Inhumanity

There were a lot of bewilderments on Haruto's match as Haruna suddenly declaring her surrender. Both of them should still have a lot of energy to spare and yet the half-dwarven decided to stop the match.

They thought it was because Haruna was being pushed back by her opponent and she realized she couldn't win, hence giving up. It was a bit disappointing for a fighting maniacs but it's not like it didn't happen often. There's a lot of warriors deciding to give up or withdraw when they up against Lotus.

Of course, all the conversations happened on the arena was not heard by them as the storm was too noisy to hear anything. Even if a bit of the interactions were heard, they wouldn't understand anything anyway.

"*Sigh* Are you sure about this?"

On the way back to the waiting room, Haruto was asking the half-dwarven girl beside him. He knew she still not that tired and if she wanted to, she's able to fight with him longer as there's still a lot of things she hadn't shown yet on their fight.

"Yes, I already have enough for today and satisfied with it. Also, because of what Haruto-san said, I don't wish to proceed like this." Haruna smiled.

"....Okay then."

What she meant was that even if she continued and managed to win somehow, by continuing her vengeance in this way, she would be targeted and branded as an international criminal for murdering a member of royalty. She had decided not to waste her life anymore so naturally she must changed her way of having revenge that wouldn't endanger her life.

Right now it wasn't out of desperation because she didn't have anything left to do, but because she had to do that in order to find peace for herself and also as a form of farewell to her late family and relatives.

"I was curious, did 'that guy' not recognize you at all?" Haruto asked. Haruna was after all not disguising herself.

"No, he's not a person to be bothered by someone like me"

Haruna shook her head. It was obvious as her hometown was just a normal rural village and she's only a part of that kind of village that ran away a long time ago. How can Erick with his personality be bothered by a single rat escaping the cage? He wouldn't even remember her face.

"I see." Haruto nodded, he could understand what she meant.

"Ah that's right. There's something I would like to tell Haruto-san too." Haruna recalled something and glanced at the person next to her.

"Huh?"

....

"W-What....is this...?"

Right in front of them was a sight that would cause everyone to be stupefied, it was too overwhelming for them.

Yesterday, Haruna informed them of there might be a place where Erick was using to act as a means of 'entertainment' somewhere around the island. She herself only recently learnt of this and still didn't find any lead to the place. That person must be keeping various women as his slaves there.

Thinking Elsie was currently out there gathering informations, he asked her to focus on investigating the case. Spending the usual night, in the morning Elsie managed to catch some info from one of the dolls she scattered around the island. A couple of innkeeper was worrying their daughter did not come home ever since she left yesterday noon.

Using the dolls that acted similar to cctv, they manage to trace the innkeepers' daughter around the corner of the city island to the northwest. She was apparently kidnapped by a few beastmen wearing a black collar on their neck. It was a slave collar, an item to make someone forcefully controlled by the registered owner, in a way it was the inferior version of what Asami once worn during the incident in the capital. The main attracting point was that the slave beastmen were belonged to wealthy merchants and nobles often hanging around the crown prince. It might led to what they've been searching for.

The semi-finals match was a little before afternoon so there's still time for them to go investigate. At the same time, Haruna was meeting them right before they departed and went together to the place the innkeeper's daughter was kidnapped.

It was an ordinary building functioned as a casino on the island. It wasn't even a large casino so in a way it didn't attract too much attention and yet everyone knew this casino was mostly managed by the crown prince himself. When he neared, Haruto detected energy signatures coming from the underground and realized they were all extremely weak.

Noticing that might be where they kept the ladies, Haruto and the others sneaked there using Instant Transmission. What they didn't expect was the sight that greeted them.

A gloomy and dark dungeon. There were several large cages made from black steel engraved by sealing runes.

And then inside those cages. It was all living beings or more precisely, girls. There were a dozen of girls for each cages, laying or sitting on the dirty stone floor with lifeless eyes and body mostly bare or even completely nude and yet they weren't having any reactions to that. There's a lot of teenage and underaged girls too among them.

Their body was covered with countless bruises and wounds, many of them didn't even look like a proper woman at all because of the severeness of their injury. Looking on the wounds, there's a number of nails being stabbed on various spots not meant to be harmed that could make anybody felt weak on their knees just by looking at those. Skin that was burnt by fire or even missing limbs and cuts due to some kind of sharp objects. In the floor too you could find various kind of drugs and nauseating looking liquids as well as part of human body and blood.

It was miraculous that they even still alive after all of that. Or maybe whoever did this purposefully let them barely alive so they wouldn't have salvation?

During this time they were dumbfounded, a rotting smell struck their nose coming from behind them.

"Uuegh...!"

Fia and Elsie were vomiting with pale face right away after seeing the very large cage behind them. It was filled with a mountain of rotten corpses originated from women who had died from who knows since when. This many women couldn't be gathered just from the island, they must be gathered from various other places too.

These pitiful victims were piled up just like that without anyone bothering to bury them properly. What kind of human being capable of doing such things? It was clearly inhuman, the act of a lunatic. Not even Haruna had seen a sight this vile in her destroyed hometown as she's escaped in the middle of the tragedy but could it be they were suffering something like this before they died too?

"Haru....Haruto-kun.... T-This is...we..what should we..." Kaori calling out with trembling voice, she was deeply shaken by the diabolical sight around her. Not only her, even Rikka and Asami was showing a face as if they were dreaming and out of their minds.

"H-Haru-kun..."

"Haru...."

"...."

They called out to the only man among them. And yet for some reason there's no reply coming out of him, he just stood there like a statue.

"N-N-Nii-sam----"

Elsie peeked at Haruto's face in confusion but she immediately turned silent and gulped back her own voice the moment she saw what kind of face Haruto was making right now.

