Third person POV.
The day Ray was thrown into the basement.
Brax was walking along an alley with his hands shoved into his pants pockets.
He was currently wearing his Royce illusion, causing everyone around him to regard him as nothing more than another unfortunate bastard who had found himself in the alley. His eyes were narrowed in concentration as he focused on what tremor sense was telling him.
He was currently following the Trail the strangely strong kid had when dragging the orc blooded man.
'I should have asked for his name."
Brax thought, a flicker of annoyance showing in his stone grey eyes before they calmed again.
"no problem, I can just ask him after I get done finding hem.'
Now I think about it this is actually to my benefit, if I save him, he will feel even more indebted to me. Overall making him an even more valuable pawn.'
A grin began to slowly grow on Brax face as he continued, thinking about his future after finding the orc blooded human.
He quickly dispel his thoughts.
He couldn't get ahead of himself.
This kid had to have some tricks of his sleeve to subdue someone as physically imposing as the orc blooded man.
No matter, even if he has cultivation or something enchanted that somehow works in the hands of a immortal. What does it mean against a nearly peak second ring cultivator?"
Stepping over a snoring drunk man displayed across the alley in front of him, Brax could feel the trail of vibrations, coming to a strange end somewhere around 30 m to the left.
"It's time to play the hero."
Brax thought, adjusting the clothes of his illusion to make them look a bit more presentable.
"I have to look a little imposing, this is what he will remember for the rest of his life. He's benefactor coming to save him."
Then, having a better thought, Brax decided on a new plan. He would still save the orc blood, but in the process he would drop his illusion.
Showing that he was risking everything to save his life.
"Yes, that should work.'
Brax thought, his eyes narrowing as he turned a corner and began to close in on the place where the vibrations stopped.
When he finally arrived at where the vibrations were taking place yesterday, He was surprised at what he found.
"He dragged him, here?"
Brax confusion could be understood because currently in front of Bracks, a rundown warehouse sat.
Actually warehouse is a bit too generous.
It looks like if a spray breeze hit it at the right angle, the entire damn thing will collapse like a house of cards.
" Just what was the kid trying to achieve? I could collapse this damn place with a sword/, no ether included."
The site of the rundown warehouse only increased his confidence.
But still, he hunched the shoulder of his illusion, bringing it to the middle of the warehouse door before backing up.
'OK, this has to look as difficult as possible."
Then, moving forward at what have to be the slowest run in human history, his shoulder impact at the door.
When Brax shoulder impacted the door, he realized two things immediately.
One, the building was completely empty.
And two, the floor was strange as hell.
As he stepped in without the stagger he had been planning to do, Brax looked around the warehouse.
The walls were worn, the wood near to breaking in some places, but there were no holes in the walls nor the ceiling.
yet, that wasn't what his eyes were focusing on, it was the floor under his feet.
The floor seemed to be made of wire somehow woven together like cloth. His expression became serious.
"This is much more important than I thought no one under the third ring should be able to make something like this.
Luckily, from what I'm sensing, whoever this is is not here now."
Brax said, before drawing a his sword and overloading it with vibration ether.
The edges of the sword seemed to become a blur, as he poured nearly 10% of the second ring into the blade. Then, focusing his eyes on a single point on the floor, he slashed down.
Everything went wrong at once. First the blade impacted the floor, the vibration ether is in a sword caused the metal in the floor to vibrate as well.
This would normally be considered a good thing, but as soon as the vibrations entered the middle of the floor, they left his control.
The force of the vibrations caused even his teeth to rattle.
Also, the Royce illusion shattered like glass around him, the light ether, disappearing in modes of what it looked like gold dust.
Staggering backwards, Brax let the sword in his hand to clatter to the ground as he clutched his head.
He was contemplating how the fuck has this even happened while trying to fix his footing.
So he almost didn't notice the beam of Scarlet until it was too late.
Right where he had tried to cut the floors, a beam of blood element ether shot towards him.
This should have went directly through the ceiling, at least if the beam was going directly upwards.
Yet it was somehow an angle that if it was to hit Brax dead on, it would sever his body down the middle.
As soon as something in him realized there was danger, he reacted of pure instinct.
Both of the circles worked in tandem as they poured ether into his body.
The influx of ether reinforced his bones, muscles, and skin, making him just fast enough to jump out of the way.
Yet, not without leaving something behind, looking down at the Floor of the warehouse after hearing A thumb, Brax already knew what he would find.
He already knew, yet he couldn't stop the screen of horror as he saw his left arm below the shoulder bleeding on the floor.
He stayed calm for exactly three seconds, before screaming at the top of his lungs.
Normally, Bratz wasn't a screamer, but normally Brax didn't lose limbs.
With the bodily functions of a second ring, that was quite loud.
Everyone within the 300 mile radius turned in his direction.
Wow, most of them just brushed it off as nothing, others began to make their way over.
Beggars that considered themselves heroes, other others that were just scavengers looking for anything to salvage, or Those who consider themselves masters of manipulation, and intended to pick the bones of whoever was left after everyone was done fighting. No, meanwhile, Brax had gotten himself under control.
After Screaming four somewhere around three minutes, he had grabbed his sword and quickly began to escape from the area.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid stupid. I'm so fucking stupid. Why elseWould a child be able to take a grown ass man, just stupid."
Brax thought in self ridicule as he slipped through the people moving towards his previous position, and made his way towards the outside of the city.
There was no way he could complete this task, it had been difficult before, but with only one arm, it would be impossible.
His job had been to somehow convinced the fourth ring patriarch of the iron blood clan to join the Imperial.
