Affinity: Chaos

Chapter 2153: Night Purge V

The three Ninth-stage Necromancers quickly surrounded Grey, their auras tightly pressing in from all sides as they tried to hold him down. Behind them the second Seventh-stage Gnome had already retreated several steps, still visibly shaken by how easily his companion had been killed only moments earlier.

Grey’s eyes remained calm and cold. He had no intention of trading long, drawn-out exchanges with the three Ninth-stage Necromancers. He knew he could not finish any of them in a short time, so he kept his focus on the weaker opponents who could still be removed quickly.

He suddenly shot upward, lightning and wind exploding beneath his feet in a sharp burst of speed. Two of the Necromancers reacted instantly, darkness and thick earth elemental energy rising to intercept him. Grey twisted in mid-air, his body flickering as he used a short-range burst of acceleration to slip cleanly between their attacks. A blade of condensed wind sliced toward the third Necromancer’s neck, forcing the man to lean back sharply to avoid having his throat opened.

That fraction of a second he used to dodge the attack was what Grey hoped for.

Grey took advantage of the Necromancer’s retreat vanished from their encirclement and reappeared directly above the second Gnome. The Gnome’s eyes widened in pure terror. He raised both hands and formed a hasty barrier of dark energy mixed with his own elemental power, pouring everything he had into the defense.

Grey did not slow down. His right fist, coated in dense blue flames and spinning wind, smashed through the barrier as if it were thin glass. The blue flames surged forward in a roaring wave and completely engulfed the Gnome’s upper body. At the same time Grey’s left hand formed a sharp, condensed earth spike that drove straight through the flames and into the Gnome’s chest with brutal precision.

A short, choked scream left the Gnome’s throat before the light in his eyes went out. His body crumpled to the cracked stone floor, smoke rising from the blackened burn marks left by the blue flames. The smell of scorched flesh briefly filled the air around them.

The three Ninth-stage Necromancers arrived a heartbeat too late. Their faces darkened the moment they saw the second Gnome’s corpse lying motionless on the ground.

Grey landed lightly and turned to face them, his expression unchanged. "Two down."

Before they could launch a coordinated attack, he moved again, this time not toward them, but in the opposite direction, straight toward the chaotic melee where Reynolds was still fighting. That was where most of the Necromancers were concentrated.

Reynolds remained under heavy pressure. Ten opponents surrounded him in a shifting circle. The two Eighth-stage Necromancers coordinated well, while the weaker enemies constantly filled every gap and angle. Lightning flickered and cracked across Reynolds’s body as he blocked, dodged, and countered at high speed, yet he could not break free from the encirclement. Every time he tried to focus on one of the stronger enemies, three or four weaker attacks forced him to change targets and defend.

Void stayed close to him, a small black blur that appeared and disappeared around the edges of the fight. When two Necromancers tried to exploit a brief opening after Reynolds was forced to block a heavy strike from one of the Eighth-stage Sovereigns, Void warped space around their attacks, forcibly sending them to another location. This gave Reynolds the fraction of a second he needed to drive them back with a burst of lightning.

Even so, the numerical advantage was beginning to take its toll. One of the Eighth-stage Necromancers managed to land a glancing darkness strike across Reynolds’s side, tearing a shallow but painful wound through the lightning armor. Sparks and a thin spray of blood scattered into the air. Reynolds clicked his tongue in annoyance and forced the man back with a concentrated blast of lightning, but the opening was immediately filled by two more attackers pressing in from the flanks.

’Damn it!’ He cussed at the sight of this.

Grey crashed into the edge of the encirclement like a sudden storm at this moment.

A wide arc of razor-sharp wind blades mixed with crackling lightning swept outward from his position, forcing three of the Seventh-stage Necromancers to leap away in alarm. In the same motion, dense blue flames surged from Grey’s free hand toward one of the Eighth-stage Sovereigns, cutting off the man’s path to Reynolds and forcing him to raise a hasty defense.

"Go," Grey said.

Reynolds did not waste the opening. With the pressure on one side suddenly reduced, he and Void moved together in perfect coordination. Reynolds created a lightning-coated spear and thrust it forward. Void, on the other hand, created two spatial circles at the same time, one of them was at the back of the Eighth stage Necromancer, while the other appeared in front of the lightning spear Reynolds just thrust out. The Necromancer didn’t get the chance to react before the tip pierced his shoulder, causing a spray of blood.

The Eighth-stage Necromancer staggered, face twisting in shock and pain. Before he could recover or retaliate, Void appeared above him in a flicker of black fur and released a small but extremely sharp spatial cut. The attack forced the man to abandon any counterattack and retreat several steps, clutching his wounded shoulder.

The sudden loss of coordination between the two Eighth-stage Necromancers as well as Grey’s intervention caused the entire encirclement to loosen. Reynolds’s lightning armor flared brighter as he finally seized the initiative. Wide, sweeping arcs of electricity erupted from his spear and body, driving several of the weaker enemies backward and breaking their formation.

Grey couldn’t stay to finish the weaker enemies. The three Ninth-stage Necromancers had already caught up, their combined auras locking onto him once more with clear killing intent. He turned smoothly to meet them, blue flames and lightning coiling tightly around both arms, while Reynolds and Void continued to press the advantage against the now-disorganized group of lower-stage Necromancers.

The balance of the battle on this side of the hall had clearly shifted. Both Gnomes were dead. One Eighth-stage Necromancer was seriously wounded. The encirclement that had been crushing Reynolds was broken.

The three Ninth-stage Necromancers stood between Grey and a complete cleanup, their expressions dark with rage and humiliation.

They were all Ninth-stage Sovereigns, the same cultivation realm as Grey. They had surrounded him, chased him, and tried to pin him down, yet he had not only killed both Gnomes right in front of their eyes, he still found the chance to relieve his companion.