Pixie had met many crazy people throughout her life, and as a part of Red Tail, she had worked with a lot of them.

But if she had to rank people by craziness, then without a doubt, the Demonic Exorcist would stand at the top.

He had just slaughtered a dozen children; the oldest was seventeen years old, while the youngest barely looked twelve.

The decapitated head he tossed up and caught belonged to one of the younger headless corpses.

But the crazy bastard had a smile on his face as if his birthday had come early. Even Roc, who rarely cared about cruelty, frowned in disapproval.

A young girl was kneeling and crying as she stared at the corpses of her teammates. She had silver hair, the hallmark feature of the test subjects of Organization X.

The Demonic Exorcist had a smile on his face that seemed to grow wider the more she cried. “So, let me get this straight. You were going to release high class demons to slaughter the people, and you and your fellow lab rats would play hero to save them. That way, the higher-ups would be incentivized to invest after they saw how effective you were.”

He already knew that was true. But at this point, he was just tormenting the child. Pixie felt like throwing up and intervened. “Enough with this. I will kill her.”

Her arm morphed into a giant sharp claw. She was going to put this kid out of her misery.

Before she could do so, the Demonic Exorcist put his hand up. “Don’t even think of touching her.”

“Whatever fucked up idea you have, don’t do it in front of us,” Pixie insisted.

The Demonic Exorcist shook his head. “Don’t worry. I won’t murder her. I’m just tormenting her a bit. She might be young, but she has crazy potential. Since I killed all her teammates, she will come and take revenge on me when she becomes stronger.”

“Spider Demon inside me!” The young girl called out between hiccups. “Give me power! You can take my arms, my legs, and my everything! Help me kill this man!”

Amidst the girl’s cries of despair, her right limb disappeared, and a spider-like shadow crawled out of her mouth and grew to the size of a carriage.

“Huh?” The Demonic Exorcist’s face scrunched up as if he had swallowed a lemon. “Tch, disappointing. People who waste their lifespan for power, they’re just cutting their potential. You are no longer entertaining.”

The shadow spider charged him, but the Demonic Exorcist only pointed his hand at the shadow, and a dark giant centipede burst out of the ground and chomped on the silver-haired girl.

Guts spilled on the dirt as the demon bisected her in one bite.

Tears rolled down the girl’s eyes; she couldn’t stop crying.

She whispered something, and her Ord multiplied dozens of times.

‘Did she sacrifice her lifespan?’ Pixie wondered.

“What a shame. You had the potential to challenge me in a decade or two. But you had to go and waste it,” the Demonic Exorcist looked down at the girl.

Arms made of pure darkness came from the two bisected body parts, connecting the girl’s lower and upper body. A dark aura manifested around her, as her face morphed into that of a spider with pincers, and arachnoid legs burst out of her back.

She stared at the Demonic Exorcist with murderous intent and screamed. “I’m going to kill you!”

“Damn, that’s impressive. You were number 10, right? I wonder what the ones stronger than you in the organization can do,” the Demonic Exorcist said. A smile came over his face, and his Ord reeked of bloodlust and cruelty.

“You killed my brothers and sisters! I will annihilate you!”

“Brothers? Sisters? Get off your high horse, kiddo. You were all lab rats and nothing more. Maybe you could have been something, but you had to fuck it up!” The Demonic Exorcist’s body flashed.

Even though he was a Master, he moved so fast that one could mistake him for a Warrior. He was just imitating a Warrior, but no rule said a cheap imitation couldn’t be better than most of the originals. “Don’t worry though, maybe those ranked nine and below will be better sports about this."

In the next second, he held the girl’s head and started playing basketball with it. Just then, a sewer latch opened up, and a dark-haired, red-eyed girl popped up her head and stared at them.

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“Oh? You’re here? Nice, you’re his sister, right?” The Demonic Exorcist asked.

She stared at them for a second. “Shit!”

Immediately she closed the hatch and started running away.

Pixie glanced at the Demonic Exorcist, who hadn’t even moved. He met her gaze and shrugged. “What’re you looking at me for? I’m not good at chasing people. Did you sense her potential? She is gonna become crazy strong in the future. My Crazy Potential Senses are tingling!”

