"What the hell." Malin pointed at them. Ails glanced and shook his head. It was clear that in this bar, nobody knew who was who among these freaks. But this guy did announce his name: "We from the Soss Snake Tribe have never seen someone as brazen as you. Nice gem, I’ll take it." After speaking, the snake man reached out to take it. Malin grabbed the snake man’s extended hand and pushed it away, causing the snake man to lose balance and a piece of a hand fell from his satchel. With a beckon, the piece of hand landed in Malin’s hand. "A human hand, though I don’t know which human it belongs to." The succubus recognized the item. Malin tossed the hand in front of the snake man: "What is this, explain." "My snack! You little two-legged sheep..." The snake man trailed off, seeing his subordinates completely melded into blood and flesh in Malin’s hands, their armors, weapons, and all other possessions falling out. Malin placed the flesh into the large empty pot behind the counter: "Ails, hold him down, Succubus, cook the meat, when I return, I want to feed this ignorant bastard this meat personally. Whoever knows this guy’s race and identity, have all the intel ready for me when I get back. There will be great rewards for exterminating their clan!" After speaking, Malin opened a rift with a coordinate on a parchment and swept his gaze around before walking in at the last moment. "There’s always competition between humans and other races, winners rule, losers fall. I don’t blame anyone, but those who dare treat humans as food, tell them to either wise up and change their diet or wait for me to hunt them down." With that, Malin stepped into the rift. This was Malin’s new realization — whether in the Westland or Eastern Land, the term human no longer exclusively refers to the terrifying upright ape. Be it orcs, or bio-humans like Konen and Lady Dimis, as long as they acknowledge their human identity and abstain from such predatory acts, Malin will recognize them as humans he must protect. This also seems to determine Malin’s own alignment. Malin believes this is not about becoming a god, as traditional godhood involves confirming one’s divine duties. Malin’s path should have little to do with divine duties, even if it’s a guardian type of duty... it’s not bad. Anyway, there’s no hurry, though time isn’t on Malin’s side, the trigger to becoming a god is in Malin’s own hands. For now, let’s kill some daft demons. With this thought, Malin stepped out of the rift, patting the head of a trembling Coward Demon with a smile still plastered on its face. A second later, the Coward Demon spontaneously combusted, its contact with the pure holy energy turning it into a torch, also a holy beacon—Malin didn’t mind who might arrive here later; either way, this place was an unknown outer plane, if they were allies, maybe he could share a smoke afterwards, and if they were more freaks, Malin wouldn’t mind tearing them apart too. A grand holy presence appearing in the demon camp was never a good omen. Malin hadn’t made it a few steps before the entire camp exploded, with all kinds of demons rushing out of their dwellings. A Balrog demon nearest to Malin swung its weapon at him, then it ended just like that—a fresh ice sculpture formed under Malin’s gaze. With a small gesture, Malin transformed the sculpture into thousands of slender ice blades, which accurately covered all demons under their owner’s aim. See, whether they are demons from Baator or demons from Chaos, these creatures are always so ugly and disgusting. A dozen or so prairie elves in cages saw Malin’s massacre, hesitantly yet excitedly holding onto the cage bars as they lined up. Malin walked over, casually twisting the head off a six-armed snake demon still barely alive, then tossing it like a rotten melon at a crawling Cunning Demon, shattering half its body upon impact. "Good afternoon, little ones." Malin glanced around; the demons were either dead and gone or trying hard to feign death. Seeing their desperate act to survive, Malin paid them no heed, ripping open the cage door before turning to the rift opening nearby. First to come out was a man in a red trench coat, sword on his back, white hair and bristly faced. He took a look around, then at Malin, smiling wryly: "I seem to be late." "Justice never deems the hand holding the sword and its master late." Malin finished, throwing him a pack of cigarettes—these were from Ails, supposedly hand-rolled by the virgins selected from his plantation using their legs; Malin didn’t know much, nor would he smoke it, but it was fine to give away—after all, even the Liches who had smoked it said it left them feeling ’right’. "Ah, cigarettes, thank you, I’ll head to another camp first." As the man was about to leave, a new rift opened up. This time out came a burly man in green armor, holding a large gun in one hand and a rabbit under the other. He took one glance around, and without a word, dived back into the rift. Malin pondered, if another over-two-meter-tall, power armor-clad, grinning old man came next, would some author need to sit in the defendant’s seat... oh wow, he really came. Under Malin’s despairing gaze, an old man in power armor, a towering 2.4472 meters tall, emerged. He looked around, finding all the demons either deceased or pretending to be so, then looked at Malin again, smiled, raising his eyebrows at the sword-bearing uncle: "Seems our friend is quite meticulous." "A good young man." the uncle said, already smoking as he picked up the cigarette: "These smokes are great, want one?" "No thanks." After saying this, a rift appeared at the old man’s feet, and he simply fell into it. Malin rolled his eyes, then sighed—this outer plane was indeed interesting. Just then, a new rift opened. A group of prairie elves rushed out holding their weapons. The small ones who had been huddling like hamsters next to Malin squealed and ran toward them. "You saved the children, thank you for your help." The commander among the pointed-ear folks approached and extended his hand. Malin extended his hand too. After shaking hands, Malin was about to leave when he suddenly thought of a question. "By the way, how do you... see yourselves?" "Huh?" The other party was taken aback by Malin’s question, feeling a bit at a loss. Malin felt a bit awkward too—what a senseless question: "I mean, you probably call yourselves prairie elves, how do you and the humans of your world view each other?" "We all have two legs; besides height, not much difference. Human or prairie elf, it’s just a title for distinguishing us. We now prefer to call ourselves Ayarock people, just like you, wherever you’re from, that’s your identity, and we’re Ayarock people, we are all people, no mistake about that." The commander scrutinized Malin as he spoke: "Speaking of which, you seem to resemble us, yet not quite... really interesting." "Indeed, but at least I feel we have a common language in terms of what we are. Thank you for your answer. Also, I guess the merchant coming to buy these kids hasn’t arrived yet, so if you can, why not set an ambush for those damned buyers here? I need to deal with some snake people, so I can’t join in." "No problem, speaking of snake people, there are some around here with brains that they don’t even use, always calling anything with legs a sheep. If you’re going to hunt them, help us take down a few more." As the commander spoke, he noticed another rift opening. Everyone then saw a group of snake men pouring out, their leader dismissive, opening with: "The buyers are here, where are the sellers?" Then they noticed the unwelcome guest smiling at them—since the camp’s host was either dead or already being devoured alive by the World Tree Sapling. After setting a Dimensional Anchor, Malin smiled. The commander, seeing Malin’s smile, shared the sentiment and smiled as well. You see, as they say, timing is everything, and that’s just about right.