Ray slid his thumb down the hilt of the knife at his belt.
If his belt even could be called that, his so-called belt was nothing more than a piece of rope. He had tied around his waist to keep his pants up.
RayReally expected the knife to be the same way, just a makeshift weapon made from the pieces of something else instead of being original, but somehow it wasn't.
As he raised The knife before him and examined it, he was surprised to realize it was of good quality, considering it's origins.
The Materials wasn't actually why he was interested in a weapon, it was just how sharp the blade was.
Even with his unnaturally strong skin, Ray had felt the knife could pierce, Through it if only the user of it was stronger.
"Considering just how strong my defense has become, that means this knife can threaten a second ring cultivator at least."
He was about to run his ether through the knife when he remembered, that he had never meditated to regain his ether after cleaning those nails.
As soon as he realize this, everything around him seem to become much more dangerous.
The beggar sitting against the wall, a couple feet away, went from under his notice, to a potential enemy.
The rats he saw a scrambling across the ground, went from just another disgusting part of this world, to something that could end him if he wasn't careful. Even the unconscious drunk woman crumpled against a cracked stone wall became a potential threat.
It wasn't that Ray feared everything, but he just recognize anything was possible in it's truest sense.
That mint no one was who strong is ever invincible. That mint no one who is weak was ever completely helpless.
That was one of the things you learned when you lived for as long as he did.
That nothing was finite, that anything could change at the flip of a hat, that nothing was truly stable.
Realizing how his thoughts were spiraling Ray frowned.
"Am I really reminiscing right now, damn I've been in those tunnels for too damn long."
Shaking off the gloomy thoughts, raise eyes narrowed as he caught sight of the Ironblood manor.
He waited until two guards moved past the wall that was right below his window, before he shot forward, hitting his top speed in three steps flat.
It's almost too easy at this point."
Ray thought as he reached the wall and in a single jump, cleared the entire wall.
Not bothering to lose momentum, Ray slammed both feet into the wall behind him, propelling himself forward.
The space between the manner and the 10 foot wall wasn't exactly large, only stretching 7 m at most.
So the jump caused him to be in front of his window in less than a second.
The brief moments where the wind was whistling in his ears caused Ray to grin, it reminded him Of the golden days.
The days where he was able to fly through the skies without a care in the world, because he knew width complete certainty that no matter what anomaly popped up on the world below him, no matter who stood in his way, he had the strength to deal with it.
"But I was wrong wasn't I."
Ray thought as a fight that was barely a fight at all flashed through his mind.
Seals of unreadable languages, chains made of a power he had never seen before, and 9 third fold children that could have never been his equal, even if they had 1000 years to prepare.
All these thoughts flash through raise mind as he flew through the air towards his window.
Those thoughts were quickly forgotten as his hands shout out to stop his flight, a second before he flew through said window.
Is momentum caused his elbows to bend slightly from the strame.
Once he felt that gravity was beginning to start acting on his body again, he quickly caught onto the windowsill with his left hand while maneuvering his fingers under the window with his right. Quickly, pulling the window open road across the floor with a grown.
"Move now!"
The screen of alarm from his two bonded swords, in his mind caused Ray to roll aside as fast as he could.
Quickly be saw why he had been told to move, where he had just been laying, the blade of a practice sword was impaled into the stone floor, but that wasn't what caught his eyes, it was the smoke curling off of said practicing weapon.
"So leaving the house and roaming the streets like a beggar are we?"
Hearing the voice Ray quickly shot to his feet, maneuvering the knife he had got from the pickpocket under the back of his tunic.
"Who who are you?"
Ray said, his voice trembling with fear.
The fear was entirely false, but he needed to say something to buy himself time, because.
"Third ring, whoever this is is in the third wring.'
Ray thought, his mind racing as he thought about what to do to get out of this predicament.
The man look like he had been imposing once, but no more.
He was just over 6 feet tall, with an eyepatch that look like it should've been replaced at least a decade ago over his right eye.
