Affinity: Chaos

Chapter 2173: Overwhelming The Gnomes

”Do you know the reason you are still alive?” Mayor Aldric asked the Gnome held in his grasp. His eyes were cold and ruthless.

The Gnome could not answer. His mouth remained sealed by the Mayor’s essence. All he could do was glare back with pure hatred.

Mayor Aldric knew the man could not speak, so he continued anyway. ”When I told you we would wipe out every last one of you, you asked me with what army. Do you remember?”

He turned his head toward Grey and gave a single nod. Then, in a quiet but clear voice, he said, ”This army.”

The bunny leader appeared beside Grey without a sound. In the next instant, powerful auras began to flare one after another. Within the span of a few heartbeats, more than a hundred bunnies filled the sky behind Grey and the bunny leader. The pressure of their combined presence rolled across the Peak Sovereign battlefield like a heavy wave.

The first nine bunnies at the front all radiated the unmistakable aura of Ninth-stage Sovereigns. A moment later the golden-furred bunny that Elder Voss had been holding earlier flew over from the side and joined them. It too carried the aura of a Ninth-stage Sovereign. With its addition, ten Ninth-stage bunnies now stood in formation. Behind them stretched ranks of Eighth-stage and Seventh-stage bunnies, their numbers easily pushing the total well over a hundred.

The Gnome in Mayor Aldric’s grip widened his eyes in complete disbelief. He could not accept that an entire second army, equal in high-level strength to the human force that had originally arrived, had remained hidden until this moment. Once these bunnies joined the lower battlefield, the Ninth-stage Gnomes and everyone beneath them would face overwhelming pressure.

That was not even the worst part. The bunnies alone would have been manageable if the Gnomes could still use their puppets. Grey’s presence, however, made that option pure suicide. The captured Gnome had already experienced the effect of that mental attack firsthand. He knew exactly what it meant.

Mayor Aldric glanced at Grey. ”Go help the others. We will deal with this one.”

He knew Grey’s most important task on this battlefield was finished. The human forces below were heavily outnumbered. Without support they would suffer serious losses even if they eventually won.

Grey nodded once. He cast a brief look at the brown-clothed Gnome’s still-active Peak Sovereign puppet, then turned and flew toward the main battlefield. The brown-clothed Gnome was one of the rare individuals whose connection to his puppet could not be fully severed by the mental attack. Since Grey had no real interest in a prolonged fight against him, he accepted the Mayor’s arrangement without argument.

The brown-clothed Gnome watched Grey’s back as the young man descended with the entire bunny army following behind him. For a long moment he could find no words. Less than a minute had passed since the battle began. In that short time he had been left completely alone, surrounded by two Peak Sovereigns and a Ninth-stage expert whose strength was already close to the Peak. The sudden isolation pressed down on him like a physical weight. His remaining companions were either dead or sealed. The numerical advantage they had enjoyed at the start had vanished as if it had never existed.

Mayor Aldric did not waste another second. He crushed the neck of the Gnome in his hand, ending the man’s life, then burned the corpse to ash with a surge of fire elemental energy. Without pause he charged straight at the brown-clothed Gnome. Elder Harrington and Elder Voss moved at the same time, their auras flaring as they closed in from different angles.

....

Grey flew directly toward the battlefield where the Ninth-stage Sovereigns were fighting.

Below him the sky was filled with chaotic elemental clashes. Human and Gnome experts traded blows at high speed, and the numerical superiority of the Gnomes was already beginning to show. Several human Sovereigns were being pushed into dangerous positions.

Reynolds was locked in a fierce exchange with a Ninth-stage Gnome and his puppet. The combined attacks of the pair forced him to give ground step by step, though his superior speed still allowed him to avoid the most lethal strikes. The Gnome and the puppet were about to press their advantage when a familiar mental energy fluctuation suddenly swept across them.

Both the Gnome and his puppet froze in place. The light in the Gnome’s eyes dimmed as the connection to his puppet was cleanly severed.

Reynolds, who had been retreating, felt the same fluctuation and immediately understood. He stopped his backward movement and shot forward like an arrow released from a fully drawn bow. Lightning exploded around his body.

A sharp crack of thunder rang out. The Gnome’s head flew into the air as blood sprayed from the headless neck.

The sound drew the attention of several nearby Gnomes. When they saw one of their Ninth-stage companions beheaded so suddenly, they stared in shock. The battle had only just begun. None of them had expected a death on their side so quickly. If anyone was supposed to fall first, they had assumed it would be from the outnumbered human ranks.

”Where are the others?” Reynolds asked as Grey and the bunny army arrived. According to the original plan, Mayor Aldric and the two elders should have joined the slaughter by now.

”There was a small problem during the opening attack,” Grey answered. He briefly explained the brown-clothed Gnome’s resistance to the mental energy attack and the decision to leave the three Peak-level humans to deal with him.

Reynolds understood at once. He gave a short nod and then grinned. ”Then let’s kill a few more before they fully realize who you are.”

By now most of the Gnomes in the surrounding area had stopped staring at the falling corpse. Their eyes were fixed on Grey, Reynolds, and the large force of bunnies hovering behind them. Even many of the human experts who were not locked in immediate life-and-death struggles turned to look.

They had not been told about the bunny army. Seeing more than a hundred bunnies, including ten clear Ninth-stage auras, appear so suddenly left them stunned. Several of them glanced at Grey again with new understanding. Earlier, when Torren had questioned the grounds for attacking the Gnome camp, the Mayor had simply looked toward Grey. Now the reason was obvious. Grey himself, together with the force he commanded, was the reinforcement they had never been told about.

Grey’s expression remained calm as he surveyed the chaotic battlefield. He raised one hand slightly, and the bunny army began to spread out behind him, ready to dive into the fight.