In the barren lands around the outskirts of one of the Great Western Empire's border cities, the 'Strongest Human' Rathal and the 'Tenth Finger' of the demonic hand stood opposite each other in silence.
"You know, you guys' plans wouldn't have drawn much of my attention and I may have not decided to follow you up."
The man's voice rang out, breaking the silence and startling the tenth finger whose hand was slowly inching closer to the spare magic pouch at the back of her dress.
"But your presence here, changed the whole game plan.
It meant that whatever you were planning, it was important enough for one of your organization's executives to personally oversee it."
He turned his golden eyes towards the elven woman as he dropped the magic pouch in his hands back on the floor.
"And now that I found out about it, I actually.... don't care."
"Huh?"
[What?]
The tenth finger and her contracted demon could not help but let out voices of surprise upon hearing Rathal's words.
The man, however, continued speaking as if her surprise didn't really matter to him.
"Truth be told, this doesn't seem like something that would affect the dimensional rift on the dark continent. Though it still bugs me as to why you'd do it though but that's something for later, I'm kinda pressed for time now.
So I'm considering letting you go with your life."
"..."
[...]
Although he said that, the tenth Finger obviously didn't buy his bullshit, as she knew from the First Finger that Rathal was a man who liked to talk a lot of 'nonsense'.
She closely watched his every movement as he took slow steps down the hill of corpses. One of the mangled hands from the pile ended up getting tangled with his loosened shoelace and turned his gaze down momentarily.
The instant he did that, the tenth finger shattered the teleportation stone in her left hand as space-attributed magic power poured out of it.
However-
**BOOMM!!!
-there was a loud sonic boom and the tenth finger dropped to her knees as she held what was left of her left arm with her right.
Blood poured onto the ground in large volumes as she grit her teeth to bear with the pain. Looking up, she could see one of Rathal's fingertips sticking out, allowing her to instantly understand what just happened.
'He flicked his finger?'
Indeed, that was the case.
A simple supersonic speed finger flick from Rathal generated enough pressure to release a shockwave capable of tearing out her left arm from the elbow downwards.
Showing his precise control over his strength, the only part of her body that was harmed, was her left arm.
However, it wasn't like her arm was destroyed. He had simply cut it off from the rest of her body and let the cut-off arm teleport away.
"Did you just try to walk out on me?
Well, you tried to teleport but it was petty much the same thing.
Didn't your parents teach you to listen to people when they're talking? Or do elves have different standards than humans?"
Rathal shook his head after he spoke, before picking up a coin that was on the ground and continuing his words.
"So, as I was saying, I was considering letting you live. So, I'm gonna bet your life, on this coin toss.
Heads, you live.
Tails, I kill Ya.
Easy, right?"
He spoke with a small smile on his face; however, his eyes definitely weren't smiling and the tenth finger could feel it. If Rathal didn't care too much about her before, then right now he was definitely pissed.
The golden-eyed man tossed the coin up in the air while the tenth finger began revoking her earlier curses and begging her ancestors for tall the luck they didn't use up in their lifetimes.
Sadly, even if her ancestors did send the luck, it wasn't fast enough.
The coin landed on the floor and the two of them saw it spin around vertically, before falling on one side.
And the side that faced the sky, was the tail side of the coin.
Seeing this, the tenth finger heaved a small sigh as she cursed out loud.
"Ah Shit. Fuck y'all after all."
The next second, Rathal was suddenly standing right in front of her with his hand raised towards her forehead.
**BOOOMM!!
A loud mushroom cloud of dust and dirt rose up into the sky, clearing up after a few minutes to reveal a crater that ran almost a hundred metres deep and was twice as wide as that.
He rose his index finger and blew on it, before pulling out a handkerchief to clean off the blood that was on it.
On the floor around him, there was so much blood splashed around that it was hard to believe it all came from one single elf.
"That was a lot less interesting than I thought."
Those were the words he had as he incinerated the handkerchief in his hands and jumped out of the crater before walking away.
And just like that, the 'Strongest Human' Rathal, completely crushed one of the Demonic Hand's plans for another disaster. While it would not have been up to the level of the 'Seven Deadly Sins Massacre', it was still something that would have cost the lives of millions of people.
However, through a series of coincidences, it had somehow been nipped in the bud.
Rathal hadn't even taken ten steps away from the crater when he suddenly felt the presence of someone behind him.
It was as if the person had just phased into existence behind him, there were zero signs of the person's appearance, not even a spatial ripple to tell him that teleportation had taken place.
His blood turned cold as he instantly turned around and roused his magic power while assuming a battle-ready stance.
He activated the unique skill he had just used to 'end' the tenth finger and a few other skills at once as he gazed at the woman who had suddenly appeared behind him.