It’s been two weeks since Nazuko and the others have left on their adventure, I may be slowly getting accustomed to Nazuko not constantly being around me. This is a pleasure that I must savor while it lasts, but I do find myself missing Ryder blowing something up around me. Almost a week left until the tournament begins and my training has been going well. I feel a greater control over my aura and magical techniques that if I were to fight Archer solo I might be able to last 15 more minutes against him than if I were to have fought him before. Sirius’ training has been extremely meticulous and mentally exhausting. I have been attempting to keep my aura maintained constantly every second that I’m awake and the toll it's been taking on my brain is similar to the pain of information overload from those magical books. Sirius claims that eventually I would get to a point where I could constantly maintain my aura without even thinking about it, a level of skill that only masters of aura have achieved. Not even he has mastered this ability yet so why is he teaching it to me, I don’t know, but his expectations of me are way higher now than before for some reason. At times I feel like part of my brain is breaking off, as if I had two different thought processes going on at the same time. Much like a computer would partition off separate tasks to different cores.

Putting training matters aside, there’s one thing I’ve been dreading, not the tournament, but something a bit more political I would say. This morning I was rudely interrupted while on the toilet by a guard informing me that Lord Borin had requested a personal audience with me at his palace-like mansion. The only thing Lord Borin would want to see me for personally instead of at an official meeting with the lords has to do with my fake engagement to Lilith. Yet I cannot think of the specific reason for this summon considering the fact that said engagement, or rather future marriage has been put on hold, indefinitely.

I leave the castle wearing simply nothing but a shirt and brown pants not expecting this to be a formal meeting. Emerging from a portal in front of Borin’s mansion I witness an enormous crowd of people standing in front of the gates to Borin’s estate. Many of them are sharply dressed, young men all armed with various weapons. There must be at least a few hundred guys here and I have no idea why they are here. As it stands I can’t even get inside the gate to his mansion, at least not the traditional way. I know for certain trying to push my way through would cause a fight to break out, and I don’t want to get punched in the face when it's not even 9 am yet. I sneakily open a portal directly to the inside of the mansion getting into the front hall. I feel like I would have been a pretty good thief or assassin with my powers, but I’m not the kind of person to fight dirty right off the bat so no wonder my warclass wasn’t thief. I have no idea how to find Lord Borin in this giant house, but luckily one of the servants notices me and comes to speak with me.

“Ah first hero you’ve arrived, I did not even hear the door open,” the servant says.

I look up at him and notice it's the same butler that I met when Lilith first took me to her house.

“Well, it's kind of hard to get in the traditional way considering the crowd of people outside. Is there something happening today that I’m not aware of?” I respond.

The butler begins to lead me to somewhere inside the mansion as he signals for me to follow behind him.

“As you are aware the status of your engagement to the fair lady Lilith has not been made public knowledge and for the past few years potential suitors have come in mass declaring their intentions to marry Lady Lilith. Every year before the tournament starts this happens and Lady Lilith has denied each and everyone of them in the past,” the butler tells me.

“Is this what this is about? Is old man Borin going to force me to go public with the engagement? There’s an extremely important reason why that can’t happen yet.”

“No, not the Borin that resides as part of the council of lords, other high ranking members of Borin’s house are also referred to as ‘Lord Borin’.”

“And that person is...”

We come into a dining room where a long rectangular table occupies the middle of the room. The butler leads me to the table before pulling out the chair and gesturing for me to sit.

“You’ll meet them in a few moments, would you like anything to eat for breakfast while you wait?” he questions.

“Um, pancakes I guess.”

The butler walks away to tend to my request leaving me alone in this large dining room. There’s a grand piano in the corner of the room as well as a large cello set up to entertain guests. A waiter shortly comes into the wine glass in front of me. With no warning the grand piano starts playing on its own as I see no one on it currently. It starts playing this song with ever increasing octaves in music that doesn’t seem like a calm breakfast accompaniment.

An Intimidating Presence

“Is that normal?” I ask the waiter.

“The piano? While playing on its own is normal, this track typically does not bode well for the visitor. Usually it's used when “Lord Borin” has an important business meeting with someone that doesn’t have a good reputation. I haven’t the faintest idea why it would play now,” he tells me.

I feel a buildup of anxiety not knowing what this “Lord Borin” wants with me.While I’m waiting Lilith comes into the dining room fully dressed in her adventuring gear as she comes out and pulls up a chair next to me.

“You're dressed to kill, literally,” I say as I greet her.

“Look I bet you already know why you’ve been summoned here and I’m sorry, it's my fault. My poor planning didn’t account for how I’d explain this whole marriage thing to my mother,” Lilith announces.

“Your mother?”

Suddenly a 6 foot tall woman with long blonde hair comes into the room wearing a black one piece dress accompanied by the Lord Borin I’m familiar with. The woman takes a seat across from me and Lord Borin sits down at the head of the table.

