tongues danced in its mouth. It looked at Rune with all four of its snake eyes and started to speak.

“I mussssst thank you for decapitating my ssssservant ssssso that I could return!!”

Rune spoke with the spearhead inside of his face. The snake and Hecate both were extremely surprised st this development. The person who was possessing the candidate was none other than Mammon. Rune only knew this because Hela told him with telepathy.

Mammon pulled out his spear to discover that the orange gem used as its point was missing. Rune absorbed it like how he did with Iram. Rune then heard a hissing voice in his mind.

{You… you have a gem of the Demon King… you will usssssse it to get the other gemssssss from the other sssssix candidatessssss… I sssssshall give you the power of Greed… the power to sssssteal anything in your sssssight, but you will be taken over by the Demon King’ssssssss corruption…}

Neat. I guess I can steal stuff now? I’ll check after I kill this Mammon.

Rune took this small window where Mammon was surprised and he put away his axe to get his chains. Quickly, he restrained Mammon as he was still in a weak, Majin body. Then Rune took out a box.

The box was filled with black needles. Rune really liked to use the Dark magic crystals in his weapons. He picked up a single needle, twirled it in one hand once, then drove it into Mammon’s heart. He did this 49 more times to other places in him until Mammon looked like a bleeding pin cushion.

The light was fading from his eyes as Rune drove the final needle in and he died. Rune could tell because, at that moment, the head of Mammon dispersed in a cloud of black. Rune put away his needles and turned to the stunned crowd. He used his telepathy to speak to everyone.

After a moment, one Shoosuva lunges at him and Rune obliterated it with a single punch using only brute force and his speed. The remains showered several members of the crowd and Majin started to rub as the fiends started to attack Rune.

It was obviously a fatal error to them, especially when he finished them all off within a few minutes. The hovering platform moved down from its height and Rune could see a curled up Hecate cradling herself in her arms.

Compared to Asmodeus, this bloodbath was even more gorey with the intestines of fiends littering the temple and the grass around it. Rune put his box, trident, and body of Mammon’s candidate in his storage after wiping away the blood. He also took the decapitated head.

“How did you survive the face stabbing?! That was like an invincible monster!!!”

“How do you have a wife if all you do is kill?!!”

“Well, I suppose that you can protect someone with killing skills…”

The two of them were sitting on a rooftop while Hecate was eating. It was a bit past midday and Hecate had an extremely empty stomach from retching.

A map was in between the two of them. Hecate was pointing to where they would go in a periodic order. First, Belphegor was stationed in an underground fortress in the mountains. Then, Leviathan was under the sea near the coast. Lastly, Lucifer and Satan were in the Demon Country capital. She didn't know where Beelzebub was, but suspected that its candidate was mooching off of Lucifer.

“We just waited until one demon king candidate was left, then we sent S class adventurers to deal with them. It has only happened three times in the last thousand years. Nowadays, people are more laid back ergo more weak. Also, the candidates take such a long time to prep for killing each other and an even longer time attacking humanity.”

“Ok. It is that way.”

While Hecate was pointing in the opposite direction as Rune, Rune quickly absorbed the red ruby that he took from Asmodeus’s candidate. He heard another voice in his mind.

{You have gotten a second gem of the Demon King… I shall give you the power of Lust… You now can charm and persuade anyone who is not expecting it… But now your corruption from the Demon King will increase…}

Rune had seen that he was slowly being corrupted by the Demon King’s Corruption which makes his mind slowly be taken over to become a Demon King. However, Rune had psychic damage immunity and would not be affected by it at all. Essentially, it was just a huge benefit for him as he got special Demon King magic.

“You see there? That is the mountain.”

Rune looked at where Hecate was pointing and nodded to her question. They slowly made their way down from the roof and the two of them found themselves in an alley. It was quite dark and there were several large buckets with trash in them.

From behind them, a voice that sounded like a dehydrated person spoke.

“Hey.”

Rune and Hecate turned to find an old man who was hunched over. He wore rags over his clothes and was holding an metal nugget. He seemed like a beggar.

“I won’t stay in this world for long, but I want you to help me with one thing before I die. I have a nugget to pay you…”

“Hey, old man! Go back-”

Rune cut her off by sticking his arm in front of her. She stared in belief as he started conversing with the person.

“Thank you. My daughter. She is sick and I need a doctor. I can’t go too far, but can you get a doctor for me?”

“Why would there be a-”

“Yes. Thank you. This way.”

The old man led them to the back of the building and was tottering from side to side while doing so. Behind the building were several tents huddled to make a small tent town with a large tent in the center.

The man walked to a small tent on the outskirts of the tent town and gestured for the two of them to follow him inside. Hecate was hesitating because she was weary of any traps, but Rune just walked inside.

“What are you doing? This is one of those poor Majin tent camps. They are probably going to mug you!”

Hecate hissed at him while he gave her a shrug and then used telepathy to speak to only her.

Rune saw the old man kneeling next to a person under several blankets. Rune could hear wheezing and coughing from where he was and the old man was indicating for Rune to heal the person.

Rune cast [Heal] and [Cure] at the same time on the person and a green light shone from his hands. The wheezing and coughing stopped and the old man grinned.

“Thank you!! Thank you so much!! Here, take this!”

He gave him the nugget of metal and Rune plopped it into his storage. The person under the blankets pushed off the blankets to reveal a girl who had pale skin.

Her eyes were a crimson color and she had snow white hair. There were two horns protruding from her forehead, pushing her hair aside. She seemed young and was staring intently at Rune.

Why am I surrounded by young women? Also, why are they all so cute?

“I am Rena with the title of “Curious”. I saw that you could use magic and, now that I look at you, you seem powerful. I want to be your apprentice and learn whatever you do for a living.”

She said it in a stern tone. She seemed to actually want to be Rune’s apprentice and not just to mooch off of him.

“Why should we trust a Majin? You guys are all evil and work for the future Demon King that will try and kill many humans and elves?”

“Yes. My grandfather has watched over me since I was young and now he stays alive only to help me find someone that will help me.”

“Yes, that is my wish. Now I can rest in peace. Thank you…”

The old man sat down and sighed. After a moment, he lied down and started to rest. He wasn’t dead though, but he was sleeping soundly.

“Why are you bringing a Majin!?”

Rune, Hecate, and Rena left the tent and were now standing outside. Rena wasn’t wearing clothes that would be useful where Rune was going. He took out some armor that he took from the Majin guards that he killed and fused it with Healing magic crystals. Then he changed the shape of the armor.

Now the armor covered the face and he turned the robes into cloth to use as a cloak with a hood. Then he made the rest of the cloth into coverings for the joints in the armor and enchanted it all with repairing and speed.