“Th-that... is that really a human?”

“The Corpse Devourer we struggled to pin down for half a day died to one strike...”

“That kind of strength’s about on par with the captain, right.”

If not for the wind-splitting whoosh every time Nana Toki swung, half the people inside would’ve thought that massive Black Great Axe was a plastic prop.

No ordinary woman lifts a weapon like that.

Much less swings it.

“Splat, splat, splat!”

“Boom! Boom! Boom!”

Every swing, every impact, bared the Colossal Axe’s tyrant edge, violence blooming like a storm of steel.

A lift, a drop; heads thudded down like fallen fruit.

Not a motion wasted.

Nana Toki never even shifted her stance.

“Captain, what do we do now?”

Thirty-odd people stared from the building, watching Nana Toki butcher the Corpse Devourers one-sided, and their hearts went hollow.

All their sweat and grit turned into a joke in that instant.

A colossal joke.

“A’Yuan, while Yu Xi has them outside, why don’t we slip out,” Jiang Xinli whispered, palms cold as dew. “If we don’t leave now, we might never leave.”

True.

Almost four hundred Corpse Devourers downstairs had fixed on Nana Toki, hurling themselves at her like a tide.

If they ran now, nothing stopped them.

If they waited till she cleared them, their group would be in deep trouble.

But...

“No.”

The word was a stone.

A bad hunch chilled Bei Yuan as he watched Nana Toki’s Black Great Axe scythe the air. If they split here, next time he might really lose to her.

He didn’t think he could beat the woman who faced four to five hundred Corpse Devourers head-on anyway.

But.

If they killed some of these things themselves, that changed the math.

Almost four hundred Corpse Devourers—if he took them all, who knew how far his power would surge. Bei Yuan couldn’t even picture it.

“So.”

“We’re stealing kills.”

Bei Yuan stared at Nana Toki lopping heads below and said low, “Yu Xi’s stuck handling the horde. We just skim the edge, pick off stragglers, and boost our abilities. When only a few are left and Yu Xi can spare attention for us, we withdraw.”

“But Yu Xi won’t let us, right?”

One teammate drooped like a beaten pup. “We posted bounties on them before. She won’t let us profit.”

“Doesn’t matter. In hundreds of Corpse Devourers, even Yu Xi can’t split her focus.”

Bei Yuan pinched his chin, thinking hard. “If she abandons the horde to target us, Xinli can stall with her space ability. We can pull out clean. And if she shifts aggro onto us, we use the edge and sprint.”

The others listened, then nodded. It made grim sense.

Even if Yu Xi could fight a hundred alone, with this many Corpse Devourers and Jiang Xinli’s interference, she’d struggle to split focus.

And they’d get stronger.

Who says no to risk-free gains?

“We move!”

He stamped, lightning cracked under his feet, and Bei Yuan shot from the building and slammed into the horde like a thunderbolt.

Yes.

With a ram leading, more and more ability users poured out after him, one after another.

In the Mist City, nobody resists the lure of stronger power.

At the horde’s center, Nana Toki saw the building vomit people and understood their intent. They wanted to skim the pot under her umbrella, slurp soup off her kill.

Endure that?

Not a chance.

Being used like a tool was top-three on Nana Toki’s hate list.

So.

They wanted soup?

Fine. Forget soup. She’d throw them meat.

If they could chew it, that was their problem.

She ripped the axe around; the corpses encircling her flew like leaves in a gale.

Then—

The onlookers watched Nana Toki vanish from the center and reappear on high ground, face cold as frost, eyes fixed on them.

What’s Xixi doing?

Not just the crowd—Luo Shanshan on the rooftop frowned at Nana Toki’s move, baffled.

Those bastards were stealing kills under Xixi’s nose—wasn’t she mad?

Luo Shanshan wanted to charge down and thrash the ungrateful pack herself.

Damn it, Xixi pulled them from the fire, and they still had the face to split the experience. What kind of human does that?