“So you’re the one they call the first hero huh, I thought you’d be taller,” she says in a strong tone as she stares me in the eye.

I would fire back saying that I’m at least taller than her, but that would be a lie since she looks taller than me.

“I’m sorry I don’t live up to your expectations, did you expect me to be blonde and blue eyed as well?” I sarcastically reply.

“So you’re not the type to break down easily. Good, that’s at least better than half the suitors that come in this house. A lot of them can’t even handle the piano,” she claims.

The piano stops playing the intimidating tune and instead starts playing classical music, something akin to Debussy’s clair de lune, but it's in a different key.

“So I guess judging from the striking resemblance to Lilith, you must be her mom then,” I assumed.

“Ah yes how rude of me not to introduce myself. Liana Borin, pleasure to make your acquaintance,” she says as she grabs a bottle of red wine on the table and pours it into her glass.

“I’m Will, nice to meet you,” I greeted her stiffly.

“You can relax, you know, I’m not going to attack you,” Liana says as she notices the subtle glow of my aura around my body.

“I don’t feel threatened, this is part of my training for the upcoming tournament.”

“Yes, that little skirmish is happening soon isn’t. I do expect Dragon’s Descent to win again this year.”

This entire time Lilith is twiddling her thumbs with an expression on her face that seems like she wants to stall the purpose of this meeting. A similar expression can be seen on the face of Old man Borin as well. Too bad for them that I’m gonna break the ice here.

“So Liana, or should I address you by Lord.”

“Either is fine.”

“What exactly did you summon me here for? I’m sure it wasn’t to talk about the upcoming tournament.”

“Jumping straight to the point now are we? I thought we could get to know each other a little better first, but I guess I should get right to it. It’s recently come to my attention that you’re marrying my daughter?”

Oh boy here we go. This can’t possibly end well.

“That’s correct,” I gulped.

“Fun fact, out of the 100 people who have tried to marry her in the past I’ve sent 70 of them to the hospital and the other 30 have been sent home crying. I thought I’ve made it known that Lilith will not be forced to partake in a political marriage whatsoever, Father,” Liana claims as she sternly looks at Lord Borin. Her fist shortly slams down on the table, causing the piano to stop playing.

“W-w-w-well funny you should say that since this marriage was proposed by your daughter herself,” Lord Borin says as a bead of sweat drops down the side of his head.

“Y-yes that’s right Mom, I personally proposed to Will myself,” Lilith stammers.

“It’s been months since this proposal has happened and I’ve only been informed of it this week,” Liana states.

“The first hero requested that news of this proposal be kept secret for the time being. Given your reaction I believe that decision to be quite appropriate,” Borin informs her.

“Is that so.”

A few servants shortly come in and litter the table with a wide variety of breakfast foods, but all of us are still too terrified of Liana to even begin eating.

“Eat, now that I know this isn’t a political marriage I’m not going to throw you out the window like I did the last guy,” she commands.

I do as she says and begin to pick a few foods from the table. Mostly just the pancakes I asked for earlier. Borin and Lilith begin to start eating as well and the atmosphere starts to get less tense.

After a few minutes Liana restarts the conversation once everyone starts to relax.

“Now while I haven’t rejected you from the beginning, I still haven’t given my approval yet,” she notifies me.

“...”

I’m at a loss for words here, I have no idea what to do. I guess for Lilith’s sake I should at least try to keep this charade going.

“I don’t know exactly how you expect me to prove myself,” I bluntly state.

“I need to know you’ll be strong enough to protect Lilith no matter what and demonstrate you have the will to do so.”

“Look, we've already been through several life or death experiences in the past month alone. Does that count?”

“It's a step in the right direction, but I have something else in mind that I need you to take care of. Follow me,” Liana commands.

I don’t like where this is going.

We all soon finish breakfast and follow Liana. She leads me out of the dining room into the central hallway then out to the balcony facing the front of the mansion where the large crowd of people are.

“It seems that information regarding your marriage has leaked, and thus the crowd of pests outside have gathered here. Apparently some of the servants of this house can’t keep their mouths shut, so that’s how I and all those other people learned of it as well,” she states.

“Damn, this is exactly why I didn’t want this to become common knowledge. So what do you want me to do about it?” I asked her.

“Take care of it. In any way you please, talk them down, beat them, kill them if you want. I personally recommend the last one.”

“Wait, but there are hundreds of people outside, maybe even a thousand. You expect me to deal with that alone?” I gasped.

“Take care of it before sundown or you’re not marrying my daughter. This should be but a trivial matter if you're actually serious,” Liana states rather casually.

“Liana, that seems like a rather difficult task for the young man. We can simply call for the assistance of the Imperial Knights,” Lord Borin chimes in.

“Bah the imperial knights have more important things to do than deal with marriage squabbles.”

