Looking over the building, Aki couldn't help but smile at what he was about to do.
'Are you sure there's no special reward for this?' He pouted a bit.
'Yes. Some people can even beat someone who have crossed a major realm over them, so nevermind a soldier rank, you wouldn't get anything but recognition out of killing a spirit rank too. Maybe loot from their bodies if those are still intact enough, but otherwise, i really don't see why you keep trying to get cross-rank kills when most of your enemies won't even have proper storage artifacts and instead carry around talismans for consumables.' Answered the man handling tons of paperwork.
'Life is a game, and i am the kind of person that has the most fun when they can beat bosses and overleved enemies with pure skills and cheating!' He declared with pride while preparing to press the button.
'And you admit to cheating so easily...' The god sighed.
'A very corrupt man once said that talent is the gift god gives men, while cheating is the gift men gives himself, and i just couldn't agree more.' He said before exploding his loaded oven. He'd glued twenty exploding and flame intensifying talismans before revesting the whole thing bar the mouth in a way that wouldn't attract much attention when considering there were plenty of herbs and failed alchemical products over it and the muffling effect he'd gotten while guiding the explosion.
Shooting both the man observing the place and the oven at he same time was relatively easy, while keeping undetected was a bit more complex, so instead he didn't mind ignoring the remaining enemies on the same building as the watcher and getting back the fastest possible towards his apartament so he could get rid of the corpse he'd made emulate his Qi signature while in bed and the assasin in time to pretend heroically escapping a gas explosion while getting only his cellphone and wallet out in time.
Not like there was anything that important in the appartament besides maybe the TV and the couch, but it'd be too suspicious to move his favorite couch before he exploded the place.
*****
"And where, with all due respect officer, THE FUCK WOULD I GET THE INGREDIENTS FOR A BOMB!" He screamed while banging his hand on the interrogation table. The old man in front of him scoffed.
"Don't pretend you are not involved in this, your friends over at the slums know very well how to make someone get angry enough to plant a bomb." The man simply frowned and shoved a finger to his face.
"Right, because my black friends are all gang menbers that love robbing people, now please point out your genial logical process of thought that brought you to the conclusion i'm a dangerous enough individual to cuff and question like a criminal when i was almost litteraly fried alive by your suspected bomber." He ended, with as much flutuation and emotion as a brick, his look as serious as it could get.
"I would also like to hear that part Francis!" Scremed a woman banging the door open. "Why the fuck is our victim cuffed to a table?!" Said the blue eyed blondie in a suit and pencil skirt. Aki imediatly deemed her incredibly beautiful, out of his league, highly suspicious and a lunatic that either focuses too much on justice, may not have enough experience and ability to comand when you pit her skills against her being a woman dealing wit... "Out of here inspector! I want you away from this case and it's related personel until it is closed. This is your last warning old man, if you go against my words one more time..." He had already angrily gotten up and tried to push over the smaller woman standing in front of the door, but she kept to the door frame and didn't bulge. "I will have your badge and gun." She softly said before entering and hitting his showder with her own before dirrecting herself to sit in front of Aki and sighing. "I am sorry you had to see that. Can I calmly take your cuffs off?" She said, the question having obvious sources considering how much he'd screamed.
"I don't mind." He said, much in the same robotic tone as before. She nodded and swiftly opened them. He put a hand in his sleeve, taking off a much similar key he'd looted. "I'm giving this back."
"That is theft." She said, barely giving the key a glance.
"That is what a man given the chance to better secure his health does when they are pressed against possibly hostiles." He stated, nodding. "A court would rapidly agree to said version coming from an altistic and scared boy who was being screamed at for no reason." He showed his cuffed red wrists. He'd not complained about the cuffs because even if he wasn't just pretending with some blood manipulation, that was going to be more of an advantage in the case he mostly predicted.
In case he needed to escape he'd just break it anyway and damage the metal before leaving.
There was silence for a while.
"I have already given my statement, so before any more useless questions, I'd like to simply say I don't really care about the apartment, but if this was actually a criminal act against my person, you will have a lot of work in front of you. May i go now?" Receiving a sigh and some signs of dismissal, he got up and directed himself to the door. "May your own happines be achieved without crossing the way of others sister." He said, quickly getting a confirmation to his suspicions by the brief killing intent directed at him.
'Definetly a sociopath. Though this means i will have a lot of trouble if i want the local police and army under my thumb, it also means that if i can give her enough benefits she will be of great help. I hope the military has someone easier to manipulate, because this bitch won't bend the knee for anyone below her.'
Deciding it'd look cool, Aki lighted a ciggarete while leaving. With his finger.
