As soon as Ray realized he couldn't get out of this predicament without awakening he close his eyes and began to enter his soul space.
The next time he opened his eyes, he was no longer in the physical world, but his soul space.
Even with his dire circumstances, Ray couldn't stop himself from freezing in place when his eyes locked on the walls of his soul space. Normally the soul space of a normal human before turning into a cultivator was, supposed to be flawless white, and only be wide enough for said mortal to spread their arms in either direction.
But raise soul was a bit different. Instead of his soul being the flawless white, it should've been. It was black. Also, instead of being just wide enough for him to spread his arms, it was nearly 30 feet and radius.
Ray should have been happy after seeing the color of his soul.
The soul only became fully black after transcending the nine rings round.
But "it's the same. It's the exact same."
Ray said to himself, his eyes locked on the void black walls of his soul.
Raise soul was the exact immeasurably infinite shade of black as the void.
it should have been no problem.
He should have been able to look at the color of his soul and have a good laugh at his own expense.
Maybe say something like "fate is a bitch. Isn't she??" Before casually breaking through with no issue.
But he wasn't. While he had been in the void, there had been no problem.
He had treated his fall into the endless expanse as nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
The only part of the whole thing that had aroused any significant emotion at all was the fact that he had somehow let the nine little bastards that consider themselves emperors get the drop on him.
It had made him royally pissed to say the least. But that was it.
At the start at least.
Yet now he thought back to it, he realized just how terrible it was in the void.
Years withoutend without anyone to talk to.
Without anyone by his side.
Years without end, sustaining himself on nothing more than the constant streams of ether that came from defeating the other beings trapped in the void alongside him.
Years without end, fighting with no sleep, with no rest bit at all.
Years without end, with nothing more than his ether to remind him, light was a Real thing that had once truly existed, and not just a figment of his imagination.
Years without end, fighting with his life dangling by a thread.
Slowly, these years turned into decades.
That eventually became centuries, and then Rolled into millennia after millennia, passed him by.
The cycle of growing stronger, and somehow being attacked by enemies, even stronger Then him continued.Until eventually it changed. The creatures in the void no longer saw him as pray.
The beings in the void no longer went out of their way to kill him.
untileventually the creatures in the void didn't dare approach at all, unless they were either powerful enough to face the consequences or stupid enough to not care about their life.
Few were strong enough to pay the price of such foolish actions.
Yet yet through it all he was alone.
The feeling was nothing new to Raiden iron blood.
A man whose first kiss was stolen by a blade, and who only felt anything close to what he thought was contentment was when he was drenched in A smell of iron thick enough to suffocate from the blood of his enemies.
Yet the isolation seemed even more jarring in the void.
Ray snapped back to the present as he felt his soul space shutter.
"Shit I don't have much time. I need to make this quick."
Ray said, racing towards a almost solid cloud, of grey mist swirling in the middle of his soul.
The missed was gathered in a ball nearly 6 feet in diameter, And even more was slithering into his soul.
slipping through the walls, as if they didn't Even exist even as he watched.
"I didn't think I would gain this much king guy just from killing a measly first ring."
Ray said, his brows furrowing.
Ray quickly shook the thought off.
He didn't have time to dwell on that now.
He ran into the ball of mist. Or he tried to run, as soon as he impacted the missed, his momentum slowed drastically.
"Dammit I don't have time for this Shit."
Ray snapped as he tried to move even a little faster, but it was no use.
Eventually what felt like hours later he made it to the middle of the or.
Dropping into a meditation stance. He began to move the king guy around him.
Actually move was a gross over exaggeration. The missed seemed to treat him as if he wasn't there. There were two very simple and very annoying reasons for why this was.
One of those reasons were because the king guy hadn't been in his soul, long enough, and another one of those reasons were that even if the king guy had been in his soul for years. It would have still taken hundreds of attempts to even nudge the king guy in the slightest.
He had to calmly meditate on the energy, he had to observe the energy, he had to understand the energy.
Three things he had neither the time or the patient to do at the moment.
"The shaking is getting worse."
Ray thought as he felt the ground of his soul space beginning to rattle violently.
"If I don't get this done soon fuck not having understanding of the king guy in my soul. I won't have a soul at all."
Ray thought, his teeth, somehow grinding, even in the soul space with frustration.
"But unless there's a way to refine king guy, I don't know of this shit is."
Raise words slowly, trailed off, as he remembered a technique someone had told him about before he had been trapped in the void.
It was risky, borderline suicidal, but Ray didn't have many other options.
Ray could only pray his soul was strong enough to withstand the damage , without shattering completely.
Slowly calming himself, Ray began to think back to the man's words.
He had to remember them exactly, any fuck ups could be fatal, and he didn't intend to die in an alley.
