42. Holt the rinea

Holt blew air out of his nostrils in annoyance, they had been on her trail for a couple of weeks now, and she is as tricky as ever.

Taking back roads, using magic to shield her whereabouts, and spreading her scent throughout the forest via putting scent bags on animals to trick their scent beasts.

Any trick to throw them off she played, but they're finally back on her trail.

To say he was incensed would be a vast understatement; using someone of his caliber for basically hunting a lost slave is bad enough, but for his prey to evade him this long is starting to embarrass him in front of his men.

None would comment on it, least they wanted to figure out if there's an afterlife sooner than expected, but he has a reputation to uphold!

Which is why he had to relieve stress.

Him and his men gathered around a farm.

The same farm that an adventurer named Jurea had taken and completed a quest at, according to guild's records.

And if his intel is correct, and it always is, Jurea's party is the one his prey is using for protection.

Holt started grooming his slick waterproof fur.

Making sure his shiny black fur was perfectly maintained always comforted him.

He is a paragon of his species, shiny black fur, a long lithe body, a strong tail, perfectly webbed hands and feet, three bony horns running down his snout, and whiskers any male would die for.

To any but the most well trained eye, his kind look like sea-otters with a few key differences, but to call them otters would be like calling a human an ape; accurate, but expect to get your ass beaten up.

His stomach growled.

The one downside to his kind would have to be their insatiable hunger.

Unless they ate a third of their body weight in a day, their bodies would start to cannibalize itself.

He pulled out some dried fish, and started eating.

"Holt, the farm is completely surrounded."

One of his men shouted as he came riding back, his blade bloody.

Holt smiled, then dismounted from his horse.

His men stayed back while He walked past the corpses of those who thought they could repel him, straight up to the wall surrounding the house, and with one punch, broke straight through it.

He walked through the hole, only to receive a faceful of arrows.

The remaining farm-hands along with the main family were situated in and on the buildings to shoot at him, and he just let them. The arrows just harmlessly bounced off his mana barrier.

As a High-ranker there is no way they could hurt him, which made this all the more fun.

"{Earth shaker}."

Outwards from him the ground started to shake violently.

The rest of the wall fell down, along with the rest of the buildings.

Those who failed to escape the collapsing buildings, died under the rubble.

The survivors picked themselves up, and picked up their weapons.

Holt lived for this!

They knew they didn't stand a chance against him, but what choice did they have?

If they didn't fight, a fate worse than death awaited them.

And that's why he always alerted his prey to his presence, why he allowed his men to only surround the prey and not engage, and why he prolonged the fighting as long possible.

He liked to savor their defeat, their suffering.

The thrill he got from torturing those poor souls is better than eating, sleeping, drugs, and even better than fucking!

This was why he was born!

It truly brought him the utmost pleasure to slowly rip out a woman's organs, to slice a man's manhood off piece by bloody piece, to let chop off a kids leg and tell it to crawl, and bloody list goes on and on!

He is broken inside, he knows, he isn't stupid after all.

His own kind labeled him an outsider - a freak, but that was alright.

He was different from them, better even!

His magical affinity leaned towards earth, something almost entirely worthless on the sea, but one of the absolute strongest on the land!

Village massacre after village massacre he rose in rank, and enjoyed every single second of it!

Every time he closed his eyes he could still smell the bitter scent of blood, and feel the throats of the children he had ripped out.

It almost made him climax, thinking about it.

It truly was a good stroke of luck that the Faction Against Retarded Terrans found him, and recruited him to kill so much more than he could've alone!

After most of their ammunition was spent, he decided to taunt them with false hope.

"I'm in a good mood today. So, if any of you can injure me, even a scratch will do, I'll let the woman go."

He told the hopeless prey as he pointed at the only female left standing.

She was injured, but not badly so, and held a crossbow.

They readied their weapons.

He grinned.

He looked around to make sure his men wouldn't interfere, they didn't move a single hair, good.

"Aaaaaah!"

A young man with a pitchfork charge at him.

"{Hardened earth spear}."

An earth spear formed in the air and shot forward so fast it broke the sound barrier.

In less time than it takes to blink, the young man's entire leg was... gone, just gone.

He fell to the ground in shock, not even able to scream in agony from what he just lost.

Holt could've just killed him, a foot up would have destroyed his torso, but watching him bleed out was to fun to miss out on.

"Aaaaaaaaaargh!"

The sheer magnitude of what he lost, and the pain, hit him all at once.

Ah! The beauty of his screams of agon...

Whoosh!

Thunk!

A bolt flew out, struck him, and killed him on the spot.

Holt looked at the woman as she reloaded another bolt into her crossbow.

"Damn bitch!"

The rest of the men charged at him.

"{Crystal armor}."

Spiked crystal armor grew over his skin.

The first one swung his rusty sword, Holt blocked it with his armor covered arm, breaking it in half.

Then, he grabbed his face, kneed him in the gut, threw him onto his back, and stomped onto his tibia, shattering it.

"Aaaaaah!"

The next one came up swinging a flail, Holt took it from him and ripped it apart.

He then slashed his eyes out.

One with brown hair speckled with grey, swung a sickle.