*****
Lips locked against his, attacking the insides of his mouth, Aki didn't resist or react while the asian woman sitting on his lap cleaned her mouth and got up.
"That was easy, now give me all your money." He kept the same stupid face while giving her his wallet. "You're a good kisser, maybe i will actually play with you if you have..." Shooting the woman on the throath, he just couldn't hould his snickers anymore. 'This perfect qi connection is mighthy useful' He though and laughed a bit more before going over the woman's body for his well deserved loot.
The idea of a peak pawn stage expert whoring herself for petty change was just too funny. She was asian, sure, but it couldn't be that they sent such a lousy charmer against him so... Suddenly his smile vanished. Taking a picture of her face, he decided to have Melissa look for this girl and see if she was someone important, maybe a young miss that got too confident.
They'd entered the first motel they found, which was actually quite close now that he thought about it. Just as a precaution, Aki took her clothes off. Aparently she had a crotch tattoo and some other accesories, because plot, of course, but the tell tale that she was important was the mark on te small of her back, which actually had energy residue.
'Well fuck, this isn't the kind of shit you can easily do.' He said, reconizing the mark as a tracker that showed if she was alive or not. Having robed her clean and leaving only the skimpy dress she'd wore because it was ugly, Aki decided he'd overstayed his welcome.
The quest that just popped up agreed with him.
Quickly jumping through the stair's railing and decending to the last floor already rolling, Aki bolted at top speed with all the body enhancements he could take out.
It's one thing to like fighting strong enemies and another entirely different liking to put yourself in situations with insanely low chances of survival. This was definetly one of the later.
As the diferent kinds of energy flowed through him, his skin became red from the heat he was emanating, his veins started to glow, the air became just that much thiner and the ground that much more resistant.
There was an explosion and then a earthquake. He didn't need to look back to know that was a building falling. Releasing his life and death affinity, he started to passively absorb a certain amount of energy to replenish what he was currently spending.
It was relatively harmless considering how fast he was running and how small his absortion rate was, though still usefull in this kind of pressed situation.
Deciding he'd ran enough, Aki found the nearest sewer entrance and threw himself in before closing it and beggining to absorb energy more fevertly and changing the direction he ran towards. Trowing some recently made talismans in the ceiling of the hole, he didn't look anymore before running even faster since he now could also use the humidity in the air to propel himself without any problem.
*****
"You, you are the one that darred kill my daughter?!" Screamed the expert.
"Look, i don't know why you are complaining. If you try to kill someone you should be prepared to be killed. Besides, that dumb bitch had a terrible taste in clothes." He scoffed, not looking like he was facing someone two stages above himself.
When the bloodied man pounced, it really didn't matter though.
With all the talismans Aki had planted exploding together, the man was bombarded with putrid black fire that attacked his soul directly, trying to consume it to keep burning. Not having any more use for words, Aki released the spell he'd charged with all the energy he had remaining together with a punch to the man's head.
It was utter madness that the man before him had even considered following his trail when he'd planted so many bombs, snares, acids and oxygen free air at him, fallen for all of then, and somehow not noticed he was starting to die. Fair enough, it was utter bullshit that he'd been able to make even a scratch at a warrior stage cultivator with his newly advanced strenght, but so was it that one had thrown himself against all his traps using his face!
With the orange flames launching from his fist, the man couldn't help but scream in even more pain. He didn't understand how a supreme expert like himself had even been hurt by such measly poison and fire, even if there was so much of it, only the fire slung by someone of a higher cultivation base should have any effect on his body thanks to his supperior affinity to fire!
"I can't, GAAAHHHH" The man tried to spout some cliche sentences, but the moment Aki noticed he'd not even knocked the man out, he took his tantos out and shoved them into the man's head, which was surprisingly dificult considering how soft the eye still is before you reach spirit rank, but putting his whole weight into it and cranning the man's neck up, his short blades slided in the half molten face, stopping before they reached bone, but penetrating the brain anyway.
When the flames started burning brighter and he received two thousand mortal essence, Aki unssumonned his blades and doused the spirit flames supposed to distract the man with incredible pain while he finished him off.
He was tired, sure, who wouldn't be after two hours of running with a great predator behind you? Even if this guy was stupid, he'd have killed Aki with one hit if he had actually been able to land any blow.
Sure it sounds like standard wuxia bullshit, and it kind of is, but you try to suffer your first soul attack and not act like you're a little bitch that just had your anal virginity taken without any lube, i dare ya.
Looking at the corpse in front of him, Aki could only pray the man was as rich as he was stupid, otherwise even the money reward he'd gotten from the system would be quite useless considering how this 'great' amount could only be used for consumable considering how little care he had for anything else in... actually, his donation could still be used if he went to the abyss of money.