Affinity:Chaos

One week passed, and the genius' who entered the trial land who were still alive had only two weeks left before leaving the trial land. The struggle for treasures intensified as everyone wanted to increase their strength even if it was by a small margin before leaving, so whenever a treasure was found, as long as there was another person in the vicinity, then there would be a fierce fight for it, there had been multiple cases where the fights ended with one of the parties suffering serious injuries, and in some cases, losing their life.

Even the pants thief who grew famous during the past month and a half had been almost completely forgotten, and since no one was being robbed anymore, they were slowly forgetting about them and all their focus was placed on finding treasures.

On different parts of the trial land, fights could be seen breaking out every now and then. Had it been when they first entered the trial land, then the genius' would try to keep their distances from each other, but now, some people were actively getting closer to others with the hope of stealing something from them. In the next two weeks, they will all use one week to search for treasures, then the last week would be used to travel back to where the formation was located in the trial land.

Every single individual in the trial land was searching for treasures, except for Grey, Klaus, and Reynolds. Unlike the majority, they were actually searching for each other. Even Alice was searching for treasures, so it was quite strange that there were three people here who weren't too interested in increasing their strength.

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On a rocky path, Grey could be seen gradually heading to the top of a mountain with Void sitting on his shoulder like usual. He had been tracking the pants thief for a few weeks now, and about a week ago, he felt he was pretty close to the duo, but then, he suddenly stopped hearing rumors about them, making locating them harder.

He had seen multiple battles start because of a treasure during this week, but he didn't even spare a glance at it. It wasn't like he didn't want to increase his strength, it was just that he hadn't seen any treasure that had piqued his interest, nor had Void told him about there being any good treasures.

"*Sigh* If I don't find them here, I guess I'll have to leave this place on my own." Grey sighed as he gradually climbed the rocky mountain.

He had been searching for the pants thief for a while now, and there was also the possibility of them not being Klaus and Reynolds, so there was a chance he was most likely wasting his time.

'How does the outside world look like?' Void asked curiously.

From the time he hatched till now, he had only spent his time in the trial land, so he was quite curious about how the outside world looked like.

"Well…" Grey went on to tell him about the outside world.

And before they knew it, thirty minutes went by, and they were at the top of the rocky mountain. On getting to the top, it was empty.

'Looks like our search is in vain.' Void looked around trying to see if there were any signs of people passing through here.

But he unfortunately didn't find anything.

Grey also looked around, and shook his head in disappointment, "Guess we'll be leaving on our own then."

They started their descent, only, Grey decided to pass through the other part of the rocky mountain.

Two hours later, six kilometers away from the foot of the rocky mountain.

Two young men could be seen on a rocky plain, they were Klaus and Reynolds who were searching for Grey and Alice.

"I knew finding them would be difficult. Why don't we head back to where the formation is located, if we don't see them on the way, then we'll wait for them outside." Reynolds said while staring at the sky with squinted eyes.

Klaus nodded, he knew finding either Grey or Alice in this large place was going to be difficult. Of all the times that they had encountered each other, it was due to pure luck, and he didn't expect they would always be that lucky.

"What's that?" Reynolds pointed at a large dust cloud that suddenly rose into the air behind them.

"Seems like people are fighting again." Klaus said not really interested in it, after all, they had seen different battles over the past week.

"But not at this scale, maybe what they found is something good." Reynolds said after a brief silence.

"We passed through there a few hours ago, why didn't we find anything?" Klaus asked trying to dissuade Reynolds.

He didn't really want to go back, although, I'd Reynolds said they should head back he would agree to it since he couldn't allow his friend to head back alone. What if it was too dangerous? Wouldn't that put Reynolds' life in danger? At least if they were together, the chances of any of them dying would be minimal, unless the opponent was at least four stages ahead of them.

"We should check it out, you never know what we might find there." Reynolds said while heading back in the direction of the rocky mountain.

Klaus could only grumpily follow behind him, he knew if he were the one who suggested anything, even if Reynolds didn't want to do it, he would still agree to it, although not immediately, but he would definitely agree to it.

At the foot of the rocky mountain.

Beads of sweat could be seen dripping from Grey's face, and his back was soaked. Even Void had a serious expression.

They looked around vigilantly, but they didn't see anything.

"What was that?" Grey asked still not sure of what he saw.

The thing suddenly came out of the ground, with the body of a worm, a big mouth filled with rows of razor-sharp teeth, what looked like tentacles around the mouth, only, they were short given the size of the worm, and it also had a fin on its back.

'I have no idea.' Void shook his head.

The creature appeared and disappeared like it was never there. Grey's fast reflexes were the only thing that saved him, or else, he might have been in the stomach of the giant worm by now.

Creak…

Grey immediately turned when he heard this sound, looking in the direction of the sound, he saw the ground was a little higher than its previous state, it was like something was pushing it from below.

'There.' He informed Void.

'I know.' Void also heard the sound, so he was currently staring at the ground which had a bump.

The bump on the ground suddenly started moving in their direction.

'It's the creature.' Grey immediately attacked the bump on the ground, but it didn't stop it from moving towards them with increased speed.

With the rocky ground as a shield, the creature was almost untouchable.

'Fuck!' Grey cursed and immediately tried escaping.

If he stayed in the same position, that meant the creature could easily come out of the ground and swallow him up, even if he were to die, he didn't want to die in this manner!

Grey was running as fast as he could, heading towards the rocky plains as he would need to pass through there before getting into a forest. He had tried turning the ground to mud, but because of the rocky ground, he couldn't, and that was the only way he could stop it since once it comes out of the ground, it immediately gets back in once it realizes it missed its target.

Unknown to Grey who was running as fast as he could towards the rocky plains, Klaus and Reynolds were sprinting through the rocky plains, heading in his direction.

One minute later.

Grey who had already gotten into the rocky plain was surprised when he saw the silhouettes of two people heading fast in his direction.

Klaus and Reynolds also saw the silhouette of Grey who was running towards them, but due to the distance, they couldn't get a clear view of each other.

The moment they got within eight hundred meters away from each other, Grey was the first to recognize the duo, and he couldn't help but feel a little elated since he had finally found his friends, but the constant creaking sound of something racing through the ground quickly took the smile away from his face.

"Run!" He yelled while waving his hands.

Klaus and Reynolds didn't hear him properly, but they saw him waving his hands, on getting a little closer, they realized it was Grey, and a smile spread across their faces. They even increased their speeds trying to get to him sooner.

But then…

"Run you morons!"

They were currently within four hundred meters away from Grey who was getting closer to them.

"Wait, why is he running?" Klaus asked.

Because of the joy of seeing their friend, they forgot one thing. He was running away, given Grey's strength, even if he was in the Third stage of the Origin Plane, only those at or above the Fifth stage could beat him.

"I don't know, but run!" Reynolds turned around instantly, heading back to where they were coming from.

Finding Grey turned into a somewhat bittersweet moment since they were most likely in danger, the funny thing was, they hadn't even seen what was chasing after Grey, and they didn't plan to.