His right eye was adult brown, while he was dressed in patch covered, dark, brown pans, and rusty patched up Chain mail.
At his hip he wore a long sword that looked as if it had seen action once before, but not recently.
All of that would have been OK, it would have made him look like nothing more than a mercenary if it wasn't for two facts.
One, the third ring aura coming off of him , it wasn't even like he was trying hard to suppress it.
Also, the scars that covered the man from his forehead to his neck, the same scars also covered his arms.
The stripe black scars Gave him the look of a man who was a bit too obsessed with tigers.Or someone who had somehow simultaneously ran into thousands of diagonal slashes at once.
"That's none of your concern, all you need to know is you have been shaming the iron blood name, and you'll be punished for it."
Ray should have probably been scared. After hearing those words, he should have probably started begging for his life or something equally as pathetic. But all he felt was confusion.
Who had sent this man? If he was punishing him for something he had done, Ray had a single question, "which one?"
Ray had broken more than a few laws in the last 48 hours, so the question he wanted to ask was just to which crime was he being punished for?
Realize the guy was reaching for him, off reflex he began to start backing up.
Even with his newly gained ether, he stood no chance against a third ring, not yet anyway.
As soon as he thought of ether, he nearly cursed aloud.
"Dammit, I forgot to meditate before leaving the maze."
He had had the thought before, but it hadn't been much of a problem at the time.
Now that he had a third ring cultivator standing in front of him, it was very much an urgent matter.
Come with me willingly, and I'll make sure you're only in there for a week."
The man said, his lips curling in a grin that was probably supposed to be comforting, but only managed to be creepy.
While on raise Side of things, his confusion only grew.
He would make sure that he wasn't in where for long? Where was the man trying to take him? Also a week, being anywhere, but exactly where he was for a week would fuck up his plans so thoroughly that it would be impossible to fix them.
", No, I can't let him take me wherever the hell he's trying to go, I have too much hinging on Leon coming back tomorrow. His deaf is what will call the rest of them back to the manner like moths to a flame, and if I don't manage to kill him, then it will be a hell of a lot harder to find and kill the rest of this damn family.
Ray thought, as he began to back towards the window.
He didn't know exactly what he was going to do when he got there, but he would figure that out later.
"The woes of facing noble, always thinking they are the smartest motherfucker in the room."
With that is the only warning, the man appeared at Ray side, no, he didn't just appear, he had moved so quickly that even with Ray expecting it, he wasn't fast enough to dodge.
Ray wasn't even able to track the finger that pressed into the side of his neck, before everything went black.
"Now let's see, how to get him down to the Ironblood basement with as much humiliation as possible?"
The strange, scarred man, thought, a creepy smile, taking over his face as he remembered his Lord's orders.
"Make sure he's humiliated, no broken by the time I get there tomorrow."
"No worries master, he will be, I'll make sure of that personally."
Five minutes later.
A random maid was scrubbing, a vase the best she could, it had to be completely pristine for young master Leon's return tomorrow, no everything had to be.
She was just about to go and find another sponge to scrub the walls, when a commotion down the hall caught her attention.
"Is that him?"
"Yeah that looks like it"
"he's dress just like a bandit."
"What would you expect from a failure, for him to dress like he actually belongs here? At least he dresses like the disgrace he is."
"But does anyone know why he's being dragged?"
"Nope, but considering the person dragging him is young master Leon's personal attendant, it had to be something equally as disgraceful as his awakening."
"Equally as disgraceful, is that even possible?"
When the maid finally came up to wear a cluster of other maids are looking down the hallway, she froze, a mix of pride and distain, filling her as her eyes locked on what was happening.
Being dragged across the floor by the back of his tunic by a man all of them new to be Leon's personal attendant, someone who is even considered his right hand man was rating Ironblood.
"Not like he's even worthy of holding that surname."
TheMade thought and discussed as she saw the disgrace getting what he deserved.
