Affinity:Chaos

'Great! It's improving!' Reynolds exclaimed in his mind.

The aura of the Elemental Warrior was slowly approaching the peak of the Seventh stage, from how it was going, Reynolds was certain it would get to the Eighth stage, or even the Ninth stage of the Origin Plane before the essence in the lightning tree was used up.

Outside the cave.

While Reynolds was trying to boost the Elemental Warrior's strength to further increase his own arsenal, Grey was fighting a gruesome battle with the young man.

With both fighters opting to go for close combat, it was easy for them to be damaged from an attack from the opponent.

Grey was more fortunate in the battle due to his speed and the space element, the young man, not so much.

Bam! Bang!

Both fighters punched each other solidly on the chest, before retreating backward.

The young man immediately tried to catch his breath as they separated, likewise Grey.

They had been exchanging blows for over two minutes now, and both had suffered some damages that they needed to recover from. Having a better physique, Grey wasn't too hurt, at least not internally.

The young man on the other hand was getting the help of his new found strength in breaking through to the Overlord Plane to help repair most of the damages he had suffered. The higher the Plane of an Elementalist, the quicker they are able to recover from injuries.

But there's no way the young man would be able to completely recover within a day or two after suffering such damages, he was only using the energy to make sure they didn't worsen.

"Such a strange essence bead," The young man suddenly said.

He couldn't figure out what was going on with Grey, but given the fact that he knew Grey had two elements, he was surprised he was only sensing one essence bead in his body. Not just that, but he couldn't even properly observe it, there's an unknown force that always pushes his spiritual senses away when he got too close.

"How did you not die after swallowing that orb, given the essence in it, you should've exploded," Grey said, gasping for breath mid-sentence.

"We both have our secrets. I'd really like to take that bead out of you when you're dead," The young man said.

"Heh! And you think you can kill me?" Grey scoffed, not at all afraid of the young man.

"You used a special technique to merge your essence beads, thereby drastically increasing your strength. The thing about such techniques is that they all have time limits, all I need to do is hang on until said time limit," The young man said with a calm smile.

It was like he could see everything unfolding, how he killed Grey and his friend.

"You think you can make it that long?" Grey asked with a smirk.

Although he knew the Fusion State couldn't last forever, he knew he could still hold on for another eight to ten minutes. He could even push himself and hang on for another fifteen minutes.

Given the amount of darkness essence he had injected in the young man, he was sure to die if he didn't attend to it within the next ten minutes max.

The area they were currently in was around seven hundred meters away from Reynolds, but Grey was making sure to keep a close eye on the cave. He could sense that the lightning tree's essence was depleting at a fast pace, and he couldn't help but be worried.

"Why do you… Cough! Cough!"

The young man who was talking coughed, when he placed his hand on his mouth, he was stunned when he saw black blood coming out from his mouth.

'Poison?'

This was the first thought that came to his head, but he quickly dismissed it since the only way he could be poisoned was if he ate something. He didn't recall eating anything for the past month now, even when he was at the inn, he wasn't really drinking or eating anything.

'It must be his doing, but how?' He looked at Grey with dread.

Coughing up black blood mostly represented him ingesting poison, but since that shouldn't be possible, and from Grey's smile, he could tell it was his doing.

He hastily sent his spiritual sense inside himself, and he was further shocked by his findings. He saw threads of black energy wreaking havoc on his inside, it was a horrifying scene to behold.

"Darkness element? You have the darkness element?!" The young man asked in shock.

"Of course not," Grey denied with a shy smile.

"You arrogant fool, do you think this can stop me?" The young man said with a shady expression.

"Of course not," Grey said with the same expression again. His smile soon vanished before adding, "But this can,"

After saying that, he snapped his finger, and eight inscriptions appeared mid-air, all appearing within two meters of the young man in different positions. They all released a black spike at the same time, impaling the young man from different positions.

It was impossible to escape!

"Argh!"

The young man screamed in pain as the attacks stabbed him on different parts of his body, some even went on the come out from the other side of his body. Luckily, he managed to move his head and his chest, or else, he would've been killed instantly.

"Ah… the art of surprise, such a wonderful technique," Grey moaned in pleasure while looking at the injured young man.

"In… inscriptions! You're an inscriber as well?" The young man looked at Grey, and fear was starting to appear in his eyes.

What else is this young man? He's everything!

"Of course not," Grey said with the same shy smile.

Grey's answer and shy expression annoyed the young man so much that he started vibrating, making the injuries around and inside his body worse.

Blarg!

The young man couldn't keep it in anymore and spat out a mouthful of black blood. This time it wasn't from the injuries, but it was because of pure unbridled rage.