The stress accumulated on Lilith’s face causes her to break as she quickly interrupts.

“Wait Mom, don't make him do this. This is all my fault, the truth is-”

“Stop no more! Will shall deal with this problem and that is the end of this discussion.”

I look at Lilith with a look of pity that says “At least you tried”. Honestly I feel worse for her than I do for myself right now.

“Now you have until sundown to deal with that crowd or the marriage is off. NOW GO!” Liana yells as she picks me up by the collar and tosses me at subsonic speed in the direction of the crowd with sheer brute strength.

“Why, why am I always being thrown everywhere,” I sighed.

It seems that Lilith’s strength is something that’s inherited from her mother. Who would have guessed.

Her brute strength causes me to collide with a building in front of the estate with enough force that the wall itself collapses on impact. The large crowd of people that gathered in front of Lord Borin’s estate turned to notice the body launched at inhuman speeds in their direction. Their attention is then taken as I hear Liana’s voice in the distance beneath the pile of rubble I’m under.

“ATTENTION ALL YOU PIECES OF CRAP, I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE HERE FOR AND WE WILL SETTLE THIS ONCE AND FOR ALL. IF YOU HAVE ANY PROBLEMS WITH THE NEWS OF MY DAUGHTERS ENGAGEMENT THEN TAKE IT UP WITH THE FIRST HERO HIMSELF!” she vocalizes.

If Lilith’s mom is like this when it comes to marriage proposals then why do people even keep trying?

I feel a slight drop of blood trickle down my cheek due to that impact and I contemplate whether or not it's worth getting up from this pile of rubble. Maybe if I don’t move people will think I’m dead and go home.

Through the rubble I hear people approaching my position.

“Hey did you see that.”

“Yeah I saw, that was the first hero wasn’t it. That woman did most of the work for us, he’s not even moving. Let’s beat em until he’s blue guys, he hasn’t learned his lesson yet,” I hear someone say.

Seriously, they’re willing to beat up an unconscious person, I swear these people are f*cking insane. I hear the sound of at least a dozen guys approaching me, their weapons making a clunking noise as they get dragged across the ground. Alright fine, if that’s how they want to play it I don’t mind playing dirty. I let them close enough to get within melee range before I emerge from the rubble and blast away a dozen guys with a burst of wind.

“Here I am getting the shit kicked out of me and it's not even 9 A.M yet,” I sighed as I down a small health potion and tossed the bottle aside.

In front of me there’s at least a few hundred people standing all armed and dangerous.

“Alright Mythril how many people are we dealing with?”

“425,” Mythril telepathically vocalizes in my head.

“That many! Wait, if they don’t use aura then I might have a chance.”

“With closer inspection I do sense they are at least capable of intermediate aura usage.”

Why does everything have to be difficult?

“Well folks I don’t suppose we can talk about this can we?” I nervously ask the crowd of heavily armed men.

There’s a brief few seconds of pause before they turn in my direction.

“GET HIM!” someone yells as they start charging in my direction.

Okay then I guess it's time to use the secret Will technique.

“And that would be?”

“RUNNING FOR MY LIFE!”

I immediately get up and book it in the opposite direction of the estate towards the city. Groups of men attempt to surround me and cut me off, but I blast my way through them with a few strong wind bullets. With the tournament happening in 2 weeks, the amount of people in Colonus has increased by the boatload. It should be easy to lose this many people in this dense city. As the distance between me and my pursuers starts to close I hop through one of the many portals of Colonus’ transportation system. And then another portal and then another. Just keep running and entering every portal in sight. I have no idea where they’ll take me, but that doesn’t matter, just as long as it's far away from here.

Despite my quick footed attempts to escape there’s still hordes of people chasing after me, however my portal jumping has at least cut that initial number in half. At this point there’s at least two options: Option 1 hide until sunset and wait for this whole thing to blow over. Not that I think it will, but at that point the imperial knights would be forced to step in and help. There would also be the case of my “engagement” with Lilith becoming void and that might make it so Lilith can’t adventure with me anymore. Or Option 2, come up with a way to deal with 425 men in one day, the much more painful option. Honestly if we just talked this through with Lord Borin from the beginning I wouldn’t be in this situation right now. It's too late for that now I guess so Option 2 it is. There’s one way I’d summarize this whole situation right now and it would be that there is a point in which we need to stop and we’ve clearly passed it but lets keep going and see what happens.

“Do you even have a plan to deal with this?”

“Guerilla Warfare mostly and a bit of stealth.”

“That’s cowardly.”

“Hey Nazuko would approve and it's better than my first plan which was to summon a tornado in the middle of the city. At least this way I do less damage to the city itself.”

I get off the streets by jumping onto a nearby rooftop forcing my pursuers to as well. Right as I reach the end of the roof I stop to catch my breath from the 30 minutes I spent running and planning my attack. It’s 9:00 A.M and I have until 5 P.M to finish this.

