A tear in the space suddenly appeared at the edge of a lush green forest, surrounded by many huge trees. The trees were huge, even 4 burly men couldn't wrap their arms around them.

Inside the space crack, a young man stepped out warily, looking at his surroundings with a cheerful expression. The young man was Caz, unsurprisingly. The place he just "teleported" to was near the Kalo Village, the same village that Caz spent most of his earlier cultivation days in. The village wasn't the best place to enjoy cultivation in. The Qi density was almost depressingly scarce, though not very surprising.

Almost every being in this world absorbs Qi, people, beasts, plants, and even the giant trees in the forest. Trees take up quite a bit of Qi, though it doesn't do much for them because they take up so much Qi, over half of the absorbed amount begins to slowly excrete its way through the trees husk, and that excretion is called 'Spirit Sap'.

Spirit Sap is a very valuable thing that many cultivators covet, though not very helpful at the later stages, many lower stage cultivators would literally kill just to get a lick of it.

Caz looked around with a nostalgic expression on his face. It had only been a couple years, but he still held this place close to his heart. Most of this was because of the village that he used to live in. Though some people there didn't take too kindly for a Devil to move in suddenly, they warmed up to him eventually.

There are many different races on Tairo, but as you would probably assume, Humans practically rule the world. This isn't very surprising, given how many humans there are, even on the other continents. The only ones that come close to Humans in power would have to be the Devils. Unfortunately, Devils are a very rare sight to see nowadays. After the Great Destruction War that happened about 4 Centuries ago, the Devils went into hiding, hoping to save their kin from the clutches of the victorious humans.

Humans are known as being very greedy, even towards their own kind. Then again, what race doesn't have even that slightest bit of greed?

Most continents are ruled by a Human power, though there are a few exceptions. Tairo isn't one of those exceptions, as it is ruled by the so-called 'Human Emperor', some random Half-God that couldn't break the shackles of the Mortal world, he had the talent to break through, but who in their right minds would leave all the power that he held at the tip of his fingers, just to start over again in a shitty "Higher World".

Going back to the present, Caz had an idea of where he was currently located. He figures that he was very close to his old Village. The distance between the village and the forest was less than a mile.

Caz thought about just teleporting a bit further and getting to the village instantly, but he felt like just enjoying the walk would be way better. He got especially excited imagining the expressions of everyone when they see their "precious" little Devil boy come back.

About a mile away, there were 2 guards standing outside of a certain village. The guards didn't look very intimidating, as shown by their carefree attitude. The village was a relatively cheerful place, occasionally a fight would break out between two drunkards, but the worst thing that would happen is that someone would go home missing a tooth.

The guards that were standing outside were just lazily keeping watch, one of the 2, George, was busily picking his nose, occasionally flicking it towards the other guard, Michael. The 2 guards were close friends after years of standing guard, but Michael was regretting every day of it, having to deal with this idiot.

"You do that one more time, and I'll let you pick this foot out of your ass instead" (Michael)

Michael was visibly irritated, his left eyebrow constantly twitching, while his hand was slapping George on the back of his head.

"Jeez, you're no fun. I just thought you wanted an extra protein snack. It's not good for your health to stand around in the sun all day without some nutrition, right?" (George)

"I could say the same, the offer about my foot up your ass is still here, I'll even throw in an extra fist to go down your throat, free of charge!" (Michael)

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

While the 2 village idiots were bickering, a young man with an odd appearance was walking directly towards them, not very far from them.

They didn't seem to notice him as they were still fighting, but as he got closer, Michael finally noticed him. He quickly stopped wrestling with George and stood up straight to greet the new traveller. As Michael finally laid eyes upon the youth, they were soon as wider than a bowl, with his mouth slackjawed. George was confused with the look on his face and took a peek for himself. He quickly joined Michael with the same expression on his face.

