The Seven Demon's Tamer

Team East, consisting of Ryomen, Brok, and Koji, were all running at what appeared to be a similar pace towards the Tian district.

Running at a similar pace seemed like an underestimation of Ryomen's actual capabilities. It would be far more appropriate to say that Ryomen was deliberately reducing his speed to roughly one-tenth of his potential.

Every muscle in his body seemed to be holding back tremendous power, his breathing remained perfectly steady, and there wasn't even the slightest hint of tiredness on his face.

Surprisingly, Brok wasn't doing bad either. He was performing the feat of a typical red marked summoner despite being an orange marked, thanks to Akira's teachings.

And Koji was running right next to him.

Brok took a heavy gulp before he began speaking. "Master Ryomen..."

Since the Sen had arrived, Brok had been doing some very careful character analysis on them, given that they were his new teammates. Call it survival instinct, or wariness, but he would give a damn. He'd rather know exactly what kind of people he was moving with for his own good.

If he somehow made someone like Zhou snap and maybe kill him, Zhou could be let off with a slap on the wrist. He wasn't as valuable as Zhou to the Red Eastern and that fact wasn't lost on him, so he'd rather play cautiously.

He had seen the character of Mikasa, who felt like she reminded him of Mara in some ways—she was reasonable, logical, and seemed to have her head screwed on straight. That was reassuring.

Zhou, on the other hand, seemed to appear calm and cheerful on the surface, with that easy smile and relaxed demeanor. But they had caught glimpses of something else beneath his appearance—the guy was a complete maniac, carrying the killer instinct of those crazy fighters from the underground tournaments.

The kind of person who probably enjoyed pain a little too much, whether giving or receiving. That was... less reassuring.

Lastly, Ryomen barely said anything and seemed like the classic introvert type, all stoic silence and pitiful appearance. But Brok was in no position to jump to conclusions about anyone anymore. After all, Zhou had seemed like a perfectly normal person at first glance before he'd surprised them all with his maniac personality.

Brok could only hope this guy was as ordinary and non-threatening as he looked.

"I can already spot three radiant energy signatures that are definitely coming from the Falcon Guild intruders," Brok announced, hoping to sound useful.

Brok was using the gamma sense technique he had learned from Akira. It was a perception technique that allowed him to detect the presence of gamma energy within a much wider range than their eyes could see. So he was hoping that would help him create a good first impression.

He was using the gamma sense technique he had learned from Akira during their brief training. It was a perception technique that allowed the practitioner to detect the presence of gamma energy within a much wider range than their eyes could physically see—sort of like having supernatural radar for magical energy.

"Impressive," Ryomen spoke, his voice carrying that same emotionless tone as always. "I cannot sense gamma energy readings."

Brok's eyes widened so fast they nearly popped out of his skull. His heart started doing victory laps in his chest. Was Ryomen actually... impressed? With him?

He nearly jumped up in joy, barely restraining himself from shouting "Yeah!" and doing some kind of embarrassing celebration dance.

"I can see all three summoners who are radiating that energy," Ryomen continued, his voice still perfectly flat. "And I can see four others at a further location."

"The practitioner of gamma sense can easily identify the location, mark color, and even overall strength of other summoners from considerable distances," Ryomen continued. "If all you could detect was their presence, then you are more disappointing than I initially estimated you to be."

"I... uh..." Brok stammered, his confidence disappearing, but the conversation was already over.

**Bwoom!**

Ryomen suddenly made an explosive motion, his body launching into the air with such force that the ground cracked beneath his feet. He blasted toward the first summoner he could sense, moving with speed that nearly felt like the same speed at which Master Sung had departed from them.

Brok and Koji could only watch from the ground as Ryomen disappeared into the distance in a motion so impossibly fast that it made him and Koji look like they were running in slow motion. One moment Ryomen was there, the next he was a rapidly shrinking dot on the horizon.

"That man is something else entirely," Brok muttered.

---

**Crash!**

Ryomen landed on the ground with earthshaking force, blowing up dust and debris everywhere. The impact created a small crater and made the ground around tremble.

Somewhere in the distance, a certain someone who had been having his familiar leisurely graze on a fresh corpse of a Red Eastern member turned his gaze toward the center of the noise.

This particular individual was one of the Falcon Guild members who had been deployed as one among the team sent to wipe out everyone in the Red Eastern in their territory, and he'd been having quite pleasant progress so far.

He'd been hunting down Red Eastern Guild members who were victims of their pods crashing, killing them off at their weakest and letting his familiar feast on the remains.

As he stared into the thick cloud of dust that rose up from the collision point, wiping some blood from his hands with a cloth he'd torn from his latest victim's shirt, all he could see through the swirling particles were two piercing red eyes, staring directly at him with the kind of intensity that made his blood run cold.

Those eyes held no mercy, no hesitation; it was nearly inhuman. They were the eyes of a predator who had been driven to the edge by its prey.

And, unfortunately for him, those red piercing eyes were the last memory of his life.

**Wham!**

---

Far from Ryomen's solo hunting, Brok increased his speed as much as his burning lungs would allow, and Koji did the same, not wanting to trail behind for any reason. He wasn't a fighter by nature, and even his affinity wasn't combat oriented, so he needed to stay close to someone who could handle any fight if need be.

"I have failed miserably at impressing Ryomen with the gamma sense," Brok realized inwardly, his internal monologue taking on the tone of self-disappointment. "But I still have another opportunity."

"I need to hurry up and take down one of the intruders before he—"

Like a lightbulb being switched off, one of the presence signatures Brok was sensing through his gamma sense suddenly disappeared. Not faded, not moved—simply vanished, as if it had never existed at all.

"Oh." He bit his lips in frustration. "Guess killing someone before him is out of the question."

Brok wasn't ready to give up yet. There were still two more energy signatures he could detect, and Ryomen was just one person. Surely he couldn't be everywhere at once.

"Maybe I should target one of the remaining three energies I'm reading," he thought hopefully. "He killed the one in the middle, so I should handle the one on the right."

Brok quickly changed his course, turning toward the energy he could sense to the right. His legs pushed harder; he pushed forward.

This was his chance to make a good impression.

But as soon as he adjusted his direction, the aura he could sense from the right disappeared as well.

"Damnit!" He cursed loudly, immediately changing his course toward the left. Surely, surely Ryomen couldn't have moved that fast. There had to be some other explanation.

But just as quickly as the right signature had vanished, the left one followed, winking out of existence like a candle being blown out.

The truly absurd thing was that the distance between all three previously existing gamma energies had not been close at all. They had been spread out across several miles away from each other, positioned in a rough triangle formation. So how...

"How the hell is he doing this!" Brok panicked, momentarily halting his motion and staring into the distance in confusion.

"Is he teleporting?!"