Smashing the Demon's head into the bookshelf smashed the furniture into different pieces and sent the books on it crashing down.
Stopping his transformation mid-stage was necessary for Arsha, not because he couldn't handle a transformed third-stage but because he was only slightly stronger than a transformed third-stage Demon.
Allowing him to transform was only going to prolong the situation and he had no reason to let that happen.
The Demon was on the floor with the pieces of the broken bookshelf around him and Arsha's hand still on his neck.
"Let go of me, you bastard." He managed to force out before attempting to reach for Arsha's hand with both of his hands.
However, just before he could reach the hand, two ropes made entirely out of water sprang up from behind Arsha, and slammed his hands down before tying them up.
"I thought some of you guys were supposed to have another ability other than your usual flames, where's your other ability?" Arsha questioned in a mocking tone.
That question seemed to have rubbed the Demon the wrong way as his body slowly began to turn red and two red horns began to grow from his forehead.
Before Arsha knew it, the hydro ropes snapped and the Demon quickly pushed him back.
"I don't need another ability to deal with you!" He screamed as his body suddenly got covered by flames.
"Oh, I see you still went ahead and transformed."
Arsha had a furious look on his face as he quickly dashed forward and grabbed the Demon on both of his horns.
"Now, I'm going to take your horns as punishment."
With a quick pull, he was able to snap both of the horns and just before the Demon could react, he slammed his head into the floor with his right hand.
"Arghhh!!" The Demon screamed in pain with both of his hands on his broken horns.
Being in that much pain, the flames around his body began to die down but his skin remained red.
Charging toward the Demon while his body was still covered in flames left him with quite a painful experience as both of his hands were now red due to the effect of the flames but he was already used to stuff like this.
"I was going to just ask you a few questions but now you've done it." Arsha bit his lower lip before he pressed down both of the Demon's legs with his right boot.
The Demon let out little groans as he tried to hold in his scream but the pain was starting to get too much for him, and just as Arsha added flames to the mix he lost control.
However, Arsha wasn't going to let him scream as that was going to get the attention of the people downstairs in the arena, so he did the only thing that came to mind.
Just as the Demon opened his mouth to scream he blasted water into his mouth with a powerful force.
The water blast cleared out all of his teeth and turned his tongue into mush.
The Demon's mouth was bleeding now but with a bit of his tongue still there, it looked like he could still talk.
"You can do whatever you want to me, I know I won't get to reach Demon-lord level now, but I will die in peace knowing that I took more than five hundred human souls with me."
Anyone else wouldn't be able to discern what the Demon was saying as he seemed to be making incoherent sounds but Arsha had a very special ear.
"Oh, I see, you were planning to also take the people in the stands, I guess that makes," Arsha said before pulling his leg back. "However, you shouldn't just assume that I care about any of that, I didn't come here to save anybody, I came here because I needed money." He snapped.
The Demon's eyes suddenly widened in shock, that wasn't the reaction he wanted, he wanted him to try to bargain with him to stop what was about to happen or at least try to force it out of him.
'What type of human is this? I thought they all cared about their kind so dearly, or was that false information?'
"Now tell me, where is the money? I mean the cash prize for this competition." He inquired with a calm voice.
His voice was calm but the Demon could tell from the sharp glare he was getting that he was very serious. But despite that, he didn't say anything and maybe that was because he didn't know anything about where the cash prize was.
At that moment, Arsha's eyes caught sight of something up ahead, he wouldn't have been able to see it if he had not smashed the bookshelf earlier.
There was a vault on the wall, and he could tell on a first glance that there was something special inside for it to be hidden like that.
"It might look like I just found it." He muttered before he began to make his way to the vault.
He didn't waste any time in using his fire ability to destroy the lock of the vault.
With a pull, he was able to open the vault, and now he could see what was inside.
There were three bags in total in there, and the moment he saw them, a smile appeared on his face.
"The three top prizes."
He opened the bag in the middle to confirm that there was real money in there, and once that was confirmed, he picked it up and hung it over his shoulder.
"Since I am the victor of this competition by figuring out what was really going on, I'll leave these two for number two and three." He expressed as he made his way to the Demon who was still lying helplessly on the floor.
"Please, spare me, I'll do anything just don't kill me." The Demon pleaded. His eyes looked quite dead now.
It didn't look like his pleading moved Arsha at all as he still had a straight look on his face, and before he knew it, a large fireball appeared in his hand.
"Safe trip to hell." He mumbled before throwing the fireball down on the Demon.
The flames quickly consumed his body as he kept making incoherent sounds that Arsha identified as screams of anguish.
"Demons are originally from hell, right? So, I guess he's going back home."
________ _______
Ten minutes had already gone by and still, there had been no mana field set up.
The audience were starting to get a bit impatient and so were the competitors.
"When the heck is this show going to start?"
"Just start without the mana field, I want to see some fighting already, just be careful not to kill each other, is that so hard?"
"Calm down everyone, just give them some time, everything will kick off soon." The host said in an attempt to calm the crowd.
At that exact moment, a high-pitched sound swept through the arena forcing almost everyone to cover their ears.
It lasted for twenty seconds, and once it was over, the iron bars around the arena that were used to contain beasts for beast contests were blasted open.
"What the heck was that?" One of the competitors inquired before taking a step toward one of the now-opened containment rooms.
He wasn't able to get too far when what looked like a tongue popped out from there and wrapped around his feet and pulled him up immediately.
"Arghhh!!" He screamed as he tried to force himself loose but he wasn't able to scream or struggle for long.
The tongue came slamming down just a few seconds after pulling him up, his bones were completely squashed under that force, and now that he was lifeless, the tongue pulled him.
A huge gasp swept through the arena but they didn't even get enough time to try and figure out what happened.
A large bear-like beast suddenly jumped out of one of the containments and smashed two people into the floor on its landing.
About fifteen wasp-like creatures quickly flew out from the containments but because they were just as large as tigers their combined wings were making really loud buzzing sounds.
Panic quickly swept through the competitors, and some of them who were weak-willed began to drop their weapons as the numerous beasts surrounding them began to slaughter them.
The audience were just shocked at first but now most of them were screaming in horror as they tried to get as far away from the arena as possible but the flying beasts weren't planning on letting anyone go.
There was bloodshed from the stands to the arena, and there was no one there strong enough to stabilize the situation.
Arsha only watched from the highest point of the building with an indifferent expression on his face.
"That's ten Lord tier beasts, twenty-five Master tier beasts, and then the rest are just Unique tiers."