Affinity: Chaos

Boom!

The attack died down and both Grey and the young man came into view. They were both standing in the same spot as before, staring dead at each other. Now, the young man didn't exude the level of confidence he did at the start of the battle.

From their short exchange, he knew there was no way he would be able to kill Grey. He had to defeat Grey first before he should even think of killing him.

Grey was also staring at the young man, multiple thoughts running through his head. He knew this was not the full strength of the young man standing before him, but he was also confident that he would be able to defeat him.

Also, he didn't want to show his full card, he still had to think of a way to kill the young man who attacked him the last time. If he were to go up against that young man, he wanted to use his full strength to kill him in a single attack.

The young man calmed himself and instead of his previous rushed state, he started slowly this time.

He threw a fireball at Grey, knowing fully well that it wouldn't do anything to him.

Grey didn't bother with the attack as he retreated back.

The young man followed up with a shot of lightning bolt that sped through the fireball which just exploded.

Grey saw the attack a little late, but he still managed to dodge to the side, leaving behind an afterimage.

After dodging, he unleashed an attack of his own, with earth spikes shooting out of the ground, aiming for the young man.

The young man dodged the attack, but he sensed another attack from behind him, it was a fire attack. This attack was released by the inscription that appeared behind him.

Although he blocked the attack, he was still pushed forward, heading in Grey's direction.

When he noticed this, he hastily forced his body to come to a halt since he knew going too close to Grey would be dangerous. The gravitational force field was something even though he knew he could fight against it, it would still be able to slow him down for a second.

Just as his body was about to come to a stop, he felt a powerful suction force, and his figure was dragged toward Grey. This time, he had zero control over his body. All he could do was watch himself shoot toward Grey.

When his figure got close to Grey's, he exploded with the lightning element, sending off lightning sparks in all directions. A rain of lightning fell from the sky, aiming at where they were.

Grey was forced to leave him and move back, canceling his technique.

The moment the young man gained control over his body, he attacked.

Grey blocked the attack, but his earth wall was broken to pieces. The young man followed the attack with his fire element.

Grey was kept under constant attacks from him. He didn't want to give Grey any opportunities to attack again, he already knew how deadly Grey was.

The fight soon started to peak with the young man seemingly having the upper hand. It couldn't be helped, even though Grey had a variety of attacks and tricks, when it came to raw attack power, he was still slightly off compared to his opponent.

The young man was more aggressive, and his attack power was stronger than at the start of the battle.

On the side of the Burchard Family.

Worry started to show on the faces of those watching the battle.

They were quite hopeful when Grey started to dominate the battle at one point, but since then, it had been the young man who was controlling the battle. Grey has been forced to dance to his tunes so far.

"Do you think he will be able to win?" Sylvia turned to the leader of their group.

"It's hard to say, he's already done so much but he's still being suppressed. In the end, he's not a true Eighth stage Sage Plane Elementalist." The leader shook his head wryly.

Given Grey's talent, if he were to truly be in the Eighth stage, the leader of this group was confident that Grey would be able to beat his opponent and win comfortably. But since he only used external means to boost his strength to this level, then there was no way he could fully use the strength of a true Eighth stage Elementalist. Of course, he wasn't saying that Grey wouldn't be able to beat an Eighth stage Elementalist, he only meant that if Grey met someone like Grey himself that was in the Eighth stage, he would lose.

"He tried, no one expected he would do this much, to be honest." An Elder complimented Grey's effort so far.

The other Elders nodded to his words when they heard it.

The youths in the group were all awed by Grey's strength. It was out of their expectations that he was this powerful. There were a few people who looked down on him when they first met, there were even some who didn't really think much of him even after he killed that young lady in the Eighth stage.

Now, however, the case was different. Grey was fighting against someone who could be said to be on the same level as some of them. He could even be stronger than a few of them, and he was not losing. Even though he was being suppressed, he hadn't lost yet and had even had flashes of brilliance where he suppressed his opponent.

Unbeknownst to all of them present, Grey was hiding most of his cards because he wanted to make sure the young man would challenge him so he could insta-kill him. If he were to really use most of his cards, even without increasing his strength to the Ninth stage, he would be able to fight the young man in a much better state and not be suppressed by this much.