With Sophia's memories as a guide, Ray slipped past the forest, finding themselves in the mountain tree area.
"You know, it's actually a good idea to have them inside," Ray mused. "With sentinel beasts in Plana, at least I can have them explore and find what's out there."
"What do you mean?" Sophia asked, confused.
"Well, I never had time to explore Plana as a whole," Ray explained and pointed at her. "As you saw in my memories, I hardly got inside since I came to this world. And thanks to our contract, the dimension just evolved and gained an additional huge expansion."
Since Ray got to this place, every time he entered Plana was just for some supplies or a live target for his inventions. With the lack of contact, he hardly knew what the dimension was capable of, except for its evolving capability and the high medicinal value of what was inside.
This evolution property is tightly linked to Ray: the stronger Ray gets, the more Plana expands. This is not only in pure strength but in other aspects, too—something Ray didn't bother to look for.
Thanks to the connection he had to it, he could sense it expanding at the moment. And what's more, now he could sense a time dilation, but sadly he couldn't change it, which was something new even to him.
"I see," Sophia surmised, catching on to his thinking. "So you will accept them inside, and as payment, they will have to take care of the dimension?"
"Yup, of course, they will have to keep fighting to a minimum, and other things," Ray clarified, stopping.
"Other things?" Sophia asked him with a raised eyebrow. "As in?"
"As in tending to specific plants and helping in some other things. Of course, I won't hit the bottom line they put," Ray stated frankly, as between the few beasts Sophia met and Ray saw in her memory, they had some rather rare abilities, and they could be put to good use later.
"Now, lead the way." After flowing through Sophia's memory to the edge of the mountain fortress, they found themselves in multiple valleys. Ray asked Sophia to lead the way from here in case they met some beast in front.
Sophia appeared beside him and was about to walk in front, but at that moment, she sensed Ray's aura changing like a flipping coin. Right now, he was looking in the opposite direction of the forest, frowning.
If Ray's aura before was like the setting sun's shine, now it was like pure flame ready to burn its way out.
"What's wrong?" Sophia asked, but received no reply. "Ray?" She called him again, but the person in question was somehow distant.
Seconds passed, and Ray's silver eyes sharpened before he declared in a calm voice, "Sophia, mind if we take a detour before we head in?"
Not waiting for an answer, his Lung Material Soul came alive, with two ink-colored rings floating from his legs. He sprinted toward the forest.
Confused as she was, she could sense the angry mood from Ray, so she followed without a word.
In mid-sprint, the first ring lit up, and crystal mist seeped out from Ray's breathing, covering him. By the time Sophia caught up, Ray's body was completely covered in the crystal-like mist.
This was Ray's first 'Fate Skill,' Crystal Mist Generation and Manipulation. It allows Ray to generate a unique, crystal-like mist in his lungs and breathe it out into the vicinity. With it, he can control it to attack, destroy, or control the enemy.
Thanks to the contract he had with Sophia, his Lung Material Soul evolved once more. First, it affected his lungs in the normal form, as now Ray's lungs had a passive purifying ability. Meaning, with every breath he took, he purified and compressed the energy, some absorbed into the body, some breathed out as pure energy gold mist.
On the other side, when the Material Soul is activated, the purification rate rises, and the mist generation rate advances, but the mist itself gains a crystal property, making it impossible to get absorbed or controlled by others except Ray.
The first ring skill actually boosts the mist generting process by using Ray's reserve of soul power, which will automatically refill in no time thanks to passive absorption. This made the skill a cheat like, as Ray will hardly get empty if he paces himself smartly.
"What's wrong, partner?" Sophia said softly, knowing that the current Ray's emotions were almost out of control. "That shift wasn't normal. Want to talk about it?"
Sigh "Sorry, I got a little out of control," Ray conceded, slowing a little and addressing Sophia. "Try to sense in front."
And as she did, a frown appeared on her face. What she caught in her precognitive sense was a couple of people being hunted by others. But what really made her frown was the feeling she got from the pursuers.
