Looking at the wreckage of their car, the Rose couple was livid, heading off in a rage to demand answers from the motel owner.
Sephirot, however, remained remarkably calm. He was reflecting on whether he had been far too good-tempered lately.
So much so that even common punks like these dared to trample all over him.
He paid no further mind to the scavenged sports car and turned to leave.
The entirety of Slapton was less of a town and more of an oversized village.
He quickly located the house of the lead youth from earlier that day.
In a second-floor bedroom, the short-haired young man was leaning against his headboard.
The arm that had been snapped earlier was now in a cast, suspended against his chest, and his thigh was wrapped in thick bandages.
Despite his injuries, he was engrossed in a disc playing on the television, his body writhing obscenely beneath the covers.
Just as his breathing quickened, nearing a crescendo, his peripheral vision caught a dark silhouette by the window.
The youth's scalp went numb, the fright instantly killing his momentum.
*Crash!*
Sephirot kicked through the glass and stepped into the room.
Crunching over the shards, he sized up the youth on the bed.
"Quite the indomitable spirit you have. Though your taste in films is just like your courage, pathetic."
The youth scrambled to pull up his pants.
"Listen, let me explain! The car wasn't me–"
Recalling the scene from earlier that day, he shrank into the corner in terror, begging for mercy.
Sephirot wasn't interested in his nonsense. He strode forward, seized the boy's only remaining good arm, and applied a slight amount of pressure.
*Snap!*
"AAAHHH!!!"
Before the agony from earlier in the day had even faded, his last functional limb was brutally broken.
The heart-wrenching scream tore through the sky, completely shattering the silence of the night.
The scream quickly drew his parents from downstairs.
"FUCK! What's with all the noise in the middle of the night?!"
The youth's father was an obese man.
He kicked the door open, cursing before he had even assessed the situation inside.
"Do you need another beating?!"
But when he saw the shattered glass littering the floor and his son's only remaining hand snapped, his eyes burned with fury.
"You bastard! I'm going to kill you!"
Drenched in a cold sweat from the pain, the youth felt a surge of confidence at the sight of his father. "Yeah! Kill him! He's the one who hurt me today!"
In his mind, he had only lost earlier because he'd underestimated the opponent and been caught off guard by the man's strength.
But with his father's heavyweight physique, how could he possibly be overpowered by a well-built mixed-race kid?
The fat man let out a roar, grabbing a baseball bat from behind the door and swinging it violently toward Sephirot's head.
Sephirot's gaze turned cold. Channeled demonic power surged into his leg as he delivered a direct kick.
The man's massive frame was sent flying backward, smashing through the wall behind him and spider-webbing the wall of the adjacent room.
He was pinned into the masonry, coughing up mouthfuls of blood mixed with fragments of internal organs. It was clear he wouldn't survive. When the mother following behind the man witnessed this bloody scene, she let out a shriek and went stumbling down the stairs.
A moment later, a commotion drifted up from below.
The short-haired youth's mother, who had just fled, returned.
Trailing behind her was a large group of fierce-looking residents, completely blocking the doorway.
These brutes were all armed with weapons, carrying the posture of a mob seeking an explanation.
Sephirot's gaze swept over the aggressive crowd of men, and he quirked an eyebrow. "Are all of these your lovers?"
The insulting remark was like a sharp slap to the mother's face, making her chest heave with rage.
How did he know?!
Her secret exposed, the mother's shame turned into fury. She pointed at Sephirot, her voice shrill as she shrieked, "What nonsense are you talking about, you lunatic?! What grudge do you have against this boy? How could you be so cruel to him?!"
Sephirot ignored the woman's words. Instead, he walked over to the short-haired youth cowering in the corner of the bed and looked down at him.
"Why don't you tell them yourself?"
The youth looked up at Sephirot's slightly reddened eyes, his teeth chattering in terror.
Hunching his shoulders and trembling, he stuttered out the whole story, how he had provoked them on the street during the day, and how he had orchestrated the destruction of the sports car that night.
