Affinity: Chaos

Chapter 2223: Who Sent You?

”Let’s go hunting.”

”You know where he is?” Reynolds asked, curiosity clear in his voice.

Grey nodded. ”I marked him during our fight in case something like this happened. I didn’t really think he would escape.”

Grey had always been a cautious person. During his earlier exchange with the Space Elementalist he had quietly left a mark on the man as simple insurance. At the time it had seemed almost unnecessary. Now that mark was the only reason they still had a clear direction.

He swept his senses across the deep gorge one final time. Nothing remained of the Darkness Elementalist or the two puppets. The self-destruction had erased them completely. Satisfied, Grey turned his attention deeper into the Magical Beasts’ Forest. Through the mark he could feel the man’s general location. The signal was steady and unambiguous. The target was still inside the forest, some distance ahead.

The four of them left the ruined battlefield without further discussion and flew into the denser woodland. The canopy grew thicker almost immediately, filtering the light into shifting green and gold patterns. The air carried the heavy scent of damp earth, crushed leaves, and the lingering residue of the earlier explosion.

....

Farther ahead, in a carefully hidden underground cave, the Space Elementalist sat against the cold stone wall. Shortly after escaping he had carved the chamber directly out of the bedrock and sealed it with multiple overlapping spatial barriers. The seals were dense and carefully layered, strong enough that even a Peak Sovereign sweeping the area above would sense nothing unusual.

His broken leg had been roughly stabilized with darkness elemental energy and strips of reinforced cloth. Pain still pulsed through it with every small movement, sharp enough to make his jaw tighten. He forced himself to circulate essence slowly, repairing torn tissue and cracked bone as best he could. The earlier fight had cost him more than he wanted to admit. Being overpowered and injured by a Ninth-stage Sovereign left a bitter, lingering humiliation.

”How can that child be this strong?” he muttered under his breath. Greed flickered briefly in his eyes. ”I have to make him my puppet.”

The greed faded the moment he looked down at his injured leg. Anger and shame rose in its place. A moment later his thoughts turned to his companion. A faint sadness crossed his face. They had been partners for centuries and had almost always taken these kinds of tasks together. The man had died covering the retreat, and the weight of that fact sat heavily on him.

”Damn it.” He cursed through gritted teeth. ”I’ll kill the boy myself. But I need to recover first.”

Recovery was only part of the problem. He also needed to survive long enough to report that Grey Dawson traveled with Peak Sovereign reinforcements at all times. That single piece of information should be enough to prevent his master from punishing him too harshly. After all, even his partner had fallen in the fight.

For the moment he allowed himself a short breath of relief. The seals held. The forest above remained quiet. He closed his eyes and focused on circulating essence through the injured leg, trying to restore enough mobility to move properly again.

Time passed slowly inside the sealed chamber.

A few minutes later his eyes snapped open.

”Huh?”

A faint, unfamiliar sensation brushed against his perception. Someone was locked onto his position. The feeling was precise, steady, and completely unaffected by the spatial barriers he had erected.

Confusion turned into sharp alarm within seconds when he suddenly sensed the familiar aura of Grey Dawson approaching at high speed, accompanied by three other presences.

”What? How did he find me?”

He had checked the surrounding area thoroughly before sealing the cave. No residual traces should have remained. No one should have been able to sense him through the barriers. There was no way any third party could have reported his location. He tried to force himself to stay calm, but the approaching auras continued straight toward him without the slightest deviation.

”How?” The question hammered through his mind. It should have been impossible for him to be found even by other Peak Sovereigns. Unless...

He immediately began examining his own body with extreme care, sweeping every inch with his mental sense. When he reached his left ankle, the same ankle Grey had seized during their fight, he found it.

A subtle mark, almost perfectly fused with his residual essence. It had been placed with enough skill and precision that he had not noticed it while focused on escaping and treating his injuries.

His face darkened. ”So that’s how...”

He tried to erase it at once, pouring spatial power into the ankle in an attempt to disrupt and dissolve the mark. The process was not instantaneous. The mark resisted stubbornly, clinging to his essence like a burr that refused to be shaken off.

Before he could finish the process, the sensation of the approaching auras grew clearer and heavier. They were coming fast. Too fast.

There was no more time.

He shattered his own seals without hesitation. The overlapping barriers collapsed in a ripple of distorted space. Fresh pain spiked up his broken leg as he forced himself upright, but he ignored it and shot out of the cave in a streak of warped light.

....

The moment the Space Elementalist broke cover, Grey felt the mark surge with sudden, rapid movement.

”He’s running.”

The group accelerated at once. Trees blurred past them in a green rush as they adjusted to the new direction. The once-steady signal now moved erratically, the target clearly trying to shake the lock while fleeing at full speed through the dense forest.

From the Space Elementalist’s perspective the woodland became a chaotic stream of trunks, branches, and shifting shadows. Every spatial hop sent fresh waves of pain through his broken leg. He continued trying to scrub the mark away while flying, pouring spatial energy into his ankle again and again, but each attempt cost him focus and precious seconds. The presence of the pursuers grew heavier behind him with every passing breath.

He changed direction sharply, left false spatial echoes scattered through the trees, and even risked a short, dangerous passage through a minor spatial tear in an attempt to throw them off. The tear tugged violently at his body and almost pulled him deeper into the chaotic void before he forced his way out the other side. None of it worked. The mark remained, unyielding and precise.

Panic began to set in. He could sense them clearly now, four distinct auras closing the gap with cold, methodical precision. The young man who should have been the prey was hunting him without the slightest hesitation or uncertainty. What unsettled him even more than Grey himself was the previously unremarkable white bunny flying at the young man’s side. That small creature’s presence carried a pressure that made his instincts scream in warning.

....

Grey’s expression stayed controlled and focused. He did not waste essence on unnecessary attacks or flashy techniques. He simply followed the mark and steadily reduced the distance, adjusting course whenever the signal shifted.

”He’s getting desperate,” Void observed from his perch on Grey’s shoulder, tail flicking once.

”Good,” Grey replied flatly.

Reynolds kept pace on his left, faint threads of lightning crackling around his arms and shoulders. The bunny leader flew slightly ahead and to the right, ready to intercept if the target attempted another sudden spatial shift or tried to double back.

The Space Elementalist’s movements grew more frantic with every passing moment. His spatial jumps became shorter and less precise as pain, blood loss, and exhaustion mounted. Twice he almost lost control of a forming portal and had to abort and correct at the last instant. Each correction cost him more ground and more energy. The forest that had once felt like protective cover now seemed to close in around him, every tree and shadow turning into potential obstacles.

Finally the options ran out.

Grey felt the mark slow, then stop completely. He immediately spread his spatial senses in a wide net and pressed outward, sealing the most likely escape vectors in the surrounding area. The bunny leader mirrored the action from a different angle, layering additional pressure that made further long-range spatial movement extremely difficult and costly.

The Space Elementalist reappeared in a small natural clearing between