Affinity:Chaos

Arya was oblivious to the painful screams around her as she spoke enthusiastically with Grey.

Grey even went on to tell her some jokes he picked up from Klaus.

Arya was pretty much the first person outside his friends he had taken a liking to. She was more like a younger sister he never had. At first, he only wanted to save her when he saw she was surrounded by Magical beasts, but after traveling with her for some time, he had grown to enjoy her company. She was a young enthusiastic and curious little girl.

Grey felt a little sorry for her when he heard her parents were dead. With the current flow of things, there's also a high chance that her brother was dead as well. He was optimistic, but he didn't feel too confident in being able to find her brother alive. They could be said to be in almost the same situation. His father left when he was still very young, and after that, his mother left as well. Although he didn't know their current state, he felt that they were still alive.

The mystery about his family was quite complicated that even he knew nothing about it. Other than his Family name, he had nothing else. He had even forgotten the name of his father!

His mother's memory was still very fresh in his mind, so he knew that as long as he got to sense her aura, he would be able to locate her.

After being alone for over five years, he didn't really have much hope in his parents. To be honest, he was a little disappointed in his parents. If there were secrets, he felt they ought to tell him. He only found out about the orb in his body after fifteen years, he went through humiliation for three years because of it.

…

His mind wandered as they traveled. He was still a little worried about the situation of his parents, but there was nothing he could do at the moment.

'Strength, that's all that matters.' He thought to himself.

He made sure to cover the corpses ahead of them so that Arya would be unable to see them. As they went on, he noticed that there were over one hundred corpses, this was after moving only around eight hundred meters.

They walked another two hundred meters before he saw the end of the tunnel. While walking, he made sure to look around for anyone that matched the description of Arya's brother. He looked at the corpses on the ground specifically.

One of the things he noticed along the way was that over ninety-five percent of the corpses belonged to Arcane Plane Elementalists. This meant that the survival rate of those in the Arcane Plane here was really low. He had seen only a few Origin Plane Elementalist corpses which seemed to prove his hypothesis.

They walked out into an open space. It was an underground cave that spanned over two kilometers.

Grey looked around and saw everyone rushing in a single direction. He didn't hurry over like the rest, slowly following behind while trying to see if he could find Arya's Big brother.

He also spoke with Arya along the way. Before long, he got to the place everyone was heading to. Even before getting there, he noticed that everyone seemed to be standing some distance away from a figure sitting crossed legs.

His eyes changed when he noticed something about the figure, 'He's… dead.'

The figure didn't make any movements, and even though he was over two hundred meters away from the figure, he could tell that he was dead.

'Is this the owner of this place?' He questioned himself.

He felt the answer was most likely yes. The figure was that of an old man. Grey wasn't too intrigued by the man since he was also in the Sage Plane, but there was something that threw him off his feet.

He could sense a slight aura of the darkness element circulating around the man. Even though it was very faint, he could still sense it.

'Do you sense that?' He asked Void.

Void nodded, his expression was grave.

'I have a bad feeling about this place.' Void said.

Grey also had an ominous feeling about the place, but he didn't let it stop him from moving ahead. His current task was to locate Arya's brother and leave this place.

"Stay here with Void, he'll take care of you. I'll go find your Big brother real quick." Grey bent down to Arya's level and said with a soft smile.

Arya nodded before staying behind the boulder they were standing.

Grey nodded at Void before moving out. He had to get the gist of what was happening, and without examining the place, there was no way he would be able to do so.

He already decided to scout for Arya's brother while doing this.

Ten minutes later, he looked at the corpse sitting crossed leg.

'Is he really dead?' Confusion flashed through Grey's eyes.

There was a large array in this place that seemed to siphon all the essence in this cave in the direction of the dead man. Grey wouldn't be bothered if that was the only thing, but the essence of those who were dead was also being sucked out and moving in the corpse's direction.

The real reason he was worried was that he had seen something almost identical to this back in the Magical Beast's forest in the Azure Continent. Although it was a little different, it was almost the same case.

He decided to search for Arya's brother first.

There's a chance that this old man did this while he was still alive in hopes to break through, but he failed in the end and after coming to the end of his lifespan, he died.

Even though Sage Plane Elementalists could easily live over a thousand years, there were still a few things that could shorten their overall lifespan. A serious injury could take out over five hundred years from their lifespan.