9

He continued going from one house to the next, farming the villagers of their mana seeds.

Nobody noticed anything at first, but eventually, there were too many corpses lying around, and the villagers quickly realized something was wrong.

A loud bell rang throughout the village, quickly alerting everyone about a hidden danger.

'50 mana seeds… These villagers take a long time to react.' Ray thought to himself while examining the village.

He frequently checked his aura to check whether Bill was coming or not. He had a natural dealing of confidence regarding Bill, but he always maintained his attentive attitude.

He stepped out of the house, fully revealing himself to the villagers.

The village was built on two sides of a road that went through the forest and stretched further than his eyes could see.

He turned to the north part of the road since he finally sensed a ki aura greater than a regular human's.

A young man with a flushed face came running down the road, straight towards Ray.

His eyes had a raging look of anger in them, and his fists were clenched tightly at his sides. Two other boys came similarly running behind him, both with urgent and angry looks on their faces.

Ray waited calmly for the boys to arrive— his body stood deathly still like a statue.

The only sign of life coming from him was the overbearing ki aura that pulsated from him, combined with the piercing gaze of his eyes.

"Yo-You! What is a demon doing in this village!" The leader of the boys exclaimed.

He was surprised by Ray's appearance: they probably thought he was a loose beast that found its way into their village.

Ray didn't bother looking at the boy, and courtly responded, "You're not Bill."

This seemed to provoke something inside the leader since he took a step forward and readied his sword.

One of the boys beside him whispered in his ears, "He looks strong, maybe we should just wait for Bill."

The leader nodded his head and reluctantly took a step back. His eyes still had a rage-filled look to them while he looked around the village.

A shocked look came across his face as he seemed to recognize one of the bodies laying on the street.

He was about to open his mouth to shout something at Ray, but Ray didn't give him the chance to speak.

He kicked the leader across his chest, shattering every bone in his rib cage. The force of the kick made the leader go flying backward until he crashed into the wall of a house.

"You don't seem to understand your position," Ray remarked.

Seeing someone as weak as the boys openly provoke him made Ray feel a certain way. He felt a strange sense of majesty, that even he didn't fully understand.

Ray still didn't take so much as a glance at the boys, mainly because his eyes were glued onto the road where they came from. However he felt about the little boys, he still had something more important he had to pay attention to.

Sure enough, only a few seconds later, he felt a powerful ki aura coming his way.

It was coming at a rapid pace, incomparable to a stage 1 practitioner, which confirmed Ray's thoughts of it being Bill.

He took in a deep breath and readied his sword. He wasn't going to try anything sneaky since he wanted to fight fair and square; he wanted to test his prowess on a regular human.

He had a base degree of confidence before he even saw the human since its speed was significantly slower than Ray's. While he could run a mile in around a minute, the human was running it in around 90 seconds.

Nonetheless, he kept his cautious attitude and didn't dare to lax for a moment, since he wasn't sure of what cards the human had under his sleeve.

Bill quickly arrived and stood in front of the remaining two boys in a guarding manner.

His expression was calm— the advantages of having decades of life experience could be seen at a first impression. Even though he looked young, barely above his twenties, one could feel an aura of age and wisdom coming from him.

He snuck a few words to the boys behind him, after which they ran off into the distance with worried looks on their faces. Ray didn't make any moves to go after them since his target was Bill, not a few weak stage 1 practitioners.

He could always track down the boys later if they tried to escape, so he wasn't worried about them in the slightest.

"I don't know how a Tiefling made its way into my village, but you will have to stop your rampage here. You've caused enough damage already, please take a step back and leave." Bill demanded in an intimidating tone.

Ray stared at Bill for a few moments, but he didn't bother responding.

The tension in the air was palpable, as Ray and Bill stared each other down.

After a few seconds, Bill muttered to himself, "Don't understand me, stupid Tiefling? That's fine."

Ray ignored Bill's provocation since as far as he knew, most if not all other Tieflings were idiotic, just as Bill said.

Bill stepped forward and threw a punch toward Ray without any previous warning.

Ray wasn't expecting him to do so since he was wielding a sword, while Bill was using his fists.

Luckily Bill's speed was slow in Ray's eyes, so he could follow Bill's punch before it landed on him. He reflexively took a step back and swung his sword down in retaliation.

Bill's eyes opened in surprise, but he barely escaped the swing by moving to the side.

'Fast!' Bill thought to himself in shock.

The Tiefling was much faster than him, easily escaping his attack even when caught off guard, then retaliating on top of that. If he didn't have his decades of battle experience behind him, there was no way he could have survived that quick encounter.

Bill looked toward Ray again, a serious expression forming on his face.

Ray leaped forward, quickly closing the gap between them, then swung his sword toward Bill's chest. The first time he swung his sword was simply in an act of quick retaliation, so it didn't have as much power to it. This time he swung with the drive to kill Bill in one swing— the power behind it couldn't be compared to before.

Bill seemed to have realized it too, so he quickly moved to the side in an attempt to dodge the blow.

His expression turned from temporary relief to terror, as he realized the Tiefling predicted his move and was already swinging where he was dodging too.

He even saw the Tiefling expression which had a slight smirk to it, as if he was saying, "Too slow."

The sword seemed to move in slow motion as it swung towards Bill's head, Bill's death almost a foregone conclusion in Ray's eyes.

Bill managed to bring his forearms to block the blow, but nothing happened.

The sword landed on Bill's arms, then shattered into pieces on contact.