Affinity: Chaos

Chapter 2224: A Fatal Mistake

The Space Elementalist’s eyes darted once more toward the deeper forest, then back to the four figures surrounding him. Every possible exit had already been sealed. The combined spatial pressure from Grey and the bunny leader made further long-range movement almost impossible. The ancient trees around the clearing stood like silent witnesses, their thick trunks scarred from the earlier exchanges.

Surrounded. The realization settled over him with cold finality. There was no escape.

Grey hovered a short distance away, expression cold and unreadable. ”Last chance. Who sent you?”

The man gave a short, harsh laugh that held no humor. ”You think I’ll tell you anything, boy? Kill me if you can. I’m certain you won’t live long either.”

The threat did not move Grey in the slightest. ”Suit yourself.”

He vanished from where he stood.

The Space Elementalist reacted instantly. Dozens of darkness spears formed around him and shot forward in a dense, overlapping wave while he tried to tear open a small portal behind his back for even a momentary distraction. Grey slipped through the first wave of spears with precise short-range spatial shifts. The remaining projectiles only managed to graze his clothes, leaving thin cuts in the fabric and drawing a few shallow lines of blood across his arms. The half-formed portal collapsed under Grey’s opposing spatial pressure before it could stabilize, the spatial energy dispersing with a sharp snap.

Seeing the direct approach fail, the man suddenly changed targets. He shot toward Reynolds, having judged him the weakest of the group. If he could take a hostage, he might still force an opening to escape. The air behind him distorted as he poured the last of his usable spatial power into raw speed.

A Peak Sovereign bunny appeared directly in his path without warning, intercepting him cleanly. The Space Elementalist’s eyes widened. He twisted mid-air and released a wide slash of compressed darkness to force the creature back, but the bunny only flickered aside and answered with a concentrated burst of force that smashed into his already injured leg.

A pained grunt escaped his lips as the broken leg nearly gave out completely. The impact sent a fresh spike of agony up his spine, and for a moment his vision blurred.

”You rely on beasts to fight your battles now?” the man snarled, darkness swirling thicker around his arms and shoulders. Corrosive mist began to leak from his pores, eating at the grass and leaves beneath him.

Grey did not bother answering. He closed the distance in a blur, blue flames and lightning coiling tightly around his body. The temperature in the clearing rose noticeably as the flames intensified. The Space Elementalist met him with a darkness-coated palm strike. The two attacks collided with a sharp crack that sent a visible shockwave rolling through the clearing, shaking loose leaves from the surrounding branches. Grey’s superior physical strength pushed the man back several meters. Before the Peak Sovereign could fully regain his bearings, Grey was already on him again.

They exchanged a rapid, brutal series of blows. Darkness spears, spatial cuts, and corrosive black mist clashed against multi-element bursts and raw physical power. Each collision left new scars on the ground and the nearby trees. The Space Elementalist fought with the desperation of a man who knew that missing his only chance at a hostage meant certain death. In the middle of the exchange he managed to redirect the Peak Sovereign bunny’s incoming strike toward the onrushing Grey, using a hastily formed spatial fold to alter its trajectory.

Grey was forced to halt and evade, creating a brief opening. The Space Elementalist seized it immediately and charged toward Reynolds once more, eyes filled with grim conviction. This was his last realistic path to survival. Blood dripped steadily from the corner of his mouth as he flew.

Reynolds watched the Peak Sovereign streak toward him without any visible fear. There was no reason for it. Lightning faintly crackled around his arms, but he did not move to intercept.

A second Peak Sovereign bunny appeared directly in front of Reynolds, blocking the man’s path completely. It struck out with its full strength without hesitation, the force of the blow warping the air.

The Space Elementalist had no choice but to abort the attempt and retreat, cursing loudly in frustration. ”You filthy beasts! I’ll skin all of you!”

He barely finished the curse before Grey was already rushing to intercept his retreat, flames trailing behind him like a comet’s tail.

Boom!

He managed to block Grey’s first strike with both arms crossed, but the effort left him wide open. The first Peak Sovereign bunny slammed into his wounded leg again with ruthless precision. Bone ground against bone. The man’s body jerked violently from the pain.

He growled, eyes bloodshot with rage as he glared at Grey. Blood ran freely from the corner of his mouth now. ”You... should have died in that void.”

Grey’s voice remained flat. He drove a lightning-enhanced knee straight into the man’s ribcage with his full physical strength behind it. ”And you should have answered the question.”

