When The System Spoils You For No Reason-Chapter 47 - Fourty Seven

"A beast in human clothing is still a beast — but it chooses when to show its teeth."

...

"You’re sure the loot is worth this?" Zeke asked Anton as they sped toward the source of the erupting aura. The ground trembled beneath each step. The air thickened with ozone and the copper bite of spilled blood.

Thanks to Anton’s knowledge, they were already close.

"Of course. I am from House Aurelius. I was aware of what Enel brought back—I even benefited from it."

"I’d like to ask more questions," Zeke said, grey eyes fixed ahead, "but I just saw Enel get swatted." A quiet hehe escaped him.

They crested a jagged crystalline hill and looked down. Below: chaos. Fire and ice traded in violent bursts, the earth splintered in every direction, and the demon moved through it all like weather—dark, unhurried, inevitable.

"That has got to hurt," Anton murmured, a faint smirk at his lips.

"Oh, the demon seems strong." Zeke’s eyes lit with interest. "Nice innate ability." He activated Observation, and information flickered behind his gaze like ghostly script.

"I had a feeling you could read status sheets," Anton said, not taking his eyes off the fray.

"Yeah, yeah. Let me watch. Stop talking." Zeke shooed him with a lazy flick of his wrist.

"So what’s his ability?"

"You don’t know?"

"He used a variety of them. To be honest—I wasn’t close enough for real knowledge, back then."

"Multiple abilities. That’d be a byproduct of Gluttony."

"Gluttony?"

"Yeah, I know. Generic ability for a demon."

"What rank?"

"What’s got your nipples in a twist? A-Rank."

"That makes sense. Otherwise we’d have ended the mission."

"What’s the deal with the ability?"

"Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins—a set that exists as both abilities and traits," Anton explained, his gaze fixed on the demon’s purple-haired form below. "Having it as an ability puts him on the weaker end of the scale, but he’s still stronger than most. What’s his Demon trait rank?"

"S-Rank."

"Lucky us."

"Why?"

"He’s ripe for the taking. Stat ceiling of 2000, which makes the ability semi-useless—no room to grow. If he had an SS-Rank Demon trait, Gluttony would’ve been a trait instead, meaning no racial cap—just the ceiling of Gluttony itself, which evolves with a strong enough meal."

"Seven deadly sins abilities are the worst. Demons really are hell’s favorite."

"Haha—he tricked them." Zeke had just watched Michael’s feint play out: the theatrical retreat, the wink, the wave of white fire.

"It was entertaining."

"I don’t doubt that." Zeke smiled, eyes glinting with something cold and knowing.

"Don’t smile like that. It’s nauseating." Anton took a half-step back, his expression one of genuine revulsion.

"Oh, snap."

"What? No one’s told you before?" Anton made a brief, expressive vomiting gesture.

"That wasn’t why I said that. The German heir just had his ribs broken."

Anton turned, deadpan. "Really."

"Tell me—you and the demon, who had higher stats in their prime?"

"Me, of course. I reached my limits." Anton glanced sideways. "Why do you ask? Humans have—"

"Don’t start the info dump. I just wanted a comparison. I’ve faced someone with the same stat ceiling before."

"You rude bastard."

Zeke’s jaw tightened. His knuckles went pale around nothing. "He’s going after the hunters now. People who have nothing to do with this."

Anton gave him a long, incredulous look, then shrugged. "When elephants fight, the grass suffers. They should have run instead of lingering for the show."

"Or maybe they were scared stiff, you apathetic old man." Zeke was already moving. "I’m going down."

"Oh? You have emotions?"

"No. I just don’t want that bastard using his artifact." A beat. "And I’ve got to farm."

"Farm what?"

BOOM.

The golden aura of Giant’s Dominion erupted around him—warm and enormous and utterly without hesitation. He swept one hand through the air. The slash was invisible, soundless. The demon’s hand separated cleanly, and the hunter it had been gripping crumpled free to the ground.

"Mad Dog," Anton murmured behind him. A slow smile crossed his face. His eyes drifted back to the heirs’ fight below. "Ah. He’s still doing that."

---

"Another rat," the demon said. His hand regenerated with a wet, structural sound—tendons first, then bone, then skin stretching smooth and new. He turned to face Zeke, amethyst eyes burning with interest now, not contempt.

"Rat, cockroach, Mad Dog." Zeke’s tone was almost conversational. "I’ve collected a few this past year."

"You’re not a person though, are you—demon." Zeke’s aura flared again, golden light throwing long, sharp shadows across the cratered field.

The demon’s eyes widened. Something shifted behind them: shock first, then fury, then naked, ravenous greed—all of it poorly concealed.

"How do you possess it?" His voice dropped to a low, vibrating growl.

"Whatever do you mean, good sir?" Zeke tilted his head, though the pieces were already assembling themselves.

"How have you gained a Sin?" The demon’s gaze was fixed on him now with the focus of something starved.

"Ahh." Zeke smiled—wide, unhurried—and spread his arms as if welcoming the question. "You’ll have to beat it out of me."

"Huff." The demon exhaled once, something between dismissal and resolve. "So be it."

BOOM.

He surged forward—a blur of dark energy and absolute intent.

"Who do you think," Zeke said lightly, "is confronting you with physical stats?"

FWOOSH.

The demon was airborne before he registered it, hurled backward by a violent pulse of repulsive force—Zhōu Chénhào’s Force Manipulation, precise and overwhelming. At the same moment, a spear of condensed white fire materialized from nowhere and drove itself through the demon’s chest with a searing thump.

"Me likey," Zeke grinned.

---

The heirs were still trading blows with the demon’s clones when the world tilted—shimmering, warping—and deposited them several yards away in a disorienting blink.

"Hey." A young man waved at them with easy familiarity, then turned to regard the now-bewildered clones. "Ganging up on my clients is very poor form. You’ll be hearing from the Mad Dog shortly."

Anton. He’d been palming pebbles the entire time, and had swapped the heirs out for them.

"Mad Dog?" Zhōu Chénhào’s voice was calm, but his eyes were sharp with calculation.

"Yes. We’re friends—I think." Anton gestured toward Zeke, who had just arrived and was already taunting the original demon after relieving him of his hand. "Some of you have already noticed him."

You can run, but you can’t outrun teleportation, Anton thought, with a satisfaction he kept entirely off his face.

"You wouldn’t be thinking of collecting a fee for saving us," Daniel said flatly, one hand pressed to his cracked ribs.

Rosaline watched Zeke across the field, still nursing the memory of her own encounter with him. "Does he actually think he can solo that thing?"

"Watch him." Anton’s glance slid meaningfully toward Enel. "I wouldn’t antagonize the young lord if he couldn’t."

They watched. Zeke sent the demon airborne again, and a spear of white fire pierced his chest on the descent.

"That fucking copycat." Enel bit the words off, jaw tight.

Michael smiled, faint and private. He turned to Anton. "It would be kind of you to assist with the clones. We’re down two."

"Who?" Anthony frowned. "I understand Daniel—but who else?"

"Me, obviously. I’m spent." Michael touched the back of his neck with a sheepish smile.

"Of course," Anton said, returning it. "My pleasure. Though—the effect should expire shortly on its own."

At that, the clones dissolved—eight figures unraveling simultaneously into thin wisps of dark smoke, dispersing before anyone could move.

"See?"

---

The demon rose. Dark energy cascaded off him in slow, seething waves as his wounds closed with visible, accelerating speed. Several jagged black spears materialized in orbit around him, rotating with a low, ominous hum before they screamed toward Zeke in a tight, lethal cluster.

"Fine." Zeke’s grin didn’t waver. "A battle of abilities it is."