"OK so let's think back. We were in a bar."
Ray said, his browse scrunching together in concentration as he tried to recall the memory.
Slowly, much more slowly than Ray would have liked the memory came back to him. Until he remembered it almost like it was yesterday.
– Flashback 1500 years before imprisonment.
Ray leaned back in the rickety chair that seem to be held up more from sheer stubbornness than anything else. Across from him, set a man that resembled a raisin.
He had skin like leather and nearly the same color as well, with a beard that stretched nearly to his chest. But with his vertically challenged stature, it wasn't much of a accomplishment.
But it wasn't the man himself that had brought Ray over to his table. It was his ether signature.
"First fold at least."
Ray's eyes which had been full of drunken joy, flashed with a sharp light.
"The question is. How the fuck did he get there? I was sure that he had reached his limit in potential at the peak of the third weave."
That the coldness in his eyes being concealed before anyone could notice it.
On the other side, the old man was boasting about killing a nine headed hydra in his prime.
A story Ray was sure was more false than even his own False identity.
"I'm telling you I was all like swish, And the hydra was all like splat. He stood no chance he didn't even see me coming."
The old man said, swinging his hands through the air in gestures that made absolutely no sense to Ray."You didn't even see you coming."
Ray thought a flash of distain coming into his eyes before it faded.
"You just thought something rude."
The old man suddenly said, his milky, white eyes narrowing in raise general direction.
Ray blinked But quickly recovered his drunken smile.
""nonsense oh immortal master."
Ray said his face full of adoration.
Even as he thought something much different.
"Where the fuck am I pulling these lines from my ass."
Deciding he was done wasting time , He had already been at the table for nearly an hour, and if he had to say anything more flattery.
He just might throw up he got to the point.
"Oh great master would you mind telling me how you reached such a high amount of power?"
Hearing his words, the old man took on a serious expression. He straightened his back, not that it made him any taller, and clasped his hands in front of his chest.
"I normally don't give out my divine secrets so readily boy. But I suppose I can make an exception."
The old man said, his body swaying from the amount of essence breath, he had drunken already.
"Raise aura threaten to flatten the entire city when the old man addressed him as boy.
But he managed to calm himself before any disasters occurred.
"I can't be as careless as I once was. Those little bastards are growing stronger by the day, and eventually they might be able to pose even me a challenge."
Ray thought, forgetting about his entire reason for being there for a second.
The old man's next words snapped him back into the present.
"It wasn't easy in the slightest. I had to shatter my own spirit to do it."
The old man said his voice solemn.
Ray subconsciously frowned at the man's words.
"What the fuck is a spirit? Is it another name for a soul, and if that is so how the fuck does shattering it somehow help you?"
Ray thought, his confusion turning into annoyance.
This was a waste of time, he had delayed his advancement into the fifth fold for this.
Raise anger caused a bit of his aura to leak outwards.
His long bronze hair, that had been draped across the back of his chair, rose above his head, almost as if he was floating in water.
His silver eyes, that had looked like a simple gray before. Began to glow with an ominous light.
On the other side of the table, the old man who had been about to start up another terrible And equally unbelievable story froze.
His power which he had thought significant before he realized was nothing.
"I tried this peace thing people kept saying I needed to, and I realized it's just fucking useless."
Ray said, as he stood from his chair, the table and everything around him beginning to disintegrate under the pressure.
"I would have had the information I came here for nearly A fucking hour ago. If I just tortured you like I first thought I should."
With each one of his words, Ray stepped towards the old man who had started shaking at some point.
"Now I'm pissed off with no answers, and someone has to take responsibility for my rage. Wouldn't you say oh immortal master."
Raise words almost dripped with sarcasm. The old man only managed a single question.
"Who who are you?"
Ray pulled his lips back in a terrifying imitation of a smile as he heard the old man's question.
"Oh no one that is important. Just a passing tyrant."
Then with no warning, his right hand flashed through the air , and him along with the old man And the entire bar suddenly disappeared from V city. five hours later.…
"Stop please I'll tell you, I'll tell you anything you want to know just stop!"
The old man's screams rang throughout a hall, decorated in metallic shades.
The steel silver tiles were now stained with blood, and even the bronze filling around them seem to make rivers of the stuff as well.
On a throne that looked to be made of hundreds of different medals from hundreds of different weapons.
A bronze haired man side.
"Who would've believed such an old geezer had a pair of lungs?"
Ray said his silver eyes observing the old man bound in the air in front of him with growing dis interest.
He was bound from head to heel in what at first glance looked like normal silver ropes.
But anyone looking close enough would realize said ropes were as thin as a hair and each rope had a hook connected to it that was lodged in the old man's flesh.