His entire body was slack, as if he was asleep, and when Xavier, the name of Leon's right hand man, went around corners too fast his body slammed into the wall.
The site caused a few of the maids to let out snorts of laughter that they quickly hid behind hands.
The crowd of maids seem to only grow larger as Xavier continued his walk around the halls of the iron blood Manor.
"Does anyone know where he's going?"
"No we don't, but from how long he's been walking, it seems he's trying to drag him down every hall in the manner."
The maids didn't know just how right they were, Xavier was indeed trying to drag Ray down every hall in the iron blood Manor, to make sure that everyone who worked for the iron bloods new just how incompetent Ray truly was.
It wasn't like they already didn't know, but it wouldn't hurt anyone to remind them.
The Snickers turned into full-blown laughter as they realized Xavier didn't seem to mine.
The maids continue to throw biting comments at the youngest iron bloods limp body as Xavier walked by.
None of them dare to throw anything, because if they somehow missed and hit Xavier, they wouldn't even know how they died.
Meanwhile, on raise side of things, his eyes barely cracked open, and what he saw gave him one thought.
"What the fuck."
Ray POV.
I have been awake since almost the start.
It was due to the combination of me being in the first ring and the unnatural durability of my skin.
Yet I had kept my eyes closed to see if Xavier would somehow detect I had woken up.
Xavier, I remembered him now. In my last life he had gone on to become one of the greatest crime lords this world had ever seen after my brother's death.
He had risen to the seventh ring, before he offended someone he couldn't afford to offend.
But for now, he was just a third ring, yet even that was too much for me to deal with at the moment.
I resisted the urge to clench my fist at what was happening.
Pathetic, existences, mir maids were laughing, they were mocking me.
As if they were somehow worth the air, they breathed, as if they were somehow worthy of kissing, even the ground, I walked on.
I had always had difficulty being humble, even when the price of anything more was my life.
Yet now it was taking everything in me not to search to my feet and kill each, and every one of them with my bare hands.
Not like I would get far anyway.
Even if the sudden reveal of me being a cultivator would freeze Xavier for a second, a second was all it was.
After that he would send me into the land of dreams again, and this time with enough strength to actually keep me asleep until I got wherever the hell he was trying to take Me.
"Just look at him, he's so damn pathetic."
"I know right, at his age his brothers and sisters were already on the path of cultivation, yet he hasn't even been able to discover his soul space."
"And did you realize just how short he is, I think even Lily was taller than him when she was his age."
"It's like he was made to embody the very concept of failure."
With each insults, the distain and the rage in my slightly open eyes only grew.
Cultivation, who are they to talk of cultivation. Even after living for 15 years, if you consider the youngest of them or 60 years, if you consider the oldest of the maids, not a single fucking one of them had managed to even achieve the first ring.
Also, they wanted to insult my height, did it really matter how tall you were when your job description was literally to get on your knees and or bow for anyone with a certain surname?
Then they wanted to talk about failure, when you considered becoming the maid of someone as a badge of pride, could you really talk to anyone about failure?
It was almost impossible for me to pretend to be unconscious as the insults continued.
Each one of them were hypocrites of the worst kind, the ones that that somehow thought they saw the flaws of everyone, all while not seeing their own.
The kind of hypocrites that could insult you for having an issue, renting at you to somehow fix it, while having the same issue with themselves.
The kind of person that only looked at reality when it suits them, and when it didn't, well Binder save anyone who tried to convince them otherwise.
I hated those kind of hypocrites the most, and when said hypocrites were weaker than me, well, the discussed I was struggling to keep off my face was understandable.
Sensing that the walk was coming to an end, I focused back on what was happening.
Xavier was dragging me down the hall towards the kitchen.
I would've just thought he was going to humiliate me even more by dragging me around the kitchen, if he hadn't already done so once before during this walk.
"So whenever the hell he's taking me towards has to be in there."