Holt smacked his spine hard with his powerful tail, he heard the cracks appear on his spinal cord.

He fell down paralyzed from the waist down.

Holt finished the rest easily, not killing them, just ruining them for life.

Any bolt shot from the woman to put them out of their misery were blocked.

"You... you... you have... to... let her... go."

The fool with paralyzed legs told Holt.

Holt guffawed.

"And why would I ever do that?"

Instead of answering he pointed to Holt's abdomen.

Sticking out of it was a small blade.

"During forging it was imbued with Talium spores, now let her go."

Holt was incredulous, they sacrificed their bodies to injure him!

Not that this little thing could do him any harm at all.

"Hahahaha! You didn't actually believe I'd actually be true to my word, did you?"

Holt stalked toward her, blocking every bolt shot his way.

"I'm going to enjoy this."

"{Pebble}."

A tiny insignificant rock pelted him on the head.

He turned back to face the paralyzed fool.

"Was that supposed to do something?hehehe."

He couldn't stop himself from laughing.

These fucking peons with barely any magic trying to fight back, amused him to no end.

"Yeah, it was supposed to distract you."

The smiling man said.

"Guess it worked."

Holt spun around just in time for the woman to use her hidden blade to stab herself in the throat.

Blood spurted out of her throat, soaking the dirt in blood.

As she lay dying, she smiled, and flipped him off.

Holt was visibly enraged by that.

"Sucks, doesn't it?"

The paralyzed farmer said, still smiling.

Holt turned to face him with a growl.

"Everyone you know is dead, or dying, what do you have to be jovial about?!"

"Because your time will come. No matter how long it takes, you will find your match, and they will kill you.

And you seem like the beg for your pathetic life bitch type."

Holt motioned for his men to come closer.

"I mean, you fought people leagues weaker than yourself, and still lost."

"I'm standing! And you're stuck in the dirt, like a worm!"

"And yet, here I am laughing at you."

That was the final straw.

"Ivar, kill him now!"

"{Light hands}!"

Ivar's hands started glowing as he ran to the farmer and put his hands on his face. The scent of burning flesh filled the air.

Boils grew and exploded on the farmer's skin, his eyes melted, his eardrums blew, and his hair caught fire.

This continued until he died a few moments later.

The only thing left of his head was a skull with bits of fried flesh and hair.

His last thought was to provide them with an obscene hand gesture, one which cause a deep guttural growl to emanate from Holt.

The instant Ivar dropped the corpse a swiftbird, an ostrich-like beast with powerful legs and an horrendous stench, burst out of an underground tunnel.

On its back was an old maid and a small bound girl.

The girls eyes focused on her mother and father's dead bodies, then her wrathful glare found purchase on Holt.

That day she swore on any god and / or demon that she would she would see him dead!

On her life, he will die!

Before she could make thought action, the maid urged the swiftbird to run away.

Holt's men started to give chase.

"No!"

All of them froze on his order.

"Sir?"

"We already have prey to chase down. Chasing after an old woman and a little girl through the forest will take too long."

"But what about...?"

Holt motioned to the dead and dying.

"Your urges? Have at 'em! They can't fight back."

"But the only cunt is dead!"

"There are plenty alternatives, a hole is a hole! And if you're really that hung up on fucking a pussy, she's still warm!"

Holt went towards the woman, releasing his member from his armor.

"And if y'all don't want to fuck, make yourselves useful, and burn it all.

Don't worry about pussy, don't I always provide for y'all? We're going to be travelling down a main road after this to catch-up, so we'll run into plenty of fuckable holes."

As he got busy, and his men started lighting everything up, he thought of a suggestion that Ivar made.

A permanent fucktoy, too bad they never last long.

Maybe he'd try not to kill the next one?

No, seeing the light leave their eyes is too great, they'll just have to get used to fucking used goods.

As he was fucking, his stomach started to growl.

Without pausing his mad fucking, he bit down, ripped a chunk of flesh off, and ate it.

He regretted that she didn't die terrified, he loves the taste fear gives the meat, but she still tastes fine.

"Come on boss, give some warning before you do that!"

Ivar stated.

Holt laughed.

"Don't tell me you feel pity for this human?"

The Facla warrior joined him in his laughter.

"No, it's just weird to eat a corpse while you fuck it."

"I keep telling you, you don't know what you're missing out on! The rush! The taste! It can't be described!"

"Whatever. I get first crack at the next one, before you get through with it!"

"Fine, think of it as your bonus for finding this place."

"Yes, I hope we find a mother with her young next, they always struggle more when the lives of their children is at risk."

After Holt was finished with his meal, and made sure everything on the farm was completely destroyed, they headed south to the border of Hexeia.

They could have headed east then south, but he'd bet his next meal - which they most likely are - that they took the shortest path to the capital.

He could almost already taste the flesh of the party that she hired for protection.

All girls except for a pet lizardman.

If he wasn't getting paid he might've had to bow out, due to how easy it will be.

Of course, he'd have to torture them longer than most, for making him track them this far.

He smiled.

"Pick up the pace! I'm getting hungry again, and according to my nose we'll be having company in a little while!"

Him and his band of marauders charged forth, ready to intercept the unlucky travellers.