Affinity: Chaos

Chapter 2152: Night Purge IV

The battle between the Peak Sovereigns had nothing to do with Grey and Reynolds. Their full attention remained locked on the remaining three Ninth-stage Sovereign Necromancers and the cluster of weaker enemies still standing in the hall.

None of the Necromancers dared to bring out their puppets with Grey present. Even without the puppets, most of them still felt confident they could win. After all, they only had to deal with two opponents, and only one of those opponents was a Ninth-stage Sovereign. That confidence, however, did not make them willing to face Grey alone.

The three Ninth-stage Necromancers moved quickly and surrounded Grey, deliberately cutting him off from the Eighth-stage and lower enemies. Their intent was obvious: keep the most dangerous human occupied while the rest of their forces handled Reynolds.

Grey showed no sign of panic. His figure blurred, and he shot straight toward one of the three Ninth-stage Necromancers like an arrow.

The targeted Necromancer instinctively retreated. Every one of them had heard of Grey Dawson’s name. Even though they believed three of them together could suppress him, none wanted to meet him in a one-on-one exchange.

The other two Ninth-stage Necromancers reacted at once, circulating their essence and preparing to intercept. To their surprise, Grey never completed the attack on his original target. At the last possible moment he twisted in mid-air, changing direction completely, and flew toward the two Seventh-stage Gnomes who stood near the edge of the formation.

The expressions of all three Ninth-stage Necromancers changed the instant they realized the true target.

"Stop him!"

The Necromancer Grey had first charged toward roared and threw caution aside, launching himself after the young man with everything he had. The remaining two followed right on his heels, darkness and other elemental energies flaring around them as they tried to close the distance.

Grey had never planned to trade blows with the Ninth-stage Necromancers at the beginning of the fight. The fastest way to tilt the battle was to eliminate the weaker enemies first, reducing the overall pressure before turning to the stronger ones.

He ignored the three pursuers completely. As he closed in on the two Gnomes, he raised both palms and sent two consecutive palm strikes flying forward. Compressed wind howled around his hands.

The Gnomes panicked the moment they saw him coming and tried to retreat. An Eighth-stage Necromancer standing nearby jumped in front of them without hesitation, forming a thick wind shield to intercept the attacks.

Grey’s first palm strike shattered the wind shield as if it were paper. The second strike landed solidly on the Eighth-stage Necromancer’s stomach. The man’s eyes widened in pain as the force launched him backward like a broken doll. He crashed hard into one of the thick stone pillars. The pillar shook violently but did not break, clear proof of how heavily the structure had been reinforced. The Eighth-stage Necromancer slumped to the base of the pillar, his condition unknown.

Grey did not slow down. The moment the Eighth-stage was sent flying, he reached for the still-retreating Gnomes.

One of the pursuing Ninth-stage Necromancers finally caught up. He released a dense cloud of darkness that instantly swallowed Grey’s figure, trying to cut off his vision and movement.

Grey showed no fear. Inside the black mist his body shimmered, and in the next instant he transformed into a small black bunny no larger than a fist. The change was so fast the Ninth-stage Necromancer barely registered it.

A sudden roar of thunder exploded from the side of the mist. The Necromancer spun around just in time to see Grey wrapped in a thick blanket of crackling lightning, hurtling toward one of the Gnomes at terrifying speed.

The other two Ninth-stage Necromancers arrived at that exact moment. They were about to intercept when a deep, grinding roar shook the entire hall. The ongoing battle between the Peak Sovereigns had finally taken its toll on the damaged ceiling. Large sections of stone began to collapse, raining heavy debris across the battlefield.

The brief chaos and falling rubble created the opening Grey needed.

He did not hold back. His lightning-coated palm struck the back of the nearest Gnome with full force. The clear sound of bones shattering rang out, followed by a raw, pained cry. The Gnome had never imagined that in a hall filled with so many human experts he would be the first to suffer a serious injury.

Grey’s attack did not end there. The force of the palm sent the Gnome flying. Grey grabbed the Gnome’s leg in mid-air, spun, and slammed him into the stone floor with brutal strength. The Gnome’s scream echoed through the hall before it was abruptly cut short. An axe formed of condensed earth elemental energy materialized above him and drove straight through his skull, ending his life instantly.

Grey immediately turned toward the second Gnome, but the two remaining Ninth-stage Necromancers finally managed to place themselves between them, blocking his path with grim determination.

The surviving Gnome stared at the corpse of his companion, his face pale from fright. When Grey’s cold eyes locked onto him, he felt as if the god of death itself was watching him. Only the timely arrival of the two Ninth-stage Necromancers kept him from being the next to fall.

While Grey had killed a Gnome within moments of the true battle starting, Reynolds was in a far more difficult position on the other side of the hall.

Reynolds fought in his fully merged state with his Elemental Warrior, his body covered in living lightning armor that crackled with every movement. Ten opponents surrounded him. Most were Seventh-stage or lower, yet two of them were genuine Eighth-stage Sovereigns. The two stronger Necromancers coordinated well, using the numerical advantage of the weaker ones to create constant openings and pressure.

Reynolds’s superior speed allowed him to avoid fatal blows, but he found himself almost entirely on the defensive from the start of the battle. Lightning flashed in wide arcs as he tried to keep the group at bay, yet every time he attempted to focus on one of the Eighth-stage enemies, three or four lower-stage attacks forced him to change targets. The two Eighth-stage Necromancers pressed him relentlessly, their combined assaults making it nearly impossible for him to seize the initiative.

If not for the raw speed granted by his lightning element, Reynolds would already have been overwhelmed. Even so, the strain was beginning to show. Sweat mixed with the sparks running across his armor, and each exchange left him with less room to maneuver as the eleven enemies slowly tightened their encirclement.