The guy was still looking down at his daggers with a dumbfounded look on his face as I advanced towards him, rolling my shoulders as I winded my fist up in preparation to punch him.

Before I could do so, however, he suddenly raised up both his hands to stop me.

"Wait, wait, wait! I surrender, I surrender! I admit my mistakes! Just let me go!"

I paused.

That was certainly a surprise... I was fully expecting this guy to refuse to admit defeat and fight until the end...

I lowered my fist and raised an eyebrow at him, "You’re a spineless one, huh?"

"Hey! I’m just doing what I’m doing to survive here! You think running a gang is easy?! I have my own reputation to uphold! How am I going to face my men if I don’t take revenge for them, huh?!"

So basically... He’s saying that he also thinks this is dumb but he’s just doing it to show face huh?

Well... I guess I would feel bad for punching a guy like that... At least he apologised I suppose, so maybe we can just leave him--

I was in the midst of turning towards Ava when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye from that guy.

I spun back and lifted my arm, feeling something hit my arm with a loud snap.

The thug quickly dashed away from me, holding a broken knife in his hand that he seemed to have pulled out from somewhere.

Tsk... He was bullshitting the entire time huh? Can’t believe I fell for that...

I narrowed my eyes at him, "Really? And here I was ready to let you off."

He showed me the middle finger, "Hahahaha! Fuck you! You think I’m scared of you?! Come on out boys!"

There was a roar and a whole crowd appeared from the shadows to start surrounding us, numbering at least two or three dozen in total.

All of them were armed with various weapons ranging from metal pipes to switch blades and baseball bats.

Seriously?

I narrowed my eyes at the guy whom I presumed was the leader of this group.

"You really got so many people together just to deal with little old me? Were you really that scared of me or something?"

The thug pulled out another two more daggers to flip into the air to snatch them out of the air, giving me a smirk as he licked the flat of his blade like some psycho. Why do they like to lick the blades? Is there even any meaning to doing that?

"Heh heh heh~ You can complain all you want... But I’m not the only one who wants a piece of you, you know? We all want to cut you up for thinking you can even mess with us!"

I frowned at him, "You really are special huh..."

He smirked again, "Hey, I’m feeling generous here so I’m still going to give you a chance to get out of this with all your limbs intact. Just step aside and let us have our way with that girl of yours and you can go free."

I rolled up my sleeves, "In that case, I will offer the same deal to you and your gang. Anyone who turns around and walks away right now gets to go back home. Anyone else who stays gets a trip to the hospital."

"Ahahaha! This guy is crazy! Get him boys!!"

The fact that he still thinks he has a chance after trying to stab me twice only for his blades to break tells me everything I need to know.

Alright, I’m facing against humans, not Anomalies, so no need to fight to kill them here.

The crowd rushed towards me and instead of waiting for them to reach me, I leapt at them instead.

I needed to make sure they stayed away from Ava after all.

The first guy tried to swing his metal pipe at me and he seemed to have some kind of ability related to strength because I could hear the swing of the pipe more clearly than normal.

Too bad for him though, my strength was higher than his as I used my arm to block the blow, barely even feeling it before I hit him with a palm thrust.

The guy gasped as the air was forced out of his lungs and he flew back to crash into several of his comrades, bowling them over like bowling pins.

I ducked my head to avoid someone swinging what looked like a piece of bone at me, only for him to suddenly shoot a bone spike out from his arm towards me.

I made sure that Ava wasn’t behind me before I dodged it, the bone spike flying past me to bury itself into the arm of another thug that tried to attack me from behind.

He opened his mouth to scream but was cut short when I grabbed his head and swung him around to use him as a club to smash into that bone guy.

I spun around and slammed my shoulder into another thug that tried to swing his fist at me, the poor guy getting launched into the air and crashing into one of the buildings nearby before slumping down onto the ground.

More of them attempted to surround me so I grabbed the arm of a guy who overextended when trying to punch me.

I then swung him around and clubbed several of the other thugs with that guy’s legs, knocking them over.

Of course, I was careful not to use too much strength or his legs might have been torn off from me doing this.

My goal was to beat them up, not permanently break them... Though I guess this fight might actually end up traumatising them or something.

Well... I would say that’s a good thing if they end up turning over a new leaf after this.

One guy in particular tried to shoot a fire ball at me which I blocked with my arm.

He must have thought I would start burning but was dumbfounded when he saw his fire fizzle out after it hit me.

I responded in kind by picking up a loose rock on the floor and tossed it at him, smacking him on the head and knocking him out.

I peeked behind to check if Ava was alright, only to see her waving her hands around in the air with lights dancing along her fingers before they formed into a magic circle.

The thugs that were near her gaped at the magic circle, clearly not expecting her to be a mage.

The magic circle shattered and the thugs around us suddenly fell to the ground, all of them being pushed down by an invisible force.

The only one who managed to be unaffected was the leader who had suddenly dashed out of the encirclement at the last moment, his skill obviously being something related to speed.

He scowled at us, "So you really want to go against us, is that it? Do you even know who you’re fuc--"

Without waiting for him to finish his words, I rushed forward and grabbed him by the neck, the thug leader letting out a choked gasp when I did so.

Even in that position, he tried to stab at me with his dagger but I caught it with my other hand and snapped the blade off between my fingers before glaring at him.

"I can’t tell if you really thought you stood a chance or you’re just in denial..." I muttered at him, squeezing his neck to choke him.

I held that position for a while, making sure he knew that he could not break out of my hold and if I really wanted to kill him, he could do nothing about it.

When I was sure that he had realised that, I released my grip on him and allowed him to fall onto the ground.

He collapsed on his knees, his hands massaging his neck as he glared up at me, "You have no idea who you just fucked with! Do you even know who’s our boss?! He’ll kill you for sure now that you messed with us!!"

Well... Unless your boss is a Mortal God as well... I’m afraid he’s probably not going to do much to me either...

But of course, I wasn’t going to tell him that.

Instead, I went ahead to smash my elbow across the side of his face, knocking out a tooth and sending him sprawling onto the ground, unconscious.

I turned back to look at the other thugs who were still stuck to the ground thanks to Ava’s gravity spell.

"You guys still want to fight?"

Most of them quickly shook their heads, or at least attempted to do so while still trapped under Ava’s spell.

I nodded at the elf and she released the spell, allowing the thugs to leap to their feet.

I was fully prepared to continue fighting and break some bones if they tried to attack us but it seemed like that was unnecessary as they quickly grabbed their unconscious comrades including their leader and ran off.

I watched them disappear into the alleys before turning back to Ava, "Shall we?"

She giggled, "Let’s go back, my Divine~"

Can’t believe I expected today to just be a chill day...