Nothing.

There weren't anything plastered on his face. It was a complete empty expression that void of any emotions. It was even capable of making androids shiver in fear for how devoid it was.

They knew that right now Haruto had snapped. He was bathed in unprecedented fury and anger. What the culprit had done right now was crossing his bottom line, it was a line that must not be crossed.

They already seen so many times when Haruto was engulfed in fury and wrath. At those times he would show a fierce and ferocious eyes that could even intimidate any kind of wild beasts. A fiery and raging emotions, just like when he was faced with Lena's death. It was a powerful frenzy that could even make him contend against the mighty Semi-Transcendent Yomi.

If compared, the anger of that time was also comparable to the anger this time and yet they were vastly different. If the anger at that time was like an erupting volcano that could burn and destroyed anything in sight, the anger right now was like a tranquil ice, a coldness in the level of the absolute zero that looked so serene and calm but actually extremely lethal to any beings.

In a sense, this kind of silent anger was far more terrifying than a raging frenzy. Even the girls could feel their body shivering from the pressure the boy gave out. It was as if they were standing in front of the eye of a colossal almighty dragon.

"KYAAA"

A sound of screaming came from a nearby location. It brought them back to their senses. Without saying anything, Haruto made his move and disappeared from his place in the blink of an eye.

"W-Wha!? Who ar----AGH!"

The girls chased after the sound of someone raising alarmed voice before getting quiet. They went passed a few passageways and arrived in front of a simple looking door.

Inside of the room, it was a chamber with lightings unlike the dark dungeon they've been just now. There's a large bed in the middle of the chamber where a young teenage lady was laying with tattered clothes. The girl was actually the innkeeper's daughter that was kidnapped yesterday. She looked very frightened and buried her face with the pillow close to her.

Haruto was standing nearby with bloody hands dripping on the floor. On his feet, there was several men laying headless dressed in luxurious looking robe with few of them were bulky beastmen that seemed like a bodyguard.

".....Kaori." Haruto called.

"Y-Yes?"

"Please take care of the ladies around here."

"Eh? A-Ah, right! Leave it to me!" Kaori was stunned for a moment and replied strongly.

"The others too please help her."

"O-Okay, but what are you going to do Haru-kun?" Rikka asked.

"....I'm going to take care of the source itself."

That was all he said before he once again disappeared from the place. The destination he had was none other than the tournament arena where his match will began soon. If not because they still needed to rescue the girls there, Haruto would surely demolish the whole building without mercy that's why as for now he's going straight on his 'enemy' first.

....

The tournament main arena.

As usual, the crowd was making merry for the fight that would began soon. It was the semi-finals of the tournament, the starting of the climax for the competition. The first match for today was one between the beastman crown prince and the recently popular dark horse. It was quite noteworthy as the prince was the runner-ups for three consecutive tournaments.

Will he once again faced against his arch-enemy Lotus or will he fell in this round by the hand of the aforementioned dark horse? The people coming today was filled with that kind of questions.

Erick was already standing on the arena platform with his usual aloof and prideful face. He didn't even consider today's match as something important, it was just like his previously boring match. But he still quite excited as once he messed up the puny little boy mercilessly, he would obtained what he wished for since a long time ago.

As for watching Haruto's matches? He didn't bother with that. For him such thing was a waste of time and he rather played with his usual 'toys' and gave those no longer needed to his bootlickers. For him such behavior was what a true ruler was like, doing anything he liked and put every people beneath him as playthings.

That's why the way his father led the country was disgraceful to him, it didn't make any sense on why a king must protect and made his citizens prosper, wasn't making the sovereign prosper should be their duty instead?

It wouldn't be long before that soft and naive father of him would be replaced by him and at that time he would show him how a true ruler was like. Even now that very father of him was sitting on the VVIP room near the announcer to spectate his match, Erick snorted at this.

*Step* *Step*

At this time, a sound of stepping could be heard. Erick raised his head with bored face and realized his opponent would soon appear. The audiences instead was getting excited and started to roar loudly. Erick frowned not understanding why such an insignificant man suddenly became so popular even more than him? That was ridiculous!

[Alright here comes the entrance of contestant Haru----HIII!?]

!!!?

In this moment, everyone forgot to breathe. Such an abnormality that affected every people in the arena. Not even Lotus, Dyan, Tram and the others, including the beast king was spared from intensity of the out of the world bloodlust that came so suddenly.

Lumina who was sitting alone in the VIP room was furrowing her brows since there must be something happened as not even the girls were showing up there.

From the passageway, opposite of Erick's direction, a figure of a young man could be seen making his way to the arena. A subtle chaotic golden glow was enveloping his body. And although extremely dim, there's also some kind of aurora swirling on both of his hands, it was lasted for a while and then faded without traces.

Almost all of the audiences were trembling like mad, they looked extremely scared right now.

But they were all far more easier compared to Erick who was standing on the arena. He was feeling weak as blood left his skin, making him looked so pale. Severe cold sweats were dripping on the ground, forming a small pool. What he felt right now was similar to when he faced against Lumina, it was if death was creeping extremely close to him, making him feel as if he would die at any time. But how can that be? Isn't the opponent weaker than him?

Haruto went up the stage already in a complete Super Saiyan form. His face was as empty as ever and gazed at the trembling Erick indifferently. Keeping his stagnant expression, he opened his mouth,

"Do you still remember? About our bet?"

"...." Erick couldn't even respond as his lip felt like it was being sewn.

"I think I would like to change a bit of my condition...."

Grabbing his left white glove, Haruto took it off and thrown it against Erick's face. He thus declared with echoing voice no different than a rumble of a thunder against the entire place.

"Erick B. Leonburg, I hereby challenge you to a death match."