“Are you done running coward?” one of the men behind me says with a hostile tone in his voice.

I turn around to face the man with a smile on my face as a flashbang drops via a portal near the man's feet. I cover my eyes right before the flashbang goes off blinding all the unsuspecting victims on the roof.

“ARGH MY EYES!”

All I could hear were the cries of men struggling with their immediate loss of sight.

Thank you Ryder.

I use my sword (still sheathed) to quickly rush all the blinded men and knock them out with a quick bonk on the head. The loud noise of the flashbang had attracted a few groups of men who lost my tail earlier so I quickly escaped the scene through one of my own portals, closing the entrance behind me. You know Remi once asked me how many five year olds I thought I could take on, well I guess I’ll know the answer to that today.

I survey the city from the top of a nearby bell tower observing the swarms of people trying to find me. It seems they’ve formed search parties with groups of men averaging about 25 guys per group. I’ve just taken out a group of 30 guys using underhanded tactics and at the rate this is going it's going to take all day. It’s a good thing I have all day, but I need to hurry up. I have an idea for how to take care of this, but the city might hate me for it. Oh well it’ll only last half a day at most. Today the portal menace returns. I remember the feeling I had back when I first started to learn magic, the lack of control I had back then. The only difference between now and then is that I’m doing it intentionally instead of accidentally.

It takes no less than 5 minutes until people are once again falling out of the sky. Vasavir once told me that this method was used by a terrorist group to commit an indiscriminate attack on the city. Someone with spatial magic like Vasavir or the emperor himself would be able to sense the source of the disruption so that’s why the attack failed in the past. To all the innocent people caught in the crossfire I would like to apologize now. I’ve kept the damage to a minimum by only messing with one sector of the city. I just hope those two would be willing to let this slide since it's only for half a day. Also the fact of the matter is this sector is that of the adventurers’ guild so most of the people traveling through are at least accustomed to getting injured.

I’ve disrupted my enemy’s ability to move throughout the city, now what’s next? I feel a flash of electricity run through my brain alerting me to an unknown danger. In the corner of my eye I see an arrow fly at me and I narrowly move to avoid being shot. The arrow strikes the bell behind me causing a loud ringing noise that can be heard throughout the city. I turned in the direction the arrow came from to see the archer nocking another arrow in his bow.

“I guess starting with the ranged combatants would be a good start.”

I dodge the next arrow heading my way, open a portal right next to the archer and grab hold of him. I pull him back through and slam him into the bell knocking him out. The loud noise of the bell is almost enough to disorient me. There’s a plethora of more archers lining up atop the rooftops. The bell’s racket must have attracted them. One by one I conduct a series of hit and run attacks on them via portals, hitting each of them in the jaw with an aura enhanced punch. Right as I approach the last of their archers, I’m struck with a kick to the side from another surprise attacker.

Damn, they’re realized I’ve been targeting their archers and are now grouping up to protect them. An assortment of 15 men surrounded the archer preventing me from rushing in. One man rushes forward slamming the ground with a large medieval club, but I jump to the side, place one of Ryder’s grenades in the man's pocket and use all my strength to toss the man back at his allies. The explosion is enough to take care of the entire group at once.

“That was rather brutal.”

“They’ll be fine, they have aura. The difference between people who have aura and those who don’t is like night and day. Speaking of which, Mythril, how many people are left?”

“So far you’ve inpacitated around 60, which means 365 are left.”

“I could have sworn I dealt with more than 60.”

“You may have struck more than 60 people, it wasn’t strong enough to knock them out. I have detected there to be healers amongst them so a few have been revived.”

“Individually they’re probably no stronger than a vagabond level adventurer. But with this many people if I get swarmed, I’m done. I need to pick up the pace and stop holding back.”

It was only 3 hours since this fiasco started that I realized I wasn’t wearing any armor at all. I equip all my leather gear and actually unsheathe my sword. I also put on a black cloak to hide my face so I can move through the city a little easier. I pull out a blue potion from my pocket dimension and quickly down it. It was one of Azura’s experimental potions that enhanced one’s hearing. Ugh, I can feel that terrible aftertaste, but I feel its effect already beginning to take place. I hear the rampant noises of people running through the city closing in on my position.

“Where is he, he’s picking us off one by one,” I hear someone desperately say.

“There’s still a ton of us, first hero or not we’ll win with sheer numbers,” another man responds.

Alright prep work is done, now time to spill a little blood. These people aren’t as fragile as the peasants from Ayana so I can afford to be a little rough. I jump down from the rooftop, now back to street level. I keep my head down as the suited men unknowingly approach me. A group of ten men try to walk past me, but once they get within melee range I quickly spin and slash everyone in the vicinity, their cries attracting more of their allies. For the next hour I become a whirlwind of blood and steel. Rushing from one group of men to the next, taking them down and fleeing before anyone gets a chance to regroup. My enhanced hearing allows me to locate my targets and make a plan of attack. Just single out the groups which are farthest from the rest should give me the most tactical advantage, although it requires a bit more footwork on my part.

