Affinity:Chaos

Grey wanted to avoid any conflict as much as he could. He was already entangled with the necromancers, and for some reason, he could tell he was already well known among them. The fact that the corpse puppet was able to say what it said indicated that. 

The sooner he got into a suitable Faction, the better for him. Unfortunately, his search has not yielded anything of value yet. He had been going from one city to another since entering this Region, but no news of any Faction recruiting people. He naturally knew he wouldn't be as lucky as the previous Faction where there was a competition going on at the time they got there. 

Some days later. 

"Huh? Again?" Grey looked at the deserted village in front of him with an odd look. 

This was the fourth village he was seeing since the last town, and all of them were empty. Just like in that town, there was a strange aura circulating around. However, this time, he felt a sense of unease about the situation. 

"Void, can you sense anything?" He asked while standing on the same spot, looking around. 

"Nothing, for now. But I feel whoever did this is still here." Void replied while looking around vigilantly. 

"Hmm, me too." Grey nodded. 

The aura here was thicker than when he passed those villages. It was as if the act was just being carried out a few minutes before he arrived. 

'Search the place, we'll think of what next to do after that.' He said to Void before disappearing. 

Void nodded and disappeared as well. 

Somewhere underground, a group of people were looking at the light on the map with playful grins. 

"I think it's high time we take this one too, don't you think?" A man asked with a chuckle. 

"He might be one of them as well." Another man pointed at a group of youths tied on the ground, helpless and injured. It was none other than the group Grey saw in the first town he saw this situation. 

"Hmm, he's a Space Elementalist, so we have to be very careful when dealing with him. We can't afford to let our tracks be leaked by a kid." A more advanced man said. 

The strange thing about these people was that, although all of them looked like humans, there was a slight difference in their eyes. Unlike humans who mostly had, black, brown, blue, and golden eyes, with a few having amber eyes, these people mostly had purple, red, and some other colors. There was also a horn on their heads, each person's horn was the same color as their eyes, so it was safe to say they were not humans. 

Grey, who was above ground, knew nothing of the people watching him from below. All he wanted to do was to see if he could at least figure out what was happening. Even though there wasn't much he could do, since he had already passed through multiple villages, he felt compelled to at least know the cause of all this. 

While he was searching for any clues in the village, he felt his hair standing on edge. Without even thinking, he blinked out of his present location, appearing in another place. 

Bang! 

An explosion rang out from where he was previously standing as a ten meters wide stone appeared from nowhere. 

'Void.' 

'Almost there.'

Grey first thought whenever in a battle like this was to call out to Void first. After that, his next objective was to find out who attacked him. 

His expression changed when he sensed someone staring at him, looking in that direction, he saw a man who looked to be in his late thirties staring at him aggressively. What drew his attention was the horn on the man's head. 

'Someone from another race?' He thought to himself. 

He had heard of these people before. Most realms had people like these in them. Some are very troublesome and tend to cause a lot of harm to humans, while others prefer isolation. This race is clearly part of the former. 

"What are you doing with the people in these villages?" Grey asked in a straightforward manner. 

He was no saint, but he still wanted to know. As a human, he couldn't just let the matter go since he had already seen it. Humans might be greedy and selfish, but once they have a common enemy from a different race or world entirely, they tend to be able to unite against them. Of course, there are a few people who would cause conflicts in a situation like that, but people mostly prefer being the cause of other people's problems, rather than letting a foreign race do that for them. 

"It's none of your business. Now, surrender quietly, and we might let you live." The man said. When he finished his statement, three more men came from the ground 

'All are capable of using the earth element, I wonder where they came from.' Grey thought as he looked at the four people in front of him. 

He wasn't scared of them, what bothered him was where the people captured were taken to.

"I guess I'll have to make you tell me yourself." Grey said before launching an attack. 

He was still in the Seventh stage of the Overlord Plane, but he could sense that his earth elemental grade was on the verge of having a breakthrough. Adding that with his cultivation, he was sure he would be able to break through to the Eighth stage of the Overlord Plane.

The four men exchanged glances before spreading out in different directions. After they got in formation, they said something in a strange language before a powerful force field appeared from nowhere. 

Grey felt stuck, unable to advance nor retreat. This was something he had been trying to comprehend for some time now, but he still hadn't been able to. 

He could feel the weight of the air increasing, and his bones shook from the force. 

'I knew they wouldn't be easy to deal with.' He thought to himself as he started to think of a way to escape his current predicament.