Michael was standing there in the middle of the road, looking at the tornado that was winding and twisting around across the distant highway. It was almost as if it was sentient and attempting to escape from him.

Talia smiled wryly, wondering “How do you intend to catch up to the sword? I am certain that it will not remain airborne forever, though it could potentially travel for thousands of miles, if we are unlucky…”

He snickered, reaching out with his right hand and saying “Obviously, I’m gonna ride this ridiculous thing and try not to get motion-sickness or crash and die.” A hot-pink motorcycle which seemed to be meant for street-racing appeared.

After sitting down, he kicked the stand and the entire machine almost fell over immediately. However, he quickly placed down his legs and supported the relatively ‘normal’ sized vehicle. The ethereal elf giggled, asking “Do you actually know how to ride that strange magical-device?”

The Nephilim sighed, complaining “Of course I don’t! But if a JJ can do it, I’m pretty sure that it should be relatively simple… right? Now how the hell do I turn this thing on?”

All of the gears and mechanisms were covered by a thick mithril carapace, which was painted pink and black. An exhaust pipe wasn’t necessary, since it ran completely on mana. There was a dark-red crystal in the shape of a heart at the center of the dashboard and right below that, was what ‘seemed’ like an ignition. It had no gauges or meters which he could understand, but it wasn’t difficult for him to guess that he probably needed a ‘key’ of some sort.

Talia felt her power gradually weakening, so she whispered “Miguel, make sure to call me out next time… For now though, I need to return to my ‘Soul Realm’ and concentrate on honing my Wind Manipulation prowess.”

Once the beautiful elf vanished, Michael sighed and shouted “Oi, JJ, wake the fuck up and tell me how to use this damn thing!”

“Nyah~, so~ noisey~! Meow?! My Nyan-Master 5000! Oh, lame, it’s outta mana… Put in a copper coin and it’ll go vroom-vroom~! I’m going nappy-times again~, bye-bye~…” Jasmine’s advice was helpful, but it just brought up another problem for the irritated Nephilim.

He murmured “Terfuckingriffic… Now how the hell do I get a ‘copper coin’ out of my inventory? Ugh, I’m gonna be super-pissed if I start vomiting change this time…” After putting the kick-stand back down, he leaned back and closed his eyes, focusing on entering the deepest recesses of his mind.

If he had been laying down, then he probably would have directly lost consciousness when his soul completely compressed itself inside of his own mana-core. It felt like he stepped into a pure-white, gargantuan, cubic space.

Michael smirked, walking forward and reaching down to grab one of the hundreds of miscellaneous copper coins. Once he had what he needed, he opened his eyes and came back to reality.

The piece of metal between his right thumb and index finger vibrated with an odd, yet familiar, sensation of extraordinary power. It radiated a decent amount of neutral mana, but the majority of it seemed to be condensed into the crystalline lattice within the mysterious material.

He placed the coin into the ‘slot’ and it ‘clicked’ into place; however, the copper swiftly began melting in the strange ‘key-hole’. Within moments, it was totally gone and the black slot was sealed shut.

Then, the crystalline heart began glowing bright-red and pulsating incessantly. When he placed his palms onto the rubbery grips, he noticed that there was no ‘gas’ or ‘breaks’, just the handles. There were no foot-pedals either, only places to rest his feet.

Kicking away the stand, he smirked, muttering “I fucking love overpowered magical technology…” When he squeezed slightly and channeled a tiny bit of his aura into the motorcycle, the engine revved-up and he felt as if the machine was a young puppy that wanted to go for its first run.

What he didn’t realize, was that he had accidentally shoved the soul of an actual dog inside of the mana-crystal core. The ‘mindless’ vehicle that would normally be totally controlled by the rider’s thoughts, had suddenly gained sentience.

That pulsating crystal caused the rims and many of the other mechanical components to begin glowing with a bright-pink radiance. Even the tail and headlights were reddish, though they were far brighter than the rest of the motorcycle.