It’s around 3:00 P.M and I’ve dealt with half of the initial force and I’m already exhausted. I need to find a place to hide while I regain my strength. I quickly dip into a nearby potion shop and realize that I’ve been here before. I recognize the shop owner and I’m pretty sure she’ll help me. The girl in front of the counter has her brown hair tied in a french braid and has a rather bored expression on her face.

“Welcome to my potion shop we- oh it's you. What’s going on outside today?” the girl asks as she recognizes me.

“It’s a long story, just need to use your place to hide real quick.”

I place a large bag of gold on the counter before heading to the restroom.

“Don’t tell anyone I was here,” I say before heading off.

“Hey are you even going to buy anything with this!? I don’t know why, but I’m annoyed that my place is being used as a toilet instead of a potion shop.”

“I’ll think about it in a few minutes. Also if anyone in a formal suit comes in trying to buy healing potions please refuse to serve them. It would really help me out.”

“Are you telling me not to serve my customers?”

“Please? Just for today,” I ask as I put both my hands together like I’m praying.

“Fine,” she reluctantly agrees.

I immediately head into the restroom and look at myself in the mirror. I’m drenched in blood from all the idiots I’ve been smacking all day. I’d say I look like some kind of vengeful wraith or demon. I hear the sound of a bell indicating the arrival of a few customers, or pursuers. I put my ear to the door trying to suss out if it's a threat or not.

“Woman, did a hooded swordsman come through here?” I hear a rough coarse voice ask.

“Not that I recall. I think I saw him through the window, heading towards the guild,” she says, throwing them off.

“Alright guys check the guild building,” the man orders as they all rush out of the shop.

I see most of them leave through a crack in the door, but one man remains.

“Potion seller, I require your strongest healing potions.”

“Sir I cannot sell you my strongest healing potions. My potions are too strong for you.”

“It is not up to you to decide if I am strong enough to handle those potions.”

“Sir, my strongest potions would kill you. I recommend you go to a potion seller that sells weaker potions.”

As entertained as I am watching this confrontation, I feel bad making her deal with this. I open a portal behind the man, grabbing him and putting him in a chokehold. About 30 seconds pass until he passes out and I send his body elsewhere using a portal.

“Thanks,” I tell the shop owner.

“Do I even want to know what’s happening?” she asks with a befuddled expression on her face.

“No, but do you sell invisibility potions by any chance?”

“Black bottles on the right.”

I look to the shelf on my left and grab all six of them.

“How long do these last and do I have to get naked?” I question remembering an important detail.

“About 5 minutes and no. Why do you ask?”

“You know I have a friend that experimented with invisibility potions and one: they didn’t wear off and two: they didn’t make my clothes invisible. Do you know how hard it is to pee when you can’t aim well?” I say, telling her the results from one of Azura’s experiments.

“I imagine it is quite difficult.”

“Extraordinarily. Also was what I gave you earlier enough to cover these?”

“More than enough.”

“Good I’ll be on my way then.”

I exit the shop and down the potion I just bought. It tastes sour like lemon juice, but with these I at last know there’s no bad side effects. With the 6 potions I have about half an hour worth of invisibility and I can’t waste it. I started off with the group that got led towards the guild.

A group of 30 men are loitering around in the plaza looking for me, but to no avail. I easily walk towards them infiltrating the group when suddenly a brilliant plan comes to me. I come up behind one guy, kick him in the shin and tap the guy behind him on the shoulder.

“OW, what the hell man! What was that for?” the poor man screamed.

“What I didn’t do anything,” the accused man answers.

“You just kicked me you asshole!”

“No I didn’t you idiot!”

The two men begin to fight intensely believing the other to be the source of conflict. A third man tries to interject in an attempt to stop the fight.

“Hey guys, what are you fighting for? We’re supposed to be hunting down the first hero, not fighting each othe-”

But before the man finishes his sentence I give him a quick smack to the face.

“Alright that is it you guys are dead!” He yells as he joins the fight.

I start similar confrontations amongst all the other guys and before long they’ve entirely forgotten about finding me. The only problem is I’ve wasted 10 minutes setting that all up and only have 20 minutes left of invisibility. I kick it up a notch and start attacking as many people as I can, no longer caring about stealth. At the rate people are dropping and for seemingly no reason at all, I hear people claiming there’s a malicious ghost going around attacking people. I feel bad that I’m scaring the shit out of people, but it's for a good reason I promise. Unfortunately my invisibility ran out and I’m on the run again. My arms and legs feel like jelly from all the fighting I’ve had to do, but I gotta keep going.