While Ray just sat back in his throne, controlling the hunters of threads with no issue.
Finally deciding he had had enough fun, he quickly ripped all of the hooks from the old man at once.
With a scream that was somehow more horrific than the ones before the old man dropped to the ground.
"Now are you ready to tell me just how you reached the first fold? I don't actually give a fuck anymore, but you can tell me anyway."
Ray said, leaning his cheek on a fist.
"I already told you. I used my spirit to" hearing
the man's words, his eyes narrowed as the sound of what seemed to be blades sharpening began to grow louder.
"And I've asked you 1 million fucking times. What the fuck is a spirit? You don't seem to be taking me seriously."
Ray said, as he stood from his throne, pudding one hand out to the side, a silver sword, barely 30 cm long appeared in his hand.
The blade itself didn't seem to give off any power, and if it wasn't for the one holding it, the old man would have let his eyes pass over the weapon without even noticing it was there.
"I promise you won't have that problem when I'm done with you."
Ray said, a smile that seemed almost gentle appeared on his face.
The old man tried to run, he truly did, but the pressure alone force him to stay on the ground.
Ray didn't move quickly, if anything, he was moving slow even for A immortal standards.
He stepped down the five stairs in front of his throne before approaching the old man.
"Would you believe me if I told you I was once a bit of a scientist?"
Ray said a slight smile on his face.
With each step he took, he leisurely swung the silver sword through the air.
"back in the first war Of the collapse. I ran a couple of… Experiments you could say. I learned many things from them. But I've never had a cultivator in the fold realm as one of my experiments. I wonder just what I could learn from you?"
There was no great fight, the old man didn't suddenly gain a burst of energy or suddenly have people that would come and save him.
When Ray finally got with him 3 feet of the old man, he pushed his sword point first towards the old man.
It wasn't a sword style or a particularly aggressive move.
Yet the result was horrifying.
The body of a first fold cultivator, no matter how weak was impossibly more sturdy than a ninth ring cultivator.
Yet the sword pierced through the old man's chest with such ease that anyone watching would think the old man was an illusion.
Yet the blood flowing down his tattered robes told the old man this was actually happening.
If the death was quick, it would've been merciful, but Raiden Ironblood was never known for mercy.
The sword stabbed was slow, no slow was an understatement.
It seemed to barely be moving at all.
But when the old man's life finally drained away, Ray pulled his blade back.
Then with the same casualness of someone tossing a rock, he threw the silver sword to the side Where it promptly disappeared mid air.
His face twisted in discussed at what came next.
"I wouldn't have had to do any of this Shit if that fucking old man just explained correctly."
Ray grumbled as his ether searched.
The palace that had been reinforced countless times to withstand his peak for fold mite shook, the iron black pillars, shaking as if they were on the verge of falling.
Suddenly all of the blood from the old man was gathered before him.
Flexing his fingers he pulled all of the ether from the blood.
When he was finally done, the blood had become nothing more than Crimson ashes and invisible energy crackle around him.
"Somebody once said things get easier to stomach with more practice."
Ray thought as he gathered the old man's ether, separating it from his own before absorbing it.
"I need to find whoever made that goddamn quote. Because they fucking lied, this shit is just as revolting as it was the first time if not more so."
Memories flashed through his mind, at first they were memories of the old man's childhood until with a growl Ray swiped through the old man's entire life like it was nothing more than a video on fast forward.
Until he reached what he was looking for the man's breakthrough into the first fold.
"Are you fucking serious?"
Ray said as he saw or felt the old man break his soul Avatar into shards before surrounding the King guy in his soul before compressing it.
"If he just said soul avatar instead of goddamn spirit. I would have saved so much time."
Ray thought, as he glared at the old man's skin wrapped skeleton.
In a blur of movement he kicked the old man's skeleton sending it streaking off into the distance.
After doing that, he turned away from where the old man had died, a simple flick of his hand sent out a wind, strong enough to send the ashes of the old man's blood flying out of his palace.
"Now who else can grab my interest?" Ray said, as with a single step he ascended into the sky.
End of the flashback.
The memory shattered like glass.
As Raise consciousness, returned to the present.
He was horrified to see cracks, slowly appearing along the walls of his soul.
Realizing he had even less time than he had first thought, he quickly began to shatter his soul avatar.
The soul avatar is the body all people possess within their soulspace, cultivator or not.
The memory he had seen showed him just how to shatter it but.
"Can I even move after shattering my soul avatar?"
It was that question and many others that stopped Ray from doing it immediately.
But as the cracks grew on his soul, he realized it was either now or never.
"If I die in a goddamn alley, none of those dragons would let me hear the end of it in hell."
RayThought as with a flex of his will, his soul Avatar shattered.