Please Call Me the Hundred-Handed Death God (Part 2)

Under the awestruck gazes of several hundred Murlocs and nearly a hundred Naga, Duke slowly walked up to the Naga leader, gently raised his right hand, and spoke in the clearest Murloc tongue: "As the price for offending me... accept the punishment of 'Hundred-Handed Rending'!"

The next second, nearly a hundred [Mage Hands] swarmed forward.

These Mage Hands, shaped like human palms, suddenly grew long, sharp nails, taking on the appearance of demonic claws. Every finger was a deadly iron hook!

The Naga leader's dark gray scales were forcibly gouged out piece by piece and tossed onto the beach.

His thick, taut skin, which ordinary human daggers could not pierce, was ripped away alive, exposing crimson muscles and tendons.

This was not the end. The torture continued.

Every piece of muscle and every tendon was torn off while he was still alive...

Listening to the Naga leader's unceasing screams, both the Murlocs and the Naga stopped fighting, watching this slaughter in terrified confusion.

Even Duke himself failed to notice how cold his expression was at that moment. It was as though he was not flaying alive a gigantic humanoid creature twice his height, but merely gutting a live fish.

Naga had tenacious vitality, and as a male leader, his physique was the strongest in the clan. Thus, he suffered even more.

He wailed for a full five minutes before finally dying.

During that time, the other Naga had already silently retreated toward the depths of the sea.

Only the hundreds of Murlocs remained, prostrating themselves near Duke in reverence.

Only when Duke came back to his senses did he suddenly realize that he had tortured this strongest Naga to death.

"Uh... I did this?" Even Duke was startled.

"Host, to be precise, you did it after entering Coldblooded Mode," the system sprite reminded Duke.

"Th-this is a side effect of losing my moral integrity?"

"When humanity declines to a certain degree, various mental conditions do indeed tend to arise. However, in that mode, your casting speed increased by 45%, and your spell power increased by 32%. If you encounter a powerful enemy in the future, I would advise you to forcibly enter that state."

"Are there any aftereffects?"

"None have been detected so far."

"All right! I'll consider it."

After the fight, Duke was a little hungry. His stomach let out an undignified growl. Then, almost miraculously, the Murloc leader named Fish Spear offered up his treasure at just the right moment—uh, a delicious live fish.

The system prompted:

"Murloc leader Fish Spear hopes you will consume [Fresh Silvergill Salmon] in public! Doing so will help increase the loyalty of these two Murloc tribes."

Duke felt a little awkward. If he remembered correctly, [Fresh Silvergill Salmon] was a specialty of Stranglethorn Vale. Well, Stranglethorn Vale was south of Westfall, so it was not strange for Fish Spear, as a Murloc leader, to have caught one.

Seeing the Murlocs' huge, pitiful eyes, Duke went along with it.

Salmon was salmon, after all. It was not his first time eating raw salmon, though it was a shame there was no soy sauce or mustard!

Huh! Wait! There was even mustard.

Not far from Duke, he saw a pile of weeds the Murlocs had gathered from somewhere. There was clearly wasabi among them. Once dried and ground into powder, wasabi became mustard, and it generally grew near rivers in mountain valleys and similar places.

Using the wasabi directly saved him the trouble of grinding it into powder. Duke took out his small knife and made do with eating it raw.

Duke did not know that this scene had been witnessed from afar by the Naga who had fled to the small river earlier.

Because they were so far away, all they could see was Duke gesturing over the bloody male Naga a few times, then starting to eat raw fish...

"Bleurgh!" A Naga threw up.

Devil! This human was absolutely a devil!

Not only was his magic incomparably powerful, he had calculated everything perfectly. Worse still, he was a terrifying being who dared to eat Naga flesh raw.

The leading Aivis was trembling all over.

"Ola ola!" Suddenly, Murloc cries rang out not far from Aivis.

Oh no! They had been discovered!

It was too late to silence anyone. The entire Murloc tribe was already in an uproar. Eager to curry favor with their new master Duke, the Murlocs grabbed their weapons and surrounded the Naga.

Unlike last time, there were no other targets to draw the Murlocs' attention away. Moreover, they had personally proven that the small river was a dead end.

Duke smiled. It was perfectly normal that this group of Naga could not escape. In all of Westfall, aside from the great river separating Elwynn Forest from Westfall, which could be called a true river, every waterway stretching toward the sea was merely a small stream. Not far from shore, they became narrow underground rivers.

Both Naga and Murlocs were aquatic creatures and could not venture too far from the coast. Beyond the small river lay the wastelands that covered Westfall, along with all sorts of monsters. Just moments ago, many Corpse-Ripper Birds and vultures had already begun circling in the sky.

It could be said that these Naga had charged straight into a dead end themselves.

"Naga Aivis, will you put down your weapons and come over, or shall I have the Murlocs carry your corpses over here?" Duke spoke in the human common tongue, but he knew the Naga would understand.

Naga descended from High Elves also had considerable talent for languages.

Aivis bit her lip fiercely. Circumstances were stronger than she was. In the end, she dropped the staff in her hand and allowed the traitorous Murlocs to swarm forward and carry off the weapons of her and her subordinates.

Most of the battered Naga remained dozens of paces away. Only Aivis was brought before Duke, who sat brazenly atop a boulder on the beach.

Daring not to look up at Duke on the boulder, Aivis glanced at the male Naga who had been torn apart alive nearby, then quickly withdrew her gaze as if startled. Her four crystalline, smooth arms crossed over her shoulders as she bowed.

"Honored powerful human, Vala Wrathscale Aivis offers you her respects."

"Oh? Wrathscale? Why would Wrathscale Naga from Bloodmyst Isle come to Westfall?" Duke had merely asked casually, but his question stirred a raging storm in Vala's heart.

Bloodmyst Isle was such a secret place that many human historians did not even know of it. Why did this human mage know?

In an instant, Vala had the terrifying illusion that Duke had seen through every one of her secrets.

"We... we are exiles."

"Heh, exiles."

Exiles were pitiful souls abandoned by their tribes, left to fend for themselves. Those who did well were like the High Elves of Quel'Thalas, establishing new lands and carving out a future. Those who did poorly were like Vala before him, hunted everywhere they went.

"May I ask your title, sir, and... how do you intend to deal with us?"

"Me?" Duke had originally wanted to answer directly, but then reconsidered. As a human—and an obscure little mage at that—having word spread that he had taken in a large number of nonhuman followers seemed inappropriate. So he casually made up a title: "I am 'Hogger, the Hundred-Handed Death God.' You may call me Lord Hogger."