Without considering the fact that the iron blood leader wasn't in the city, it would have already been difficult to convince A fourth ring of their power by sending a mirror second ring two ask him.
Even from Brack's perspective, it seemed like they weren't valuing him enough, especially if they wanted him as an ally.
Yet Brax wasn't in the right situation to judge what the Imperial decided.
Actually, he wasn't exactly in a situation to judge anything at the moment.
Finally making his way to the edge of Baradon Brax quickly, jumped the 20 foot wooden wall surrounding the city, before racing into the woods.
He didn't know exactly what he would do there, but it was better than staying close to the Ironblood manner.
While Intel had told him that none of the family members were in attendance, you could never be too careful.
Realizing he was out of immediate danger, Brax quickly used his light ether to seal the wound at the base of his shoulder closed.
Or at least he tried, as soon as the lights grew hot enough to cauterize the wound, it just opened again.
Win nearly 30% of his entire ether had been spent on trying to close, The damn wound he just decided it was a lost cause.
That along with the ether he had used to infuse his body to help him dodge that ray of blood, depleted his reservoir in fact it was running dangerously close to empty.
He had just barely over 20% of his entire ether left.
, Coming to a single conclusion Brax quickly, began to look for monsters to hunt.
Thinking back to what had started all of these problems. His eyes burned with a rage.
" The mystery, the variable, the problem none of us expected, the child."
Because it had to be, it had to be that child that had killed Chuck.
It would all make sense, if he couldn't have dodged a ray of blood that damn lethal, how could chuck a mir first ring cultivator do any better?
"Yes, it all makes sense now, yet what gave him or her the strength to throw that kind of ether around?"
Brax confusion was expected, from what he had observed, the ether infused into that beam had been at least of the third ring.
"Or maybe even of the seventh."
Brax thought, glaring at the wound in his shoulder that was already somehow, seeming to reverse the cauterizing had just done of it.
The only thing that he knew that could do something like this, was a singularity.
A singularity was something a Cultivator needed to reach the seventh ring.
A singularity was a concept of an element that the user knew so well that it was engraved into their very being.
Singularities seem to exist alongside instead of within the world around them, they seem to exist apart from the things around them.
Almost as if the rules of Austria didn't apply to them. And when it came to some of the stronger singularities, that was completely true.
Yet Brax really hoped that wasn't what he was hit with, because if it was.
"I truly won't stop bleeding until I'm drained dry."
Brax thought to himself, his face turning pale as he thought about falling over somewhere in this forest and never getting back up.
Never mind yet it couldn't have been a singularity, it was just not possible.
Even the leader of the Ironblood clan was only in the Fourth ring.
"But who said it was the iron blood patriarch?"
A voice in his head seemed to whisper.
"What if it was just one of the elders."
So suspicions came together in his mind, painting, a picture that was entirely wrong, but at the moment looked entirely right to Brax.
"That kid isn't the one with the power, it's the elder that's backing him. How did I not think of this before? There's no way a kid could somehow use a singularity, so it had to be so much stronger, someone older, maybe even the grand ancestor of the iron blood family."
There hadn't been any news of a grand ancestor in iron blood family, and the information he had received, but by this point brax didn't even go off the information of those notes anymore.
After all, they also didn't mention a kidnapping child running around Baradon now do they?
Thinking about the information he had just put together, Brax gave a shaky grin, the blood loss was slowly giving to him, causing his steps to become unbalanced and his hand holding the sword to shake.
I must tell that. What I found out, I must informed them. We were wrong, the Ironblood patriarch isn't the only high-level cultivator in the iron blood family."
Then looking around at the forest, he was currently standing in, Brax side.
"But before then, I need to kill enough beast to survive this."
Eventually Beast were attracted by the smell of second ring, cultivator blood.
It didn't happen all at once, at first it was just a stray dog with barely enough ether running throughout its frame to even be called a monster.
Then, A rat just a bit too big to be called normal, then a cat with clause 2 sharp to be called anything but unnatural, but as time went on the animals surrounding him only grew. When he thought there was a bit over a dozen animals, he quickly attack.
Not because he had any particular plan, because if he didn't gain some ether in the next five minutes, he would pass out from blood loss.
Even in his weak state, his blade whistled through the air splitting animals in half with ease.
Feeling the windswish behind him he quickly pivoted, slashing a black cat that was nearly the size of a female lion from its lower half.
Then, toasting began to spin his sword like a fan as he turned his body in a circle, killing nearly 5 beast almost simultaneously as they jump towards him.
The ether wasn't much, but it would tied him over. It would let him survive another day.
"Until I can find him, until I can kill the fucker who shattered all of my plans. Until I can inform the imperial about the information I have, until I can prevent more of our forces from underestimating what we didn't understand. Until then I will live, I will fight, and I will kill, but when I'm done, I will make this kingdom bleed for thinking they could stand up to the glory of the Imperial."
Then, with a smile that could only be called insane, Brax launched forward.
He fight beast for hours on end, yet throughout it all he continuously seared the wound at his shoulder closed, preventing the feet of turning into a bloodless, Raisin that he knew would come if he stopped healing it.
He had just cut a common rank one bowl in half, his blade splitting its skull, it's spine, and every bone in between with the ease only a cultivator could have.
When he realized no further beast were coming towards him. Not wasting this moment of reprieve, he forced a stronger burst of light ether than usual to burn the wound at his shoulder closed.
"There, that should hold for the most part while I take a quick rest."
Brax thought, as he tried to sit at the base of a tree, but the blood slicking both him and the tree caused him to slip before his head impacted the trunk, yet he seemed to not even feel it as his eyes closed and he fell asleep.