--- 3rd Person POV ---
"Okay, time up. I even gave you extra to think carefully." About one minute passed when Ray spoke again, sending shivers down the backs of the two men.
"Are you sure about doing this?" The flag man asked after calming his breathing. "In minutes, a full Soul Master team will be here."
"And I don't think you have the time or the capability to escape a Five-Ring Soul Masters," the bug man added.
"Leave those worries to me, and start to worry if you will be alive when they arrive," Ray announced, sending another wave of his soul power through the chains.
After a dozen seconds, seeing that the men were not talking, Ray was about to change his approach, but the only man from the family stepped closer to Ray.
With a deep breath, he bowed and thanked Ray for the life-saving grace.
"We ran from the village close by. They raided the village, we were lucky to escape, but were spotted by these people." He started to explain the situation up to the point where he almost cut in half.
Looking back, Ray found the man standing there with a newborn in his hand. Beside him were a woman and three kids, varying in age; the older one looked to be around eight years old.
Seeing them safe and sound, ray somehow feel eased despite not knowing them personaly.
"I see," Ray nodded at the man with more friendly and turned to the evil masters. "Where is your base located?"
He demanded, shocking everyone present. The evil masters started to shake, as no sane man would ask about their whereabouts except for two kinds of people:
Shrek Guardians, an organization started under the lead of the Shrek Academy to monitor the evil masters and eliminate them. But so far, they didn't have any direct conflict with the leading powers among the evil masters, so it was only the nomadic ones and not strong groups that ended up eliminated by them.
Having the backing of one of the old clans or a hidden power, as all the known ones share a deep hatred for evil soul masters.
In both cases, it was bad news for the men right now, as their rank in the organization could hardly give any leverage or protection—or at least, that was the flag user's theory.
"We don't know," the bug man said with a smirk. "Although we are a group, we are only an outer sect person."
Revealing this was purposely trying to scare Ray, but that only got the opposite reaction from Ray and his partner.
"Oh! So you are from the Holy Church?" Ray questioned, freezing the pair in spot. "And 'outer sect person' means you at least have a place to gather to be called a sect."
If they weren't freaking out before, they were now. The organization Ray named had been operating for ages, and hardly anyone knew it existed, let alone its name. Ray talking like that meant he either came into direct contact with them, or his backing was that strong.
By elimination, the first wasn't possible, as with his pure element, he would get killed on the spot or forced to get corrupted.
"It's on the other side of the cliff; it's marked with a 'death trees zone,'" the flag man said in fright, now only thinking of a way to survive. Coupled with the feeling he had before, he didn't want to know what the people behind Ray could do.
"Good boy. Now, one last question," Ray acknowledged. "The number 5541—ring any bells?"
"That… that's the number of ghosts I refined?" the flag man added, fumbling, confirming his kill count as easily as breathing, not knowing the reason behind the inquiry.
Ray froze for a second, finally understanding. He looked at the two men, before looking at the dead bodies on the side.
"I understand now. The number is the count of the lives you robbed," Ray stated, overwhelmed with anger and sadness.
Not knowing the reason behind it, Ray felt instantly furious, after all, the traumatic deaths of humans were now literally bare in front of his eyes.
"They got off easy," Ray declared, taking his eyes from the corpses and looking back at the still-alive evil masters. "But you won't."
After seconds of thinking, Ray conceived an idea: to create a formation to imprison and drain the energy from them until they died naturally. Thanks to his proficiency, he could now arrange a medium-to-high-level formation, but this time he was attempting something new.
Deciding on his action, Ray's rings lit up. With it, the ends of the chains detached from the mist around Ray and started to drill into the ground. While they were doing so, some inscriptions and runes started to appear slowly in the links of the chains.
"What are you doing!" the bug man shrieked, noticing the irregular movement of the curse chains.
"You think I will kill you?" Ray sneered scarsely. "That's just an easy end for you. From now on, you will live in a cold, dark cell. The only thing you're allowed to see is the torture you put your victims through, until the day you breathe your last breath."
As the chains started to drag the two men along into the ground, Ray explained, "Along with it, every spark of energy—be it vitality, soul, or spiritual—you ever robbed or will generate in the future, will be seeped out of you and returned to nature."
"Suffer well, because you deserve it." Ray retrieved some kind of seed as he stopped bothering with them.
With an unwilling howl, the pair vanished into a deep hole. From the hole, a small, chain-like altar was spotted, and Ray placed the seed there to get dragged into the hole a second later, and it was sealed.
Under the eyes of Ray, Sophia, and the family, a small tree started to grow until it reached $3$ meters. With a unique white trunk and the young leaves taking a red crimson hue, the tree started to release energy of all types. At first it was unnoticeable, but as time passed, it became prominent.