“How many of these guys are left, I can see the sun starting to go down?”

“That last group brought the count up to 314, approximately about 45 minutes until sunset.”

“How am I supposed to deal with 100 guys with that little time?” I complained as I wiped the blood off my face.

Wait, maybe I don’t have to defeat them all, I just need to run away. An all or nothing idea pops into my head as I change course and run in the direction of Lord Borin’s estate. I also stop messing with the portals, getting my enemies to follow.

After coming back to the front of the estate, I simply stand in front of the gate to face the remaining horde of pursuers. There’s about a hundred of them like Mythril surmised.

“Have you finally decided to stop fighting like a coward and fight us like a man,” one of the last stragglers claimed.

“Heh.”

“?”

“HA, HA, HA, HA!!!” I laughed like a maniac.

“Wha-?”

“You really thought you all had a chance. No I don’t fight like a man, I fight like something far worse.”

Inspiration for Murder

I place my hand on my sword and prepare to unsheathe it as I start letting out the entirety of my aura. Sirius once told me that you can sense one’s intent from their aura and I’ll be taking advantage of that fact. Just pour all the malicious feelings I’ve felt from this whole experience into my aura and try to emanate a sense of bloodlust despite how fatigued I am. As I summon the rest of my aura I use the power of my sword to enhance the output making it flare up even further. I stare down the horde of men like a ravenous beast, with blood dripping down my head. I am staking everything I have on a simple bluff, but with the way I look and the theoretical amount of power I’m outputting it should make for a pretty convincing bluff.

I can already see a few men in front of me start to take a few steps back as they feel the killer intent I’m emanating. Good, it's working. I just need to give them the option to escape so they stop staring.

“I am sick and tired of all of you mere peasants chasing me around. I’ve been holding back this entire time in an attempt not to kill you, but I’m done. Take even one step forward and I’ll kill you!” I yelled vehemently.

These men have most likely never been to the demon world, but I have and I know what it's like to come face to face with true monsters. I remember the intense bloodlust I felt coming from those monsters, the feeling made my skin crawl and made my blood run cold. That’s the feeling I need to imitate. A yearning, a hatred coming from the depths of one's soul.

But I can’t. I don’t have those kinds of feelings resonating within me, the best I can do is imagine what it's like, the state of mind I would possess. The intensity of my aura is causing waves of air pressure that’s starting to blow away large amounts of dirt and rubble. The nearby trees are bending to the force of the air as well.

I can’t tell anymore if I need to go further or not, I’ve closed my eyes to focus on unleashing my power. Just a bit more and it will climax. The second it does I’ll unleash one strike, just one filled with malice and an imitation of true hatred.

A few seconds pass and I feel it, I’ve brought everything out. I prepare my final strike, and in one motion I’ll unsheathe this sword and decimate everything in front of me.

“THAT’S IT ALL OF YOU, DIE!”

“This is a bit much for a bluff, isn’t it,” a familiar voice says.

I open my eyes and see Emperor Marcus standing before me with one hand holding my sword hand preventing the strike.

“Some of those poor souls have already passed out a few minutes ago and the ones that remain, well,” he says as he points to the few people still standing.

Just as he says a few people have indeed passed out and a few others look like they’ve pissed their pants. The rest have this blank look on their face as they stand motionless.

“I may have overdone it a bit I admit, but what are you doing here?” I asked him.

“This morning there’s been reports of the portals malfunctioning so I decided to go check it out. Also there’s this entire stack of paperwork I’m supposed to take care of that I simply couldn’t be bothered to handle today. I’ve been watching since lunchtime and it's been quite entertaining,” Marcus comments.

“Ah, I hope I’m not in trouble for the portal thing, am I?” I nervously ask him.

“I won’t say anything as long as you don’t. Now perhaps we should leave, that burst of energy tends to attract the strong instead of scaring off the weak,” Marcus claims as he makes note of several people watching on in the distance.

I definitely sense strong auras approaching our location and from what I know of this city people are willing to start fights over something so meaningless as a tap on the shoulder, so it's best to take his advice.

Suddenly the gates to Borin’s mansion open and Liana walks outside to greet us.

“So you really were able to deal with that lot in a day. And here I thought that I was going to have to take care of the rest,” Liana says as she looks on at the motionless crowd behind us.

“Eh I chalk it up to the fact that the majority of them felt like nameless peasants. I still refuse to believe that this kind of thing happens every year,” I tell her.

“People are idiots, what can I say? And what are you here for Marcus,” Liana says as she turns her attention to the emperor.

“Just killing time and avoiding my political duties as usual. If anything important happened today, I’m sure Vasavir took care of it,” the slacking emperor laughs.

Is it really a good idea to let Vasavir be in charge of major political decisions? Advisor to the emperor he may be, but he gives questionable advice at best.