The mother didn't even stop to think after hearing this, retorting with self-righteous indignation, "It's just a damn car! He's only a child!"
"And even if he did cause some trouble, it sure as hell isn't your place as an outsider to teach him a lesson!"
*Crack!*
Sephirot brought his foot down twice, shattering both of the youth's kneecaps.
"AAAAAHHH!!"
The youth screamed in agony.
Sephirot flashed a faint smile at the crowd outside the door. "Don't worry, it's not like I'm going to kill him."
Seeing her son in such a miserable state was like a knife to the mother's heart.
Yet, intimidated by the brutality Sephirot had just displayed, she didn't dare take a single step into the room, despite the crowd standing behind her.
However, the men behind her, long accustomed to lording over this small town, couldn't stomach the humiliation of being looked down upon like this.
A burly brute roughly shoved the woman aside and stepped into the room.
He raised a baseball bat. "You think you're tough, bullying a ki–"
Before he could finish his sentence, the world suddenly spun for the man.
Sephirot hoisted him up with one hand and slammed him violently into the floor.
"Acting like a hero with so little strength?"
Seeing the man was still breathing, Sephirot followed up with a punch.
The blow punched clean through the floorboards. The man went completely silent, half his body sinking into the floor.
The once crowded and noisy hallway outside fell into a sudden, deathly silence.
The tough guys who had been shouting just a second ago now stood with frozen expressions.
This wasn't the kind of strength a normal human should possess.
Some were already quietly shuffling toward the stairs, attempting to slip away.
Sephirot stood straight and brushed the dust off his hands. His gaze drifted over the various expressions of the residents outside as he said flatly:
"It's fine. Anyone who steps into this room today, one by one, I'll make sure to give each of you a proper welcome gift." The moment the words left his lips, a wave of pure darkness centered on Sephirot surged outward, instantly swallowing the entire house.
The lights cut out, plunging the room into pitch black. Only two points of crimson moved rapidly through the dark, accompanied by the staccato rhythm of snapping bones and a chorus of agonizing screams.
When the darkness finally receded, the original silence returned to the house.
The once-aggressive crowd now lay sprawled in pools of blood.
The hallway and bedroom were carpeted with people; their limbs were twisted into impossible angles, some even braided together and tied into a cute little bow.
Sephirot hadn't killed anyone, that would be against the law.
He had simply disabled their limbs, even going so far as to include their "fifth limb" in the process.
Killing them would have been far too lenient.
Stripping away their mobility, forcing them to spend the rest of their lives confined to beds while enduring endless humiliation and pain, that was the greatest gift he could offer.
Over the next few hours, Sephirot moved like a ghost across the rooftops of the town.
He scouted every corner, paying a personal visit to each of the other thugs who had participated in the blockade earlier that day.
In the dead of night, screams erupted from one household after another, yet not a single soul dared to help.
These undisciplined brats, along with their parents, all had their limbs broken.
Since the parents had failed to properly raise their children, they could sit back and take responsibility for the consequences of those children's crimes.
It wasn't until the latter half of the night that Sephirot leisurely returned to the inn.
To his surprise, the Roses were still awake.
Wrapped in their coats, the couple sat on the lobby sofa, waiting for him with anxious expressions.
When she saw Sephirot push the door open, Rose hurried over to meet him. "Mr. Sephirot..."
She asked tentatively, "How... how did things turn out?"
Sephirot paused and pulled a thick stack of bills from his pocket, casually fanning them in his hand.
This was the cash he had scavenged from those homes, about several tens of thousands of US dollars.
"After some friendly negotiations, they gained a profound understanding of their mistakes and were more than willing to compensate me for my losses based on the depreciation value."
Sephirot tucked the money away and gave the couple a nod. "Get some rest."
With that, he headed upstairs, muttering to himself:
"A bunch of paupers. They looked like a formidable crowd, but the cockroaches in their houses are practically starving to death."
(Translated by yourtl.app)