"Evil masters?" Murmuring, she looked at Ray with understanding. She already saw Ray's memory; she got the gist of his reaction. Especially since the hunted group was a family.
Sadly, it was completely unrelated to that. Ray's involuntary will now moved to erase anything evil he came close by, not from hatred, nor resentment, as the current Ray hardly scratched the surface of the real memory of the body past.
His reaction was coming from the almost-awakening bloodline. Thanks to the massive energy output he gained from fusing Sophia, and the pressure and spiritual torture he went through before the fox lady interface, he not only directly broke through and gained his second ring, but also tempered his body and spiritual sea to a condition almost ready to awaken his bloodline.
But sadly, this time Ray launched into action without checking himself first, and with the family in front, all his emotions were jumbled, preventing him from noticing anything.
Speeding up, they arrived just in time to witness one of the evil soul masters about to cut the back of the only man in the group.
Ray instinctively executed Flash Step, reinforcing his blade-hand and covering it with the concentrated crystal mist. The moment he reappeared, his punch was already on the man's head.
What happened next wasn't the man blowing away, but only his head did. By concentrating all the movement energy of the Flash Step into his punch, Ray severed the man's head. And surprisingly enough, the body knelt there with no blood out of the wound, as the light element in the mist sealed it up.
The scene froze everyone for a second, and that was more than enough for Ray to act again.
The mist around Ray's hand formed a blade shaped like a claw on the back of his hand. Not even a moment later, his second ring lit up, and the blade got Crystallized and gained a golden hue. ray Vanishing in untraceable movement, and reappeared in front of the weakest of the evil soul masters (judging by their aura).
With a quick swing, he cleaved his head. And the next second, he was next to another evil master.
But this one was swift enough to deflect Ray's swing, retreating a couple of meters with his partner. At the same time, three rings rose from under each of them, all yellow.
The first had a bag of some kind on his shoulder; the other had a black flag. And both Material Souls had one thing in common: they gave a disgusting feeling.
The moment they activated their Material Soul, Ray was overwhelmed by heartache. For Ray, their aura right now was dripping with so much resentment that it made his skin crawl at those men's mentality .
"Who are you? What do you want?" the bug man asked, trying to stall for time, hoping the rest of his group would appear soon.
As a matter of fact, the evil masters were chasing these people as they slipped from a village they were raiding. Not wanting to risk their yearly offering, they sent this squad to hunt the escapees, and to their bad luck, they met this mist monster in the middle of nowhere.
With two of their party down just from first contact, coupled with the two black rings hovering around him, the smart man decided to stall for time instead of direct confrontation, hoping their leader would notice something wrong noticing they activated their Material Soul.
"Hmm, why are you even asking?" Ray dismissed the question; the disdain clearly showed. "Evil soul masters are killed on sight, right?"
The flag Material Soul user raised an eyebrow at the young voice he heard. From how Ray made quick work of two of his people, he expected at least a man of old age and experience. But surprise, surprise, from the voice he was probably just a freaking teenager.
"Let's just kill this bastard," the flag Material Soul owner said with a snort. Pushed by anger, and the opponent's approximate age, his first and second rings lit up, and a howling ghost exited the flag, attacking Ray in direct confrontation.
Before his partner could stop him, the moment the ghost came in contact with the crystal mist, it let out a pained scream before catching on fire. With it, the man ordering the attack started to scream in a beast-like howling.
Seconds later, he crumpled to his knees, coughing blood, looking at Ray with a scared face. What just happened almost killed him. The moment his ghosts came in contact with the mist, he lost control over them and could feel them purified, which sent a spiritual shock back to him, almost shattering his Material Soul.
Additionally, he could feel his material soul screaming in fear from the person in front of him.
Caught in the action, they didn't notice Ray's second ring light up for a fraction of a second.
The second Fate Skill Ray got was actually simple yet OP in use alongside the first: Attribute Imbuing and Mist Crystallization. In simple words, this skill gives Ray the ability to infuse other elements into the mist (fire, water, light). The second part gives a solid form to the mist Ray generates.