“Now does this count as me proving myself to you, or do you want to fight me too?” I say sarcastically.

“Funny you should say that,” she begins.

“Aw fuck.”

I instinctively put up my arms to block a punch I know would be coming. It did not help as I got launched into the fountain and getting completely soaked in water. At least all the blood has washed off.

“He jinxed it,” Marcus says amusingly.

“No, I planned to beat him up anyway,” Liana responds.

She takes off her heels before jumping up in the air and prepares to smash the fountain I’m lying in. I desperately jump out of the way as the fountain gets obliterated, launching debris in every direction.

“Hey you do know this is your place right?”

“It's fine we can easily replace whatever gets damaged, you should worry more about staying alive,” she advises.

Liana closes the distance as she begins another attack, and I take out my weapon to counter only for it to be smacked out of my hand. She continues beating on me with a flurry of strikes and the pain continues to stack.

“Come on, where was that power I felt earlier, don’t tell me it was just a fluke,” she yells as she berates me.

“Maybe if I hadn’t been fighting the entire day I could show you, but right now I’m exhausted,” I complained.

“Nonsense, it is when we are at our most desperate moments when we show our true strength,” she lectures before punching the ground so hard it causes it to split.

My arms are starting to become numb from absorbing all of her punches and I’m pretty sure she isn’t even using aura. I’m no expert in close combat, but I don’t want to cause too much destruction with magic right now so I’ll just have to give it everything I’ve got. For the past few days I’ve been battered by a certain monk’s fighting style, but my body remembers those techniques.

One of her punches slips through my guard and hits me in the face, but I pull my head back at the moment of impact to absorb the blow. I unleash a sturdy side kick directly to her abdomen pushing her back 5 feet. I take up a wide stance with my right arm up and left stationed adjacent. With both hands open, I’m prepared to take up a defensive position. This is only an imitation of the real thing, but Sirius’s river form is effective at redirecting an opponent's attacks and using their momentum against them. At this point I’ve entirely given up on trying to defeat her. I could tell that from the first punch, but I’m too stubborn to go down without a fight.

I let her attack first as I only have enough energy to go for counters. She gives a wide right hook that I intercept with my left arm and counter with a front snap kick to her chin causing her to flip backwards. She lands on her feet and continues using rapid attacks against me. The attacks I can’t dodge I move to lessen the impact, while slipping past the attacks I can dodge and delivering precisely aimed counters to her vital points.

“What’s the matter, having a bit of trouble? Despite your brute strength your linear movements make it easy to dodge. I bet it feels like you're hitting water,” I taunted.

“You move quickly, but your strikes are shallow. Not even strong enough to break rocks,” Liana insults.

“But with enough time water can erode even the strongest rocks,” Marcus comments from afar.

“Then I’ll just vaporize that water,” Liana says as her arms light on fire.

From a bystander’s point of view it would seem like I just got hit with a flaming meteor as she jumps and crashes into me. She continues her assault in a similar manner as earlier but the flames on her arms are preventing me from redirecting the force of her blows. I thought I could put out the flames by blasting her with a few wind bullets, but it seemed to have the opposite effect.

“You fool, don’t you know that such weak winds only make a fire stronger? If you keep holding back then you're going to regret it,” she says as she puts her hands on the ground and lights the whole yard ablaze.

“Fine then I just need to show you a much stronger wind then. But don’t get mad when it ends with everything being destroyed,” I warned her.

I pull out the magic book on wind spells out of my pocket dimension and start a chant that should not be so familiar to me. Every time I’m forced to fight a strong opponent it always ends in mass destruction. Every. Single. Time.

“Raging Winds I summon thee,

Breathe upon this land as thy see fit,

Seek no Retribution for chaos,

And Give Birth To Destruction”

“TORNADO!”

Due to my lack of stamina it turned out to only be as weak as an F1 tornado and instead of putting out the flames, the winds began to resonate with them creating a fiery tornado.

My attack actually forced Liana to protect herself with aura as a gold barrier gets generated and prevents her from getting sucked into the fiery tornado. I however did not have the foresight to have a way to stop myself from being affected by my own attack as I started to get sucked into the tornado. Before I do Liana grabs me with one hand, shielding me within her own barrier.

The winds start absorbing debris and start taking chunks off of Lord Borin’s house causing damage to everything in the area while simultaneously setting the surroundings on fire. The flaming whirlwind then proceeded to move past us sucking up the gate and becoming an immediate danger to the city itself.

“Kid, I think you’ve proven your point, as much as I sometimes hate Dreden this fight is between you and me. Not with you and the city, now stop it,” Liana commands me.

“Uh, well you see… I don’t really know how,” I admitted.

For a few seconds we watch on as the tornado starts to ravage the city before suddenly dispersing. As the tornado disperses I see the Emperor’s orange aura in the center and I immediately discern the fact that he easily stopped it with his powers.