I watched through my lashes as he dragged me past the ether powered stove, and the equally ether powered refrigerator, when he finally stopped walking, we were standing in front of a blank wall.
Using his free hand, Xavier poured ether into the air above his palm in a specific pattern before infusing it into the wall. Slowly, but surely a grinding sound began to come from the stones, the middle of the wall in front of hem.
In less than 30 seconds a square of stone was slid aside directly in front of me.
It was 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide, yet that isn't what made me stiffin.
Abandoning all pretense of being asleep, I left to my feet and drew the knife I had gotten from the pig pocket.
Lunging Xavier, I attempted to call on one of my two swords with my free hand.
I could feel that it was working, but it was taking a hell of a long time.
Meanwhile, Xavier caught the knife with two fingers, quickly masking his surprise at either the speed at which I tried to kill him, or the fact that I was awake, I didn't know.
Quickly, forcing ether into the blade I held Xavier caused the razor, sharp steel of the knife, to become similar to mud as it slumped off of the hillt.
In my panic, I had forgot that he had earth as his element.
I turned and raised for the kitchens entrance, but I knew I wouldn't make it.
The entrance was full of what had to be hundreds of maids that had come to watch the youngest, I am blood be humiliated, but I would cut them all if I had to.
Because I wasn't going in there, not ever, because when that opening formed in the wall, I saw nothing.
Nothing at all, there was no smell, no sound, and most importantly no light.
It look like a hole in the world, it looks like a place where shadows died, and darkness was born, it looked like the void.
Xavier caught up to me in less than half a second, his hand clamping down on the back of my tunic.
"It seems that the leach of the iron blood family actually has a bit of fight."
Xavier said, his voice full of amusement, but I wasn't listening.
I was trying to form the blade of one of my swords, but it wasn't working.
"Swords what is the meaning of this?"
I roared inwardly at the two swords that were now bonded to me.
"It requires ether to summon us, and you currently have none."
Once I heard that, all of the fight went out of me.
Seeing this, Xavier smirked.
"Good, at least you know when you're already."
His words were quickly cut off as my fist slammed into his nose with all of The strength I could muster, and that was by no means a small amount.
His head quickly snapped back from the force and the grip loosened on my shirt, wasting know time I freed myself from his grip before turning towards the kitchen entrance for the second time.
I knew he would only be dazed for a second, so I intended to use it well.
Racing towards the maids, filling the doorway, I cocked back in arm, if they didn't wanna move, I would just make them.
Seeming to realize what I was about to do, many of the maids, began to quickly scramble out of myWay but not fast enough.
I didn't have to look behind me to know Xavier was standing not an inch away, the pressure of a third ring cultivator made it impossible to draw a breath, he wasn't just not suppressing his or anymore, but projecting it outward even
"It seems I've been a bit too gentle. I will quickly fix that mistake."
Xavier's voice is was no longer full of amusement as the world blurred around me.
By the time I could comprehend the World around me, I was standing with my back to the opening and the wall with Xavier standing in front of me with his foot pulled back behind him.
my pupils constricted in fear as I realized what was about to happen.
The kick wasn't what I was scared of, it was the fact that if it landed, I would fall.
Moving as fast as I could, I tried to lean out out of the way, but even my fastest wasn't enough.
"No not another void, not again."
I thought, as I saw the blur that was Xavier's leg slam into my chest.
I felt like the world was moving in slow motion as my feet lifted from the ground, and I felt my ribs bend dangerously as I flew backwards through the air. The opening in the wall was the only point of light where I could see Xavier and maids all smearing and cackling as I fell.
Quickly, my fear turned into rage as I glared up at them all.
"I will kill you all, every single one of you."
I thought, my silver eyes blazing with theory as they locked on the dull Brown eye Xavier, his own eye seen to sparkle with a sadistic joy as I fell.
I couldn't hear him, but I watched as he mouthed the words.
"Goodbye, disgrace of The Ironblood family."