Affinity: Chaos



Back in the cave. 

"Oh crap! It sensed it!" Void exclaimed and headed for the exit of the cave. 

Grey didn't need to ask what Void was speaking about, with his reaction, he knew for a fact that it was a Rank Eight Magical Beast. If the beast meets them here, they would be in danger. 

….

Outside the cave. 

The trio were waiting to attack the beast, seeing Grey rush out of the cave, they looked behind him, but didn't see any beast chasing after him.

"Is it too strong?" One of them asked hurriedly. 

"It's dead, leave immediately. A Rank Eight Beast is coming." Grey warned them. 

When they heard Grey's words, they froze at first. It hadn't even been more than a few minutes since Grey entered, and they didn't even sense any aura of a fight, yet he said he had killed it. 

But they snapped back to reality when they recalled the last part of his statement… A Rank Eight Magical Beast was coming their way. 

Grey was running this fast, it showed that he was not joking around. 

They ran after Grey when they heard a powerful roar getting close to them. 

Void and Grey had hid their auras, trying to move as subtly as they could. 

'This is why I like traveling alone. I will not take any other missions.' He sighed. 

If he was alone with just Void, he wouldn't have to worry about the safety of others and would've easily found a place to hide and wait until the beast was gone, but now, he had to take the safety of the trio into account. 

As they ran through the forest, they encountered more beasts, but Grey and Void made them retreat in a flash. 

The sound of the beast's roar was getting lower and lower. The duo didn't leave any signs of the battle. Luckily, he killed the Three Headed Deer with one clean strike, so there was no way others would know about it even if they entered the place, with the exception of a few powerful individuals. 

After running for about thirty minutes or so and confirming their safety, Grey stopped. The trio stopped as well, all gasping for air. 

They were not as fast as Grey, and flying in a situation like theirs was not the best option, so they had to move on their feet. 

"It stopped chasing us over twenty minutes ago." One of them complained while catching his breath. 

Grey took a glance at the person and didn't respond, if not for the beast's roar, the trio would never have realized they were being chased by a Rank Eight beast. Void was the main reason he was aware of it, he only sensed the beast after coming out of the cave. 

While they were running, he lost track of the beast's aura, luckily, Void was with him. Void was able to locate it and tell him the beast was still chasing them. 

If the trio had been alone, they would've most likely died under the claws of the beast by now. 

"I hope you weren't lying when you said the Three Headed Deer was dead." Another one of them spoke up later on. 

A large beast appeared beside them, and the dead Three Headed Deer was lying there quietly. Of its three heads, only one of them had a hole in it, the others were untouched. 

The fact that Grey could kill it with such ease shocked them. 

They inspected it and found out it died from just this one attack. After exchanging glances with each other, they nodded to Grey. 

Grey was a quite famous figure in the Faction, and his stories about his strength were widely spread in the Faction, but not everyone acknowledged him. This trio were skeptical about his strength, but now, they completely believed him. 

"What's the plan now?" The young man who had eyes for the treasure asked. 

To be honest, given how scared he was when running away just now, he had killed the idea of even seeing the treasure, much less taking it. 

Grey thought about it and decided to help them out with their mission. He would be leaving the Faction soon to try to see if he could help the young man with the triplet, and given how these guys had been acting, they would most likely die if left alone here. 

When they heard that Grey was willing to assist them with their mission, they were ecstatic.

Their mission didn't take as long as Grey's mission and they completed it within the next few hours. 

….

Some days later. 

Pyrmond Faction. 

The Faction Leader was staring at Grey, feeling some sort of headache. He knew all about the Grand Elder's missions for Grey and had even confronted him a few times, but the Grand Elder didn't seem to care about it. 

Grand Elder Archibald looked at Grey with a cold gaze, he still recalled how he felt when he knew who Grey's father was, and in all honesty, he hated both Grey and his father. 

"You're not allowed to leave the Faction ground without going out for an official mission." Grand Elder Archibald said. 

When Grey tried to leave the Faction some days after handing over the items, he was stopped. Apparently, the Grand Elder placed people at the gate to stop him from leaving the Faction. 

Grey took the matter to the Faction Leader and the Faction Leader summoned the Grand Elder. 

"Since when was that part of the Faction rules?" Grey looked at the Faction Leader. 

The Faction Leader shook his head, "It's not. However, a Grand Elder or Faction Leader can stop an individual from leaving the Faction if they feel like it. It's something that rarely happens, but it does happen, occasionally." 

Grey raised a brow, stunned by what he was hearing. He couldn't believe they were actually telling him that they wanted to keep him in the Faction. 

"Boy, stay in your building peacefully, I have a mission you wouldn't want to miss." Grand Elder Archibald laughed lightly. 

"Your mission will have to wait, Grand Elder, I have assigned Grey to a mission and he will be leaving in a few minutes." The Faction Leader said calmly. 

"What do you mean you've assigned him a mission?" Grand Elder Archibald's tone turned cold. 

The Faction Leader tossed a ring over to Grey and replied, "He will be helping me deliver something private." 

"I want him back within a week." Grand Elder Archibald said. 

"Do I look like a toy to you?" Grey felt irritated with the way the Grand Elder was treating him. 

He knew the Faction Leader only assigned him this mission so he could leave, and he was grateful to him for that. If not for the Faction Leader, he wouldn't have returned to the Faction after the last incident, but he knew the Faction Leader genuinely cared for him, so he returned. 

Grand Elder Archibald left a little annoyed with the Faction Leader.

"What will I be delivering?" Grey asked after the departure of Grand Elder Archibald. 

"There's a rare gem there. I was supposed to hand it over to my sister the last time I went out, but I forgot about it. Now, I want you to help me with this. You should be able to complete the mission within a week at most if you travel with teleportation arrays…" The Faction Leader told him the location of where he was headed and the mission. 

Grey thanked the Faction Leader for his assistance with the Grand Elder and left. This time, he was lucky to find Keith just arriving. 

"Oh, you've broken through." He was a little amazed that Keith had broken through to the Elemental Venerable Plane. 

He had to admit that Keith was a genius, although not on the level of him and his friends, Keith was quite hardworking, this made up for his lesser talent. 

"I was fortunate during my return and got a treasure in the forest a few days ago." Keith replied with a smile. 

"What part of the forest?" Grey couldn't help but ask. During his mission, he knew of the treasure that was about to be born, but he didn't want to involve himself with a potentially dangerous battle, so he refrained from going for it. 

Keith thought for a while before replying, "In the northern part, there was also the corpse of a beast close to it." 

Grey couldn't help but click his tongue at Keith's luck. He not only got the treasure, but the corpse he saw most likely belonged to a Rank Eight Magical Beast, and that in itself was also a treasure. 

"It's good you've broken through. I'm on my way out, I'm not sure I will return for a few months." Grey said to Keith. 

Keith nodded, he knew Grey had been in the Faction since returning from the secret realm, given Grey's personality, he thought he would've left earlier.