“Now that’s enough of that,” Marcus says as the tornado is reduced to a simple breeze.

“How did you stop it so easily?” I asked.

“Just a simple trick, I made some of the wind spin in the opposite direction cancelling out the force,” he answers.

“As for all this fire.”

The emperor raises his right hand creating a portal that sucks in all the flames in the area, leaving the front yard of the estate with just a few smoldering embers. There’s a bit of damage to Lord Borin’s house and the surrounding buildings, but thanks to the emperor, the damage wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

“Now Liana I think that bout should have satisfied you for now. That man there is one who enjoys wasting their time in the hospital, let's not give him the satisfaction eh,” Marcus suggests.

“Hey, the hospital is one of the few places in this world where I actually feel safe,” I argued.

“If you’re willing to endanger a city in order to defeat a single opponent, I suppose you do have resolve,” Liana admits.

“But I’m still not satisfied, our fight hasn’t gotten to the point where I needed to use my ability or pull out my Lucerne yet.”

The thought of this woman with a war hammer scares me. Luckily this conversation gets derailed as Lord Borin and Lilith come out the front door of their house to see the smoldering ruins that is their front yard.

“What in Vienna’s name is going on out here?!” Lord Borin demands.

“Clearly we are just having a barbeque in your front lawn,” I say sarcastically.

“I think mom got carried away again,” Lilith comments.

“A test of strength that is all,” Liana answers sternly.

“Liana, you always do this when it comes to your daughter. This is always why the marriage offers always come when you're out of town,” Borin laments.

“I will not have my daughter be married to a weak spineless fool. This is a necessary part of the process,” she states.

“And what is the consensus on that marriage,” I chimed in.

“Denied!”

“What!” Everyone says.

“But not for the reason you think. Now I need to talk with Will and Lilith privately real quick. Can’t trust any of the servants around here to keep their mouths shut. Do you have any place where we can talk privately?” she asks me.

I think for a moment and point to the airship floating high in the sky above the castle.

“Good enough I suppose,” Liana says, giving her approval.

The emperor assists us by making a portal to the airship and leaving Lord Borin to stand in front of his partially destroyed house. We enter the cockpit of the airship and Liana sits down in the driver's seat.

“Hmm, complicated machine,” she says as she observes all the controls of the airship.

“Now let me start this off by addressing the little charade you two have been putting on,” she begins.

“Charade? Oh, I’m assuming she knows then,” I say to Lilith.

“Well I mean I did tell her after all. After you got thrown out of the house,” Lilith affirmed.

“Yes, yes your little fake marriage, I must say that was quite the lie to fool your grandfather. If you wanted to go out adventuring just do it, you're already strong enough to defy him if you wanted to. Or even just ask me about it.”

“Mom you’re in Dreden about 5% of the time,” Lilith argues.

“Wait hold on, before we go any further let me clarify one thing. You knew this whole time and you still beat me up?” I say flabbergasted.

I don’t know whether to feel angry or not.

“It's not everyday someone gets to fight the first hero and besides I didn’t beat you up as badly as Lilith did when you two first fought. I heard she almost killed you. The most you got from me is a black eye,” Liana notes.

I guess that’s true, but I hate being misled for no reason.

“Hey he was still a weakling back then,” Lilith says, kind of defending my honor.

“Now as for the whole marriage thing, why not keep the charade going a little longer. It's a lot less hassle on our part if people know you’re engaged and you’ve already dealt with the gold diggers earlier today. I’m sure after that little act they’ll think twice about fighting you again,” Liana suggests.

“Oh umm okay then,” I say, still confused.

“But...”

“Here we go again,” Lilith says, also expressing her dissatisfaction.

“The reason I said denied earlier is simply because Lilith isn’t strong enough. According to the prophecy Will shall walk a path of death and destruction, if you are to stand by his side I’d need to be utmost sure of the fact that you wouldn’t lose to anyone. Basically if you ever get strong enough to beat me then I’ll approve of it,” Liana tells her daughter.

“If that’s the case then I might be single forever,” Lilith bemoans.

“Nonsense you’re already stronger than I was at your age. Anyways let's go explain the situation to your grandfather, no matter how he responds I’ll force him to accept it,” she says menacingly.

“Will, sorry about this whole day, I’ll treat you to dinner tomorrow or something okay,” Lilith tells me as she and her mom walk out the cockpit.

“As long as I don’t have to beat up 425 guys to get it, that’s fine,” I tell her.

I sit back in the chair of the cockpit until I realized they had no way of going down until I looked to the side window and see them jump down back to the ground. Specifically with Lilith being carried by her mom, causing the large impact on the ground.

Today has been the most unnecessary and eventful day of the year so far. I can’t help but think of how many of this world’s problems would be solved if people were just willing to sit down and listen to one another. I guess this is why we can’t have good things.