Down in the corpse tide, people glanced at Nana Toki, confused, but their hands didn’t stop. They skated the edge and teamed up on the outer Corpse Devourers, leveling fast.

But.

Bit by bit.

With Nana Toki gone from center, every Corpse Devourer that had locked on her shifted its hunger to them.

“Retreat! Fall back!”

One ability user at the rim spotted the change and yelled for a general pullout.

Nana Toki wasn’t letting them go that easy.

You came? Then don’t leave.

A man who’d just broken free stumbled into a room and hadn’t even exhaled when pain stabbed his gut. He pinwheeled backward.

Back into the horde.

“N-no... don’t...”

Pale eyeballs fixed on his throat. A Corpse Devourer gaped, yellow fangs like rotting knives closing in.

“Don’t... don’t... don’t...”

The man went stupid with fear.

“Help! Help! Help—ahhhhh!”

“Crunch, crunch...”

His head went like a watermelon jammed in a blender. Red sprayed the monster’s maw and pattered the ground.

The air soured with dread.

“Yu Xi, what are you doing!”

A few who’d just made it out turned and shouted at Nana Toki, fury cracked by fear.

“Leech for free and still think you can go?”

From her perch, Nana Toki sneered and slammed a boot into another runner, kicking him back down.

The horde roared, angry their catch had flown. A fresh warm body dropped in front of them—how could they ever let it go?

“Crunch-crack, crunch-crack...”

Bone-grinding noises tolled one after another, like a funeral bell for the living.

“Aaahhhh!”

“Help! Ahhh!”

With every kick sending another survivor back into the meat grinder,

Barely anyone clawed out alive.

“Yu Xi, why are you this ruthless?” Jiang Xinli, dragged out by sheer luck, trembled and pointed at Nana Toki’s face. “They’re living, breathing people!”

“This is ruthless?”

Black Great Axe on her shoulder, Nana Toki stood in the doorway and stared at Jiang Xinli’s pointing finger. She smiled one word at a time. “When you posted a bounty on me, hunted me till I had nowhere to hide, that wasn’t ruthless?”

“Now it’s my turn, and I’m venomous? You got a screw loose?”

“But they’ve got no feud with you.”

Jiang Xinli pushed on, voice high and raw. “Can you really harden your heart? Kill people who did nothing to you—just because they stole your kills?”

She jabbed a trembling finger at Nana Toki’s nose. “You venom-hearted woman! Why don’t you just die!”

“...”

Expressionless.

Nana Toki watched Jiang Xinli’s face twist, fear curling it like paper near flame. She walked up step by step.

Then.

Her mouth hooked into a sharp, chilly smile.

“Thanks for the compliment~”

Thud.

Jiang Xinli’s elegant knees buckled from fear, and she collapsed.

Tears slid soundless, carving two clear tracks.

“Stay alive.” Nana Toki bent and patted her shoulder, voice like a demon’s whisper. “We’re not done with our tab.”

Arms around her head, eyes wide, Jiang Xinli could only hear that line looping, over and over, after Nana Toki left.

...

Back in the horde, Nana Toki resumed the slaughter.

With no one to get in her way,

She dismembered the remaining dozens of Corpse Devourers in short order.

In a nearby house,

The team of thirty-something was now barely twelve or thirteen,

Including Bei Yuan and Jiang Xinli.

They crouched in the room, faces not lit by survival, but sunk in disaster and panic.

“Pff!”

Crushing the last Corpse Devourer’s skull, Nana Toki lowered the Colossal Axe and let out a heavy breath.

The side quest had to be halfway, right.

[Sub-Quest: Lord of the Mist City]

[Description: None]

[Current Progress: (994/1000) (0/1)]

(994/1000)?

Nine ninety-four?

Nana Toki’s face darkened. The Black Great Axe hit the ground with a shriek of steel.

A beast under the skin, gathering rage.

Six short?

She turned, almost without thinking, and set her gaze on the building behind her.