Skeletal Dragon Avatar

Killing in the slum

“...Okay, tell me again, will you, buddy boy?”

Matt was currently in sitting in the middle of a scene of carnage, corpses were littered around the place, some were still bleeding out, so they weren’t quite corpses yet, though they soon would be, Matt was sitting on the back of the last surviving men that had come to attack them while he interrogated him

“We’re just trying to make a living…!”

“By beating us unconscious and selling us as slaves?”

“So what!?”

Matt sighed before he reached down and grabbed the back of the man's head with one hand and his chin with the other

“Any last words?”

“...See you in hell!”

Matt showed a smile before he twisted slightly, breaking the man’s neck, then he ripped open his chest and took out his core, Matt was alone, the other people he had been with had fled as soon as the carnage started, Matt collected the rest of the cores before he casually strolled further into the slums, he didn’t take more than 50 steeps before someone jumped out in front of him wielding a shoddy knife, the man looked famished and his eyes flashed with insanity as he yelled

“Your coin or your life!”

Matt didn’t brother answering him and simply dodged his attempt to stab him before he swiped his legs which caused the famished man to fall on his back, this knocked the wind out of him, Matt didn’t brother about killing him, he was on a tight schedule, he had to get enough cores to reach level 3 before nightfall, so he could make it back to the bar before Lilly started to worry, or worse, found a new bodyguard

‘Looks like I need to speed it up a bit…’

With that, Matt kicked off the ground and accelerated quickly into a sprint before he jumped up on a nearby building before he scanned around on the streets and after a bit he showed a smile when he saw what he was looking for: A group of somewhat organized thugs shaking down people while patrolling the streets

“...Jackpot”

Matt jumped to another shabbily built building before he jumped again and landed in the middle of the group of 7 where he instantly deployed his bone spikes and stabbed a thug that was too late to react in the back of the head

“What!”

“Who’s that!?”

“HOW DARE YOU!”

“Get him!”

Two of the remaining 6 thugs stabbed out after him at the same time with their daggers, one from the left side of Matt and one from the right side, Matt ducked down and grabbed their hands that were still holding the daggers and pulled them in opposite directions before the two thugs effectively stabbed each other in the stomach instead of hitting their interned target Matt, that let go of the two thugs hands and punched the two of them in one fluid motion making them stumble back before he kicked off the ground and jumped up and to the side, delivering an uppercut to another thug before he spun in the air kicked off a wall to deliver a flying knee with a bone spike to thug number 4 which penetrated his skull and produced a sound much like that of a watermelon being dropped from the 1st floor when Matt’s knee obliterated his skull, Matt landed on the ground and looked over at the remaining 2 thugs, or more like, the back of them as they were fleeing

“...And that’s that”

Matt didn’t brother chasing them down, after all some thugs fleeing was part of his plan, he then proceeded to finish off and gather the cores from the 4 thugs he had beaten down before he continued on, this continued for about 2 hours with Matt having killed about 6 groups of thugs, though not without receiving some small wounds, before it appeared that word had gotten around, anyway the 7th and the 8th group all attempted to flee when Matt encountered them, he proceeded to chase some of them down, just letting cores run away like that wasn’t Matt’s policy, besides these thugs lived off shaking down and terrorizing the people of the slums, so Matt didn’t mind clearing some of them out, not that it would change anything in the long run, the only way to make some real change was to catch one of the big fish.

-

“...I must have misheard you, tell me again”

“......It’s just one guy, he’s killing all our people”

Inside a room that could be mistaken for an upper noble’s office sat a big man, he was seated in a luxurious sofa with a babe on each of his arm, his arms were as thick as barrels, if Matt saw him he would properly mistake him for a bodybuilder from his old world, his expression was a mix between awe and rage, though heavily leaning towards the rage part as his eyebrow twitched he asked

“And you can’t handle a single person!?”

“I am very sorry boss… He got some sort of regeneration trait”

“AND WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT TH… Wait, did you say regeneration?”

“Yes boss”

The boss thought for a few moments before he spoke

“Send someone into the city, to the Rights temple, tell the bishop we’ve found a person with a regeneration trait”

The lieutenant was confused by the boss’ change in tune but quickly nodded as he spoke

“I’ll go at once”

“Yes, go… And send every man we have to capture that pest!”

“Yes boss!”

-

Matt was utterly confused, his original plan was that after beating down the small fish for a bit, a bigger fish would emerge which would earn him the exit to the slums, though it now looked more like the very same big fish had become scared of him and instead hoped to kill him with a thousand cuts from the small fish that now came at him in droves and droves, one group after another

“There he is!”

“Capture him!”

“Beat him until he can’t run!”

Matt charged into the group of thugs, as he slid under the 1st thugs knife swing he swiped his elbow bone spike over the stomach of the 2nd thug’s stomach, just deep enough to puncture his artery, from there Matt kicked off the ground and delivered a flying knee to the 3rd before he slammed his fists down on the crow of the head of the 4th, though as he did the 5th managed to swipe his back with a knife which fueled his rage and caused his eyes to flash with a dark green light as he turned around and tackled the 6th and final thug to the ground before he pinned his arms under his knees and beat his head until his skull fractured which eased his rage somewhat, then Matt quickly dug out the cores from the thugs before he left the scene of carnage behind

“...This is bad”

Matt wasn’t stupid, nor was he high on how easy he could dispatch the thugs, he knew that they were just thugs, the lieutenants would be several times stronger, if two or three of them showed up at once he would have to spend so much time on killing or incapacitating them that the thugs would manage to surround and pin him down by then, thus he was making his way towards the exit of the slums, he had gathered enough cores by now to pay the guards to let him out and even though those cores were best spend on him reaching level 3, they weren’t poorly spent on leaving the slums in one piece either.

Thus, Matt soon reached the exit to the slums, there was just one problem, it was the guy standing with his back against the exit seemingly waiting for him, Matt’s instincts told him that he was only a little stronger than the man that was guarding the exit, a fight would take too long and attract too much attention, so Matt was just about to leave and find another exit when the man opened his eyes and asked in Matt’s direction

“Leaving already?”

Matt stopped moving before he sighed and walked out in the open and faced the man before he asked

“So… How do you want to do this?”

The man stared at Matt for a few moments before he spoke

“I think you got something wrong, I am not part of Galtars group”

“...Galtars?”

The man nodded before he clarified

“He’s the man who controls this area of the slums”

Matt showed a slight smile before he asked

“Then you don’t mind me passing through?”

The man showed a smile before he shook his head

“No, not at all, though I will pay the cost for you passing if you would mind hearing me out, no strings attached”

Matt considered it for a few moments, the cores he had on him, all 41 were enough for him to reach level 3, though if he paid 30 of them to pass through he wasn’t entirely sure he could level up, which was why he was here in the first place, so he decided rather quickly

“Sure, I’ll hear you out at least”