The reason they were dumbfounded was simply that they recognized this youth. Standing in front of them stood a man with a height that was barely above average, had a childish looking face with a relaxing and very cheerful smile waxed onto his face. His very short and black unkempt hair only added to his carefree aura. All of this would have made the young man a relatively attractive looking person, were it not for his unusual terrifying eyes. The entirety of both eyes was as black as the abyss, this wouldn't have been enough to deter someone, but in the middle of those horrifying eyes, there were 2 long white vertical slits that closely resembled reptilian eyes.

If someone thought that this was just some type of eye disorder, then they wouldn't have an excuse if they saw his rapidly swinging string-like tail, pitch black as well with no fur, almost like a rubber line, the tip of the tail was shaped like an arrowhead. If you had some knowledge of the Devil race, you'd know that all devils had tails, the looks of the tips may differ from Devil to Devil, but the stringy base of the tail was the same.

After a good 20 seconds, the Guards finally loosened up and a large smile taking up over half of their face appeared, replacing the dumb look they had before. They walked up the man and slapped him on the back before heartily laughing.

""Caz!"" (Michael/George)

"I see that you 2 morons are still doing the same boring job, huh? It's great to see you numbskulls again, I'm back bitches!" (Caz)

The 2 guards quickly led him further into the village, where he got surprised stares from the ones that recognized him and curious stares from the newer ones he hadn't seen before.

After a good few minutes of walking, they reached a normal looking house with a white fence outside. Caz was kind of nervous when they were walking towards the door, as this was the house of his "granny". He felt kind of guilty to just walk back into the village without informing anyone, mostly because of how he left a few years before. He left a letter near his bed that just told everyone that he was going towards the higher realm to run a few 'errands'. As he was leaving the village that day, he was glad he left before Johanna could find him, as she would never let him go to a place that was filled with danger.

All of a sudden, the door gently opened. Walking out of the house was a beautiful looking young woman, with long red hair going down to her back, matching her cute red eyes, supple and soft looking skin, cherry red lips and a voluptuous figure that would make even the Gods tremble in desire. Caz would have loved to admire the woman he spent most of his childhood with more, but he had a large chill run up his spine as her eyes met his.

As the initial surprise left the woman, soon came to a wave of fiery anger that she had been holding for years erupted. She quickly walked over to the man and slapped his head over and over again. Slowly, the anger was fading, and with tears in her eyes, she stopped and fiercely hugged the man, sobbing quietly in his embrace, occasionally pinching him in different locations to appease her anger. After a few minutes, she slowly stood up and stared right in the eyes of Caz, those eyes which would make even the strongest military veteran have nightmares and slapped his head one more time.

"Why?" (Johanna)

"Why what?" Caz said in an ignorant tone, hoping to edge his way out of this demons embrace.

"Cut the bullshit, you know what I'm talking about, leaving for that long and thinking a simple note would relieve the anger everyone felt. Did you think that no one would care if you left suddenly, you dumbass? Think about the others for once in your life, you idiot!" At the end of the sentence, Johanna was yelling loudly, with tears still in her eyes.

Caz sighed, knowing full well that what he did was irresponsible, how could they not worry? A 15-year-old boy suddenly deciding to go into the Higher Realm. What kind of idiotic decision was that? Alas, there was not much they could do besides sit and wallow in their own anger.

(I'm sorry, okay? I just had a feeling that if I told you guys, that you would lock me in my room until you could beat the idea of leaving out of my head. Don't worry, I'm back. I don't think I'll be going back into the Higher Realm anytime soon, alright?" Even an old hermit would be affected by the tears of this young maiden, much less the young 23 year old. He quietly rubbed her head as she was still in a tight hug.

"Mhm..." Johanna nodded and silently crawled out of the embrace and looked at Caz, the latter then cheerfully smiled and kissed her forehead quickly before backing off.

Johanna was mildly blushing and tried to slap his head again, only for him to dodge the "attack" and quickly ran inside the house.

"Feels good to be back, don't ya think so, granny Hanna? HAHA!" Caz was laughing evilly while "granny" Johanna was furiously chasing after him as soon as he said the word "granny". Hearing the terrified screams of Caz as the door slammed shut, the 2 guards quickly walked off in terror of what would become of them if they stayed any longer