30. Ray

As soon as the minister moved out of the treasury he felt something hitting him at the back of his head and he was knocked out again.

Ast twisted the minister's head and killed him and kept his body in a spare storage ring. Ast knew he was no saint, he was in a world where hierarchy is based on power, where Nobels treat commoners as tools and where there is presence of many other races. So the one thing he was very clear about from the beginning was not to have a conscience or think of useless things like morality. He was aware that to fully exercise this belief would be difficult because no one changes overnight but still he would try his best. To him right now Anya was the only other person that mattered.

If the minister disappears the first person Blair family would doubt would be him and that would buy him some time. Although he was not sure how much time he would get because he was not totally aware about the power that were available in this new world but it didn't matter cause he had planned ahead.

Ast quickly moved from one shadow to another and exited the Blair mansion. He moved towards where Anya was but to his surprise Anya was not there. He looked around carefully and found some traces of struggle and followed these traces.

500m ahead Ast found a dense smoke screen with some weird smell. Ast remembered this smell it was the smell of a neurotoxin he had created. Ast now knew that this was Anya's doing. Ast and Anya had already discussed the contingency plan, in which he told Anya how to operate various toxins, smoke bombs and other things that he had made and given to her.

This plan of theirs was quite detailed as it also covered how to escape various situations and how to find each other if one goes missing and how to survive on their own for the time being, Ast was being overly cautious and didn't want to loose her.

Ast quickly took the antidote and moved towards the center of the smoke. He was panicking a bit because it was the first time when Anya was in clear danger. He found out 3 people inside the smoke and one of them was Anya. Who was struggling to escape one guys hold. Ast recognised the guy that was holding her, it was the head butler of the family, the same guy who was spying on them and the other guy was his older brother Tim.

Ast took out a needle and threw it with all the force towards Ray's shoulder.

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The head buttler name was Ray he was a level - 5 elementalist and was Tim's secret bodyguard but no one except Tim knew of this as he was appointed by Khan Blair, their grandfather also known as the current family head of Blair family. Ray was a traditional wind elementalist. He had been keeping track of Ast's progress on Tim's order. Khan had asked Tim to keep his eye on his younger brother and inform him if Ast was worth nurturing.

Tim was annoyed at first when his grandfather took interest in Ast, but Khan told him that Ast would only be used as Blair family's tool. Tim although took this mission from his grandfather but later on when he observed(through Ray) that Ast was a genius with daggers and also good with a bow, he kept this info from his grandfather. And at the party it was Tim who arranged for the confrontation between Gerald Klaus and Ast.

But when he saw that Ast was not only good physically but also was smart enough to escape from the older Klaus generation, Tim instantly knew that he needs to kill Ast one way or another otherwise he could threaten his position within the family.

Although Ast wasn't aware about Tim and Khan's plan he and Anya had already figured out the identity of the spy. Before moving out towards the town of Aldi, Ast had fed a very strong toxin to Ray, when he came to meet him before their trip.

The sole purpose of that toxin was to make the host very weak for a week or two, but this toxin takes some time to take action. Ast was not sure when things could go wrong so he took this step in anticipation of the coming danger but now it looks like his efforts were going to bear fruit.