1 Escape

June 2032.

The summer sky was bright and without clouds. The fresh air surrounding the forest matched the sense of vitality and strength of life that exudes from it.

A pack of six mutated wolfs beside a lake were drinking from it when something unusual happened.

A seven-foot-tall black shimmering line suddenly appeared from the void splitting a poor wolf in two. Faint streaks of black lightning accompanied by the sound of thunders and strong wind instantly emerged from the black line slaying another four unlucky wolfs and sending the last one sprinting away for its dear life.

After just a few seconds, the line began to widen rapidly until it became six-foot-wide revealing an interior of black spiraling smoke. The once thin black line became a tunnel connecting two points in space.

A family of four jumped out of the tunnel and into the forest in a flurried way with faces tinged with worry.

The family was made up of a middle-aged handsome blonde man, and an enchanting woman who had blue eyes and blue hair. She was holding on to two young boys around four and five years old and both had blonde hair and blue eyes.

The man was deathly pale. Black smoke was billowing all over his face which was pouring out from his ears and nostrils and returning into his body through his mouth. He was groping around angrily since he could barely see with all the smoke on his face.

After finding a tree, he sat down cross-legged beside it and rested his back on it. He began breathing through a secret method that sent the black smoke jetting one meter in front of him. The smoke dissipated silently as it left his face.

The children and the woman were standing at a safe distance while watching the man purge his body of the smoke. The three-year-old boy was struggling desperately to free his hands from the woman's clutch while making some whining sounds.

"Hush Kane. Can't you see your father is trying to recover?" said the woman as she scolded Kane. The four-year-old boy, Dairus, looked at his younger brother disdainfully, he then punched Kane on the shoulder while saying "grow the fuck up. This is not the time to be a baby, baby"

"waaaaaah, why won't you listen to me. She's not my mother". The punch only made Kane bawl out his eyes while struggling to get out of the woman's grasp.

"Ka…" the middle-aged man who was already not in a good mood was in the middle of giving his son a piece of his mind when he suddenly stopped and looked up with a grim look on his face.

Pitch black clouds rapidly rolled through the sky which was too thick for sunlight to pierce through and turning the sunny afternoon into an almost lightless night. The darkness even seemed to restrict and dampen abilities and the middle-aged man had already started to notice this.

"How does he keep finding us?" asked the middle-aged man angrily as he was finding it hard to control his emotions at the moment.

"Everyone, stay close to me," he said as he motioned for his family to come closer to him while he tried to open another space tunnel.

Try as he may though, he could only distort the space in front of him.

"Goddamit!" he cursed aloud. He knew quite well that opening up a space tunnel was a walk in the park for him but his dire condition at the moment made it a Herculean task for him to complete.

The black cloud could negate all forms of energy but that wasn't enough to thwart his efforts. It was the fact that the black smoke out from all the orifices on his face was actually the same as the clouds above. He had been somewhat infected by the same power and this was actively preventing him from using his powers.

Puff.

There was a muffled sound as a figure pierced through the black clouds at breakneck speed. It soon crashed into the earth with a great bang and left a huge crater in its wake.

"Quick, get behind me!" yelled the middle-aged man as he gestured for his family to stay behind him as he faced the mysterious figure whose features were made heavy by the poor lighting and heavy dust cloud surrounding him.

"You should have realized by now that no matter how far you run, you can never escape me," said the in a deep voice as it emerged from the dust cloud.

It was revealed to be a hulking dark-skinned man who had pronounced muscles that looked like they were filled with energy and ready to burst. He stood still with his hands folded on his chest as he watched the family while exuding an overbearing aura. He was carrying a huge pot on his back which was fastened with a rope that wound around his body.

"Rhiener, this is your final chance. Kneel before me and pledge your allegiance to me and your lives will be spared" said the man as he kept watching the family ready to act on even the slightest change.

"You and your filthy clan will not get away with what you've done today Briggs. After today, I will make sure your entire clan is rounded up and face punishment for trying to usurp the power of the royal empty clan. When I'm through with them they will beg for death" said Rhiener furiously as he looked at Briggs with murder in his eyes.

"Ha ha ha ha. What a joke. As we speak your entire clan is being butchered in the dozens. It won't be long before the Brunhilde empire has been purged of the empty clan and my shadow clan will become the new royal clan and I will become the new emperor. We could not have gotten to this point without the help of traitors from your clan who graciously gifted us information and access to your treasures which helped us get to this very point" replied Briggs while laughing.

Rhiener's face was dim. He knew that what Briggs said was true. Traitors were entrenched too and held very high positions in his clan. Alarms were not set up and defenses were not put up even after the shadow clan fell upon them. He could not even get to use the clan treasures since they had already been tampered with and moved away from their positions. The attack was so fierce and swift, that he knew that the only way for his family to survive was to flee and get revenge another day. The only problem was that the blasted Briggs somehow kept finding them.

He had a treasure that could help him escape this predicament. It was the break space bead. It could allow the user and anyone he is touching to instantaneously teleport to an extremely far location in the wastelands. It only required a long activation time of 10 minutes and a lot of the user's energy to activate. Hence he was trying to buy time.

"Die!!!" Briggs was no fool as he quickly guessed what Rhiener was up to and decided to take the initiative and attack.