Of course, by illuminating the road and emanating so much Chaotic mana, magical-beasts, demons and monsters from miles away were immediately able to sense the Nyan-Master 5000’s potent aura. It didn’t seem like a ferocious enemy, but a tasty treat that was completely defenseless.

As he heard the growls and roars in the eastern and western distance, Michael grumbled “Oh for fuck’s sake… From now on, I ain’t gonna play with any new weapons unless I’m indoors!” Without him even controlling it, the motorcycle’s wheels started spinning rapidly and the handlebars seemed to jerk his arms, adjusting the direction on their own. Rather than heading north, towards the raging storm, the vehicle wanted to turn around and go to Topeka.

However, he used all of his strength to keep it facing northward; as it went in circles a few times, he yelled “Goddamn it, you bastard! Stop dicking around and follow that shitty tornado!” A surge of potent Arcane aura penetrated into the crystalline heart, as the dog’s unruly soul was sucked into the Nephilim’s chest. Only then, was Michael able to fully control the motorcycle to start picking up speed.

Along the road, there were tons of potholes, cracks and occasionally, broken-down cars, trucks and even the carcasses of giant cows or sheep. It wasn’t too bad at first, but he noticed that past forty-miles per hour, he couldn’t even keep his eyes open anymore.

Fortunately, he remembered a certain piece of equipment from the videos. There was no recording of ‘Minari’ equipping his ‘Helmet of the Arcane Guardian’, but in practically every battle-scene, Sarah was always wearing her own head-gear.

At first, a shadowy veil appeared and covered Michael’s face, but it didn’t help much with the wind pressure. Thus, he needed to channel a bit more mana into it and cause it to transform into an obsidian ‘skull-mask’. In fact, it seemed as if his face had actually lost all of its flesh and was painted black.

The eye-holes allowed for faint crimson light to emanate from his irises, but the sockets were covered by a tinted, thick, and mostly transparent resin material. Not only could he see through it rather easily, it also offered a decent amount of protection to his entire face. He didn’t stop there and even utilized his girlfriend’s ‘Mantle of the Shadowy Temptress’.

His head was swiftly obscured by a pitch-black hood, which couldn’t be blown off by the wind, since it was ‘attached’ to the skull-mask. The cloak also covered his shoulders, neck and was whipping around a meter or so behind his back.

Everywhere he went, the rows of cornstalks along the sides of the road wilted and died. Any beast that had been chasing after him, or flying towards him, suddenly stopped and turned to flee in the opposite direction. The ‘stats’ may not have worked, but Sarah’s mask had a truly horrifying special ability, that she almost never had the opportunity to utilize: “Veil of the Shadowy Temptress: Increases Intelligence, Wisdom, Willpower and Defense Rating by six points. Releases an intoxicating aroma in veil-mode, and deadly level-ten necrotic-fever while in skull-mask mode. Soulbound to Sarah Carelia. Epic Quality, requires level-ten to wear.”

Riding around on that hot-pink motorcycle at ninety miles per hour, wearing a glowing white t-shirt and similarly bright pair of jeans, along with ‘Meow-Meow Brand’ sneakers, Michael seemed as if he was an extremely flamboyant grim reaper. Of course, he didn’t exactly have a scythe and his arms still appeared totally ‘human’, but he still gave off a decent amount of intimidation.

When he passed by a gas station, which was being used by a group of heavily armed bandits, everyone who had been guarding the perimeter suddenly started coughing up blood and their eyeballs putrefied. They weren’t able to scream, before their throats closed up and they became desiccated like mummies.

That was the difference between a ‘human’ with an average immune system and a level-ten pathogen. However, the worst part was that after they were definitely dead, they became mindless zombies and were somehow able to crawl towards their former comrades and spread the disease.

Just by casually riding down a relatively small highway, Michael was inadvertently causing death and destruction. Of course, he was moving so quickly that he didn’t notice the devastation he was leaving in his wake.