Affinity: Chaos

Grey didn't interfere with their battle, and the young man from the town easily beat the trio up before dragging them to a particular building in the town. This building looked inauspicious and was quite ordinary-looking.

Grey followed them, hidden in the shadows, he wanted to see what was happening there.

With his strength, it was impossible for this young man to notice that he was following him, with Void in tow, he was able to sense if there was anyone who was inside the building.

'Huh?' Grey looked at the building a little surprised.

'What's wrong?' Void asked when he saw Grey's facial expression.

'There's an array here, a really powerful array.' Grey said to Void.

With his knowledge of things, he was able to quickly sense the array, luckily, he sensed it before stepping into the building, if not, he would've been sensed after entering the building.

He stayed outside for some time as he tried to search for a weak link that he would use to enter the place. His expression changed multiple times as he found it difficult.

'This array is quite strange, each weak link is complemented with something that makes it even harder. Whoever made this array is ingenious!' Grey complimented the person internally.

If he wasn't careful, he would've carelessly tried to break through the array with one of the supposed weak links, only to find out it was a trap. These weak links are called dummy weak links, he had read about them in his Teacher's book.

Grey continued studying the array, and after over ten minutes, he managed to find a way through the array. Surprisingly, the way to get into the array was quite easy, but it was kept in the most obvious place that one would think of.

After breaking through the array, he easily found the place where the young man headed and also sensed that there were more people present, and some of them were even in the Sage Plane.

"What should we do with them?" A voice came from the depths of the building.

"Just use them for the sacrifice, I will be done soon, you four shouldn't draw any attention to us, I've warned you guys repeatedly." A hoarse voice said.

"We know Elder, but staying in such a small town makes us irritated, this is the only way we can entertain ourselves."

"Do as you please, but don't bring any problems here."

"What about those two, what should we do with them?"

"They're not bothering us, it's best we leave them alone."

"Elder Nate! Aren't you supposed to be dead?" The young lady's shocked exclamation came from the depths of the building.

"Hehe, you think your father can kill me? I'll keep you alive to watch as I kill my father, besides, my student has taken a fancy of you, you should count yourself lucky."

"Throw the other two inside, I'll recover soon."

Grey exchanged glances with Void, he couldn't help but feel things weren't as easy as they seemed. From the looks of it, these people were from the same Faction, well, just the trio and the old man referred to as Elder Nate.

He decided to investigate what was happening in the depths before making a move, it would be dangerous if this person was an expert who was hiding his strength. He recalled that the voice said he would recover soon, if the person were to be an Elemental Sovereign, then he would be in trouble, even if he were to be in the Elemental Venerable Plane, he wouldn't be able to compete with an Elemental Sovereign.

Grey was stuck between allowing these people to be sacrificed or helping, if he tried to help, then he would probably be exposed. Of course they might not be able to catch him, but they would know that he had broken into the building without their knowledge, and they would be on guard against him.

He sneaked deeper into the building and soon came into a large empty space, an old figure was seen sitting in the air, and below him was a large array. Grey looked around and saw three people standing by the old man, each of them was at the Peak of the Sage Plane.

'I thought they said none of them was at the Peak?' Grey almost felt like the triplets were unreliable, but he thought about how hard it would be for the triplet who was still only in the Early stages of the Sage Plane to sense these people at the Peak.

'Void, the old man's stage.' He asked.

'Second stage Elemental Venerable.' Void replied after some time.

'Are you sure he isn't hiding his strength?' Grey asked.

'Yes, he should be injured, so his current strength is only in the Second stage, but he seems to be absorbing a large amount of energy from the array, he wouldn't be in the Second stage for too long.' Void explained.

'How long?'

'Two days.'

​ Grey decided to first rescue the two who were sent to become part of the sacrifices, while also thinking of ways to deal with the aftermath of being discovered.

Grey sneaked past the old man and went underground, his expression changed when he saw what was below the array. Under the array the old man was sitting on top were bodies, some of them had even dried up.

'Why would people resolve to such means to advance?' He asked, dejected.

Some of these people had families, but they were killed for the selfish gains of a particular person. Just so he could advance his realm, the old man was killing people.

Grey looked around and saw the young man and lady who were brought in some minutes ago, other than the duo, a few of them were still alive.

'Hmm, I should save that girl from the hands of that moron before anything.' He thought to himself.

Once any of these people were taken out, the old man would sense the shortage of energy and would know that someone was there.