Ray exhaled deeply, releasing his Material Soul. Along with it, the mist covering him fell down. Turning around, he found the family looking at him with shocked eyes.
"What did you do?" Sophia asked in confusion and curiosity, knowing that at the start, Ray had just laid a formation.
But from the memories she got, the formation needs ink, drawing the lines, and creating a core. Ray had sublimated all that using his crystal mist and the ability to change its attribute, and this unorthodox method actually worked.
"Oh, I imprisoned them in a formation," Ray explained. "Thanks to it, they will be buried alive. While generating energy, the formation will absorb it from them and feed it to this tree."
"And by extension, the tree will release that energy to the outside world," Ray concluded, looking at the tree with calm eyes. "Providing energy to the world. That's the least they could do as punishment."
This froze the family and Sophia for a second at the cruelty of his action. The family was even more shocked by the fact that their savior was actually a kid.
"Well, you said you're the last survivor?" Ray asked, not minding their looks. "What's your next move?"
Looking at each other, the man stepped in front with determination. He requested, "We hope you can escort us to a close-by settlement?"
Ray nodded and was about to lead them away, but he sensed a group heading in their direction. Frowning, he swung his hand open, creating a gate to Plana.
"Get in now, someone's coming," Ray ordered. After some hesitation, they entered. Instead of entering himself, Ray used the leftover mist and drew a quick formation around the tree. Then he activated his second Material Soul, Crystal Fox.
And with his innate ability, he shifted to a fox and jumped onto a tree branch, watching the open space. Sophia, understanding his action, slipped inside his spiritual sea.
And just right after Ray hid in the leaves, a group of nine people appeared and started to inspect the place.
A man with nothing visible under his coat gave a signal, and three of them sped into the forest. The rest kept inspecting the place.
Ray kept observing them, and soon he noticed a common thing between them. All of them bore that unique black number, with the leader's number surpassing $10,000$.
Ray barely maintained control of his emotions at the sheer cruelty of people in this world.
'So that's what you saw?' Sophia's voice materialized in his mind, surprising him. 'Is that number some kind of count?'
'So you can see it from my perception?' As a resident in his spiritual sea, she can only see the outside world from his perception in this condition. 'Well, yeah, and if I'm not wrong, it's the number of people they have killed.'
'And how can you see it?' Sophia pressed.
'Probably a bloodline ability,' Ray sighed and answered, his eyes not leaving the group as the leader discovered the anomaly in the sealing tree and was inspecting it closely.
Seeing this, Ray smirked. 'Now, this is a good time.'
Ray's anticipation soon came to life. The moment the man touched the trunk, his soul power started to seep away. In fright, he tried to withdraw his hand, but the wood of the trunk grew branches, attempting to drag him in. Seeing this, all the people activated their Material Soul, attacking the tree.
To their surprise, the attacks were actually absorbed, and the tree grew at a noticeable rate, along with more branches extending and attacking them.
For the evil soul masters, this was an outright nightmare situation, and it kept escalating until they found themselves dragged into the tree trunk and disappeared. Soon all the noise and screams calmed down.
Ray kept his place for a second before he reverted to his human form and stepped in front of the tree. He then noticed a small fruit starting to form.
"It actually works! And greater than what I wished for." After a small inspection, Ray chuckled, then it turned into full laughter.
Sophia appeared beside him and, not knowing what just happened, looked at Ray like he had grown another head.
She recognized the additional formation as a simple 'repeating order' that allowed the main formation to reactivate, but how did it get to the point where it could counterattack?
She knew from the memories she got that it was a formation to imprison others, so the reactivation would normally only re-imprison, but she didn't know how the tree had attacked the evil masters.
"What just happened?" She exclaimed in confusion. "Wasn't this tree the anchor of the seal? How did it gain the strength and autonomy to attack and control seven Soul Masters above Four Rings?"
"Ah, that was actually a protection mechanism," Ray revealed. "If someone whose energy is tainted with evil comes close, the tree will automatically drag them in."
Scratching his chin for a second, his eyes widened as he noticed something. He inspected the tree for seconds, then couldn't help but smirk.
He took some kinds of glass beads. At the same time, he activated the Lung Material Soul.
With a flick, the five beads were distributed around the tree in a pentagon, and Ray expended his crystal mist, creating a connection between the beads.
As they connected, Ray used the crystal mist to draw some runes and formation lines around the tree in a $10$-meter diameter.
Completing the setting, Ray checked everything for the last time. He clapped his hands, and all the mist compressed, creating a gold glowing formation.
Seconds later, the tree, along with the formation and the energy fluctuation, vanished as if they didn't exist in the first place.
Haha. "If this was a game, we'd have a 'Congratulations, you created a conscience prison' announcement now." Smirking at the result, Ray let out a cheerful scream.
Catching the meaning behind his words, Sophia snapped her head in his direction, her eyes wide.