Return Of The Strongest Player

Arthur glanced at his surroundings, noticing the crowd's ignorance towards the beatdown. The boy was suffering in plain sight, while the men in overcoats hadn't even taken him to an alley before beginning the beatdown.

Instead of helping the pitiful boy, however, the residents of the town were deliberately ignoring him, as if his existence was a mere illusion. Despite his painful cries reverberating across the streets, no one cared.

"How much for a pound of carrots?"

"Pound? Do you mean kilogram? Anyway, it'll cost you five tokens."

"Five tokens!? That's a fucking rip-off. The place downtown offers a kilogram for four tokens!"

"Then go get it from there, bitch. Why waste my time?"

Arthur glanced at the quarrel between a shopkeeper and a rather old lady, chuckling at their pettiness. The two continued arguing for a few minutes, completely ignoring the beatdown, as if it were a regular occurrence.

Arthur stepped forth, approaching the men in overcoats, who seemed to be enjoying their own sadistic behavior. With wide smiles of mockery plastered over their scarred faces, they continued to punch and kick, while swinging pipes.

Arthur glanced at the boy, who seemed to be in a terrible condition. With chipped teeth, a somewhat broken jaw, disfigured hand, and a torso lined with scarlet red marks through which blood leaked, he seeemd to be on the verge of fainting.

'There has to be some internal bleeding, too,' Arthur muttered internally. Although the situation was urgent, he was not perturbed in the slightest.

"Fellas, how about you sell me that kid for 1000 tokens?" Arthur inquired, approaching the men while adopting a rather pleasant smile, his eyes twitching at the sheer fakeness of his own behavior.

The men in overcoats halted the beatdown for a few seconds, sneering at the crimson-eyed man before resuming it.

"Come on… What about 1500 tokens?" Arthur asked, clasping his hands behind his back to display vulnerability. Also, he wiped all inconsistencies in his expression to seem like a true, trained merchant.

"Who the fuck are you?" A certain man with neon green hair and a pattern etched atop his fade asked. His cheek was lined with a faint scar, while one of his eyes had been gouged out, and was devoid of an eyeball.

The other men continued smiling while swinging their pipes.

"Ignius James," Arthur announced, bowing in a rather proper fashion. "I am a merchant who deals with slaves."

'Slaves?' The man with neon hair wondered, his eyes widening slightly. If he were a slave trader, Ignius (Arthur) would have at least climbed to the ninth floor and would have the backing of a large corporation.

Then again, he could simply be a faker, a man simply aiming for a slave without going through the trouble of entering an auction.

'Still, it's better to be a little hospitable… Unless he reveals a vulnerability.'

With a wary gaze, the man observed Arthur, attempting to detect any unknown variables he'd missed. Thankfully, he didn't seem to have a hidden team waiting to pounce, and was merely traveling solo.

If that was the case, they could simply suppress him and steal his tokens.

'But I could still hear out his offer,' thought the man with neon hair, narrowing his eyes. "I'm Leonardo DeCappuchino."

A short silence descended upon the area. Arthur stifled laughter.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," replied Arthur, reverting to his professional behavior. "Anyway, that boy for 1500 tokens… How about it? In exchange, I can also offer a valuable artifact from the tenth floor, if you want."

"Hmm, that's an interesting offer," said Leonardo. "But, what about we simply take the tokens and you get the fuck out of here?"

'Another young master cliche situation,' Arthur muttered internally, shaking his head in second-hand embarrassment. It was truly painful to watch such dumb humans inhabit the tower. Arthur often wondered what the future of Heaven's Spire was…

"I don't think that'll work."

"Why won't it?" Leonardo asked, motioning for his other men to back him. A few men with broken pipes and a semi-decent reserve of mana approached the crimson-eyed man, preparing spells.

"Why use mana in such a situation?" Arthur asked, cocking his head. "It is but a mere streetfight."

"What the fuck are you saying? Guys, jump him."

Several men rushed towards Arthur with the intent to kill, their eyes bloodshot and their movements quite fluid. 'I'll name them man #1 to man #9. Leonardo is the tenth enemy in this situation.'

'I don't think I need Skofnung in this situation.'

It was at this moment that the residents of the town turned to face Arthur, amused at the conflict. However, judging by their mundane expressions, they expected the fight to progress in a very one-sided fashion.

It was obvious that numbers would triumph.

For a single man to defeat ten men–presumably of similar strength as his own–was utterly an absurd assumption. But these were the thoughts of weaklings. Higher up in the tower, a single Divine Ranker could defeat dozens of others.

It was simply a vast difference in skill.

'Someone like Zeus could probably pack his entire clan alone if the other Olympians weren't to interfere.'

As one of the oldest living Divine Rankers, Zeus was an anomaly, and so were Indra, Odin, and the others. Their clans had hundreds, perhaps thousands of years of history, since only a few years after the tower mysteriously appeared.

They were all beings that grasped their own fate, building their lives using the Spire to Heaven.

Arthur glanced at man #1, rushing towards him while maintaining a rather casual expression. Man #1 swung his pipe in an attempt to knock Arthur out cold, but was met with numbness in his chest.

The wind escaped his body in a split second, after which he felt his family jewels ache.

He glanced down between his thighs and near his pelvic area… 'My fucking… he's a fucking lunatic! He's a fucking psychopath!'

Before he could react, his jewels exploded into a mixture of white and red.

Crack! Splash!