Ast took them deep into the forest and as he was guiding them, he suddenly stopped to take a leak and then in front of the eyes of Chris and Sal he disappeared.
Ast had used his shapeshifting skill that came with the 'Blood Monarch' talent. He turned into an Owl and hid at the top of the tree. Ast was looking at them from the top of the tree. Ast had noticed that his blood devil now had some small sentience of its own and he wanted to test out its skills on these two.
Ast had already handed it his daggers, he simply hid them in some bushes and later blood devil came and collected the daggers while following the group from a distance.
Chris noticed that suddenly his guide/attendant was nowhere to be seen and there was a weird creature in front of them holding out two daggers. Ast had instructed it not to do a sneak attack as he wanted to judge its powers.
Without any warning, blood devil attacked and Sal came in front of its attack and used his skill 'ethereal shield' and 'block' at the same time, Blood devil's attack was effectively blocked and it received a rebound from attacking the shield.
Ast realised that there was a vast difference in strength between the 'blood devil' and Sal, so it wasn't prudent to attack using the frontal method, in any way blood devil's strength was its agility and unpredictability.
Blood devil again attacked with the dagger, and Sal again erected the shield. But this time the attack didn't land, blood devil did a feint, he threw one of the daggers above Sal's head and turned and attacked him using the other dagger from the side.
Sal reacted quickly but still got a cut from the attack on his hand and the dagger that was thrown, unexpectedly returned and hit Chris who was hiding behind Sal on his shoulder.
Sal was now angry, with one move not only this creature was able to injure him but also his young master. Sal quickly located blood devil and used his skill 'shield bash'. His attack was direct and in a straight line, blood devil quickly sidestepped and avoided the attack.
Having had collected the data on the blood devil's attack pattern, Ast instructed it to hide in the bushes. Then Ast undo his disguise and came down from the tree. Upon seeing the familiar figure of his attendant appearing, Chris was fuming with anger.
Chris was sure that it was Ast's doing, that he had planned to move against them. As soon as Ast appeared he quickly dashed towards Sal. Sal quickly used his skill and brought up the shield but in front of Ast, this shield was nothing.
Ast was like a bullet, he quickly arrived in front of Sal and threw a punch. Sal's shield was obliterated and then the punch landed on his head and with a blast, blood and brain pieces splattered all around the ground.
Chris was shivering to see the scene in front of him. Ast slowly approached Chris with a smile on his face, to Chris his smile was like a devil's grin. Chris took out a small circular disc from his storage ring and threw it towards Ast. Ast sidestepped and avoided the disc, although he was wondering why did Chris throw the disc at him as Ast couldn't detect any sort of danger from the disc.
The disc landed on a dense bush nearby, Ast instructed the blood devil to check out the disc from a distance. After throwing the disc, Chris quickly started running in the opposite direction. Ast came and broke both of Chris's arms. Chris wailed at the top of his lungs.
But suddenly Chris disappeared from Ast's sight. It was as if he was never there, he simply vanished. Ast was going to use his 'All seeing eye' to detect Chris, but he quickly got his smell and also a vision through blood devil.
Chris has appeared right above the disc that he threw earlier. Ast started laughing realising Chris's plan. The disc was actually a super rare teleportation artefact. Chris planned to throw the disc at a nearby bush, then run some distance away and when Ast's attention would be on him, he would teleport to the location of the thrown disc.
But unfortunately, Ast was leagues above him in both planning and abilities. Ast took all the artefacts and storage ring away from Chris, He asked Chris to strip and gave him an old rag to wear. Ast was afraid that Chris might alert the faction behind him and he didn't want to take any chances.
Then Ast began torturing Chris without asking any questions. Ast was now wondering how to get the truth out of Chris's mouth, on one hand, he didn't want to waste his 'Absolute Servitude' skill on Chris, but he didn't have any other way. He couldn't have Chris sign his own contracts as Chris had a skill which enables him to void any contracts that Chris himself created.
Then it suddenly clicked he realised that he could wait and install this talent into his permanent section first and after that, it would be a piece of cake for him to control Chris.
His panel told him that it would take five hours to install his new talent 'Soul Contractor'.