The clear sound of ribs cracking rang out across the clearing, followed by a raw, involuntary cry of pain. The Space Elementalist staggered, his darkness armor flickering and beginning to collapse in large sections. In that opening the second bunny slammed into him from the side with full force, sending him crashing into one of the ancient trees hard enough to split the thick trunk from top to bottom.

Bark, splinters, and dust exploded outward. The impact left a deep crater in the wood. The man forced himself upright one more time through sheer will, eyes bloodshot with fury, pain, and a growing undercurrent of fear and dread. He could see it clearly now. There was no leaving this clearing alive. Grey was determined to end him, and the two Peak Sovereign bunnies left him no room to breathe.

”You’ll never live in peace for the rest of your life,” he rasped, voice hoarse.

As the words left his mouth, his body began to glow with a gentle but increasingly brilliant light. This was different from the violent self-destruction of his earlier companion. The energy gathering around him felt refined, deliberate, and laced with a strange tracking intent that made the air itself seem to tighten.

The Space Elementalist’s maniacal laugh echoed through the trees, raw and broken. ”Hahaha! Since I’m going to die, I’ll make your life a living hell!”

His voice rose to a ragged yell. ”With what’s left of my life, this mark will expose your whereabouts to every Gnome and Necromancer who gets within a certain distance. You’re screwed!”

The bright light compressed rapidly into a small, intensely glowing dot on his forehead, then shot straight toward Grey like a streak of pure tracking essence, moving faster than most Peak Sovereigns could react.

Grey made no effort to dodge. Instead he looked at the dying Peak Sovereign with something close to mild contempt, as if watching a child attempt a poorly executed trick.

He simply stretched out one hand. The beam of light was caught mid-flight as if it were a physical object. Around Grey’s hand, a nearly visible layer of dense spiritual sense wrapped the captured energy and held it firmly in place, preventing it from latching onto anything.

Grey stared at the man with a faint smirk. ”I’m sorry, but I’ve dealt with this exact trick ages ago. I’m not falling for it again.”

The Space Elementalist stared in stunned, almost vacant disbelief. He could not comprehend what he was seeing. At his cultivation level, that final life-forged mark should have been nearly impossible to block or evade once released. Yet Grey had neither blocked nor dodged. He had simply caught it like an insect and held it helpless.

”How...?” The word left the man’s lips in a hoarse, broken whisper. ”How is that possible...?”

Grey closed his fingers. The captured tracking mark shattered into harmless motes of light that scattered across the clearing and faded into nothing.

The last of the Space Elementalist’s strength left him with the complete failure of his final gambit. His darkness armor collapsed entirely, dissolving into black mist that drifted away on the wind. He tried to gather essence for one more attack, one more spatial hop, anything at all, but nothing answered his call. His broken body had reached its limit.

Grey did not give him another chance to speak or struggle.

He closed the remaining distance in a single step. Blue flames and lightning condensed around his right fist, reinforced by the full weight of his tempered physical body and a sharp, cutting edge of spatial force. At the same time the nearest Peak Sovereign bunny moved in perfect coordination, slamming into the man’s back to pin him in place and prevent any last desperate movement.

Grey’s fist drove straight through the remnants of the Peak Sovereign’s defenses and into his chest with a heavy, final impact.

The light in the Space Elementalist’s eyes flickered once. He looked down at the arm embedded in his torso, then back up at Grey. A final sound that might have been a curse or a broken, disbelieving laugh escaped his lips.

Then his aura collapsed entirely.

Grey pulled his hand free and stepped back. The body of the Peak Sovereign hung in the air for a brief moment before falling to the forest floor with a dull, final weight. It did not move again. Blood seeped into the moss and soil beneath him.

The clearing fell quiet except for the faint settling of disturbed leaves, the soft creak of the split tree, and the residual crackle of fading elemental energy. The two Peak Sovereign bunnies returned to the bunny leader’s side without a sound. Reynolds exhaled slowly, the tension leaving his shoulders. Void flicked his tail once from Grey’s shoulder, expression unimpressed.

Grey glanced down at the corpse, then swept his senses across the surrounding forest one more time to confirm no further threats remained nearby. The mark he had placed earlier had already dissipated completely with the man’s death. Only the scent of blood, scorched wood, and residual darkness essence lingered in the air.

He turned away from the body.