Almost Dead

Brax walks out of the village and immediately locks onto his Qi signature, which the escaping bandit has left behind.

He keeps a relaxed pace as he follows his Qi signature to where it takes him.

After some time, he finds himself deep inside the Whiteworro forest, close to the bandit hideout where his signature Qi trail ends.

"Looks like this is it," Brax murmurs as his eyes see through the thick bushes—a makeshift camp filled with tents, there are also cages with wild beasts inside them

These beasts are clearly meant to be sold.

Though the caged beasts are something that definitely interested him, his focus right now is the bandits inside the camp.

"There are about 40 of them," he observes.

"Luckily for me, they are all bunched up. This is as good as any chance I will get," Brax says as he sees the bandits encircle the injured bandit.

With his exceptional control over Qi, Brax reduces his presence and gets closer to the camp.

Once in range, he takes out a crude metal ball from a tight strapped pouch on his waist.

If you look carefully at this metal ball, you can see rough seams connecting metal pieces of the ball.

This is something Brax was busy crafting all night. A Qi bomb.

He was inspired to create this when he was going through a book about blacksmithing. In it, he came across weapons that store Qi to strengthen itself and deliver stronger attacks.

With Qi being a very versatile form of energy, Brax knows it can be implemented in many ways, especially in its destructive nature.

Knowing that he might have to face a lot of bandits, he started to wonder what could be the best weapon he could add to his arsenal, and there was only one answer. Grenades.

Grenades can take out multiple people at once, and they are also very lethal. With that in mind, Brax started tinkering with things available in Farco's house.

When it came to creating weapons, Brax was second to none back in his old universe. He created high-powered plasma weapons that could devastate planets if provided enough power.

So making a simple grenade is not a hard task. A simple grenade works by igniting the fuse to explode the gunpowder stored inside, which causes the metal casing to separate and shoot in all directions.

By using this simple concept, Brax first condensed a lot of Qi energy into the size of a two-inch ball. He could have condensed it more, but that would result in an unwanted situation. It is better to keep everything under calculation.

After condensing the Qi, he added a lot of sharp metal pieces to it. He then used metal scraps to cover the condensed Qi ball. Brax also left grooves on the metal casing so that when they explode, they separate easily.

Once everything was done, he had a crude round metal ball in his hand. Unlike a normal grenade, he didn't need a fuse to ignite it. His thought alone was enough. With this, he could also control the time of the explosion.

And of course, he didn't just make one. He made multiples so that he could deal with any predicament that would be thrown at him.

_______________________

Back to the present.

Brax holding a Qi bomb in his hand, aims at the crowded bunch of bandits and tosses it at them.

As soon as the grenade lands right in smack middle, Brax triggers his Qi, igniting it from the inside.

With the amount of condensed Qi igniting all at once, the energy release is frightening.

Even though Brax is far away from the blast radius, he still takes cover, as those shrapnels will travel very far, unless they encounter something.

Brax feels the shockwave go past him, which is immediately followed by the wails of some of those surviving bandits.

Brax lifts his head to survey the situation and sees the carnage he caused. 'Hm, the leader seems to have managed to survive,' He thinks seeing the big ugly bald man still alive.

As for how he knows this bald man is the leader? Well, he is the only one with a foundation-realm cultivation.

"Get your fucking ass out here right now, you fucking coward!!!"

Brax hears the leader scream.

'Should I throw another grenade and wipe them clean?' Brax questions, as he sees only a few of them are alive with only the leader is in fighting shape. 'No, it will be a waste,' Brax decides not to use it as he only has a limited amount.

'Plus, I don't see the fake Farco anywhere. Is he not here?' Brax questions. 'I will have to be vigilant, but first, I need to take care of him,' He thinks as his eyes turn that of a killer.

He grabs onto his throwing knife and infuses it with Qi.

Infusing a weapon with Qi and weapons that store Qi are completely different. One is just temporary while the other is permanent.

Aiming right between the bandit leader's eyebrows, Brax throws the knife.

The extremely vigilant bandit leader suddenly senses grave danger and immediately turns his head to the side as something flies past him.

He feels the side of his face getting wet, so he touches his cheek with his hand and finds blood on it. There is a deep cut right next to his left eyebrow.

The bandit turns to look at the tree behind him and sees a throwing knife lodged deep in it.

A cold shiver runs down his spine as he realizes how close he was to his death. But before the man can even yell at his assailant, his danger senses flare up again.

The bandit leader immediately turns and jumps back as he sees a young man in a white robe swinging down his sword at him.

"~AARRRGGG~" The bandit leader screams in pain as a deep cut appears from the left side of his shoulder to the right side of his abdomen.

He would have been cut into two pieces diagonally if he had not jumped back at the right time.

"You bastard!!!" The bandit leader finally gets to see his assailant in his full glory.

Six feet two inches tall, wide shoulders, lean frame, long black hair, extremely dark irises, sharp eyebrows.

A medium-sized pouch strapped to his waist, a dagger on the other side, a few throwing knives next to the dagger, a short sword dripping with blood in his hand, and a spear strapped to his back.

"I am going to fucking kill you!!" The bandit leader shouts, unsheathing his long sword, and charges at Brax.