‘Don’t give names to things that don’t exist!’ Pixie thought. But she knew that despite his crazy ramblings, the Demonic Exorcist had animal-like instincts about these things.

Since the girl who escaped might be connected with the silver-haired kids, she could tell the people who were behind this about them. If the news that the Demonic Exorcist was here got out, it would derail their plan!

Of course, the psycho didn’t care about this. The Demonic Exorcist was only worried about missing the chance to fight someone strong.

Pixie wanted no part of that! ‘Why the hell did the boss bring someone like this here?! He will get us all killed!’

Pixie looked at Roc. The latter nodded, charged up his Ord in the one remaining arm he had left, and punched downward, causing the surroundings to implode.

“Uff, that’s gonna be hard to go unnoticed,” the Demonic Exorcist whistled.

Pixie held her tongue and didn’t lash out with any insults. The Demonic Exorcist was a pain to deal with when the boss wasn’t around!

“I will give chase,” Roc's gaze sharpened like a hawk’s. It was his signal to reassure her that everything would be okay.

They knew that if the authorities got involved too soon, this whole thing would go up in flames.

Pixie didn’t want to be alone with this psycho, but she had to put up with it. If this crazy bastard were left to his own devices, he would ruin the plan because he might grow bored.

The Demonic Exorcist stared at the broken corpses; the rubble from Roc’s attack had crushed some of them beyond recognition.

“The entire world still marvels at what The Magician did a decade and a half ago. Some people are still obsessed with sealing demons.” He glanced at the corpse of his last victim. “People who risk their life for special abilities are dumb. You’re just exchanging potential for power. Ord vows can’t give you what you couldn’t have gotten on your own.”

Roc was already off, chasing after the girl who ran off. Pixie was left behind with the madman and didn’t know what to do.

So she said nothing and just waited in uncomfortable silence.

“Did I ever tell you about my student?” The Demonic Exorcist suddenly spoke.

“No,” Pixie had never heard of this student. But whoever it was, if they were someone who the Demonic Exorcist endorsed, they had to be deranged enough to make even the people in an insane asylum seem well-adjusted. “I bet they’re a pleasure to be around.”

“C'mon now, no need to be sarcastic,” said the Demonic Exorcist as he rubbed his chin. “Last time I saw him, he had barely developed his special ability. He’s probably tamed a demon by now.”

Pixie realized that maybe the Demonic Exorcist and his student didn’t have a good relationship. Actually, the kid was probably going to die if they couldn’t live up to the crazy bastard’s insane standards.

‘I almost feel sorry for the brat.’

***

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Sword and spear clashed, and the longer reach of the spear was quite a problem as I had to move back as soon as I got close.

Hiro still hadn’t used his special ability. He was probably waiting for me to use my special ability, so he wouldn’t seem dishonorable.

He had the vibe of a harem protagonist, but he was a good guy.

Though if he was waiting on me, he had to wait a lot more because I wasn’t going to use Perfect Me. I had about two and a half minutes of charge left, and wasting even a second on this could spell disaster.

The Clan Head was watching me from one of the VIP rooms and smiled.

I had expected him to be disappointed with me since I barely stood at a standstill against Hiro, who was considered the failure of the Yari Clan.

Since Hiro would not use his special ability to stop this, it seemed like I had to take matters into my own hands.

I clenched every muscle in my body.

Clang!

Our weapons clashed again, and I lightened my grip on the sword, remembering a certain move the Zombie Samurai had taught me. Combining Perfect Me with an excellent teacher was quite an overpowered learning tool.

My sword almost slipped out of my grip as the spear pushed on it. I moved my body to the side, and the sword slipped out of the spear’s trajectory; I tightened my grip on the blade and almost slashed at Hiro’s throat but stopped just one inch away from his neck.

“You were careless,” I said.

Hiro smiled, dropped his spear, and raised his hands. “Your teammate was honorable enough not to attack me when I was down. He allowed me to see a new light, and I ended up breaking his rib for it.”

“Which he doesn't hold against you,” I clarified. There was no need to feel guilty, and Gem was an understanding guy.

“True, but I would be one hell of an asshole if I used my ability against you, his teammate when you’re not using yours.”

It seemed like Gem had quite an impact on him. In the original story, those two would have never even met. “Okay, then-”

BEEEEEP!

An alarm suddenly rang out.