To summarize it, the first ring gives Ray partly unlimited reserve of energy and perfect control over his naturally generated mist. The second gives him the ability to control its property and attribute, making the combination quite overpowered if used right.
"Is that all?" Ray challenged. "With how you sounded so confident, I was waiting for more, you know."
Ray exhaled a sigh, and his first ring lit up. With every breath he drew, the density of the crystal mist rose. The mist started to expand around Ray while falling on the ground. And in minutes, it covered a 100 meters or so in deameter, with the height reaching almost a meter.
"You know, I didn't intend to fight you at first, i was supose to take thoud fels and slep away" Ray confessed, looking carefully at the two men. And with every passing second, he sensed something in his mind pushing him to fight those two. "But now, I changed my mind."
The moment he spoke, the mist started to roll in the two men's direction. Seeing the flood, the alarms sounded in their mind.
The bug man summoned a horde of bugs in the form of protection around him, while the dark flag in the hand of the other man expanded, releasing dozens upon dozens of ghosts, forming a tangible barrier around him.
"It's useless," Ray scoffed. "You think something this weak will stop me?"
Ray's second ring lit up again. Simultaneously, the crystal mist gathered and compressed into multiple treads that started to change into chains, gaining a larger and larger diameter with a golden hue on it. Like a horde of pythons, they swiftly assailed the pair.
Every time they came in contact with anything the evil master threw, be it a ghost or a bug, the chains either destroyed them or they would burn in a golden flame.
Under the relentless, deathly swing and tangling of the chains, it took Ray just little over a minute to capture them. As the chain wrapped around the limbs and body of the two, they started to get burned up from the leftover holy flame element in the chain.
Ray clapped his hand, stopping the channeling of the flame into the chain, and just imprisoned them in place.
"So, how does it feel being on the inside of the chains for once?" Ray inquired, getting closer. The moment he got closer, he couldn't help but notice something on their foreheads: a weird black number formed by blood veins.
The bug man had '343', and the flag guy had '5541'.
Frowning for a second, he telepathically called Sophia, hoping she might have an idea.
"What? I thought you got it done already?" she asked in human form, right after appearing from her hiding spot.
The moment she appeared, she freaked out all the people in this place.
'Can you see the number on their forehead?' Ray asked mentally, not willing to share with the others. And after Sophia examined them carefully,
'No, I didn't see anything. Are you sure?' Sophia denied, shaking her head in refusal and trying to have him reconfirm.
'Yup, I can clearly see numbers formed from somehow darkened blood veins,' Ray confirmed before looking back at the capture. 'Yup, still there.'
"Okay, then Plan B." Getting closer to them, he found them glaring, and if eyes could kill, Ray would be $10$ times over by now.
Finding them funny, he reintegrated his flame in the crystal chain, and they started to howl and wiggle in pain again.
After seconds of bad cooking, he extinguished the flame and looked at their eyes again. This time it was full of fear.
"Good, now you understand your place," Ray stated, clapping his hand. "Let's have a small talk. First thing first, what are you doing here?"
The evil masters kept their silence, knowing for a fact that talking or not, they would have the same end—death—so why humor their captor?
"Oh, keeping silent, I see," Ray observed, his voice frozen in tone and emotion. "Piece of advice: start to talk before I start throwing hands."
"And honestly, after I finish with you," Ray whispered beside their ears, "what you do to your prisoner will look cute in comparison."
This sent a shiver down their spines, as Ray made it look like it wasn't his first time for him. But all that was not enough to push them to talk.
Sigh "You're lucky I don't like dirtying my hand, so I'll give you $3$ seconds to think it through," Ray announced with a hand on their shoulder. "Here, have a taste of what's waiting for you."
With that, he injected his soul energy directly into their body. With their energy sealed, coupled with Ray's energy type being a natural perfect counter to them, they felt like molten lava injected directly into their blood.
After a second, he released them and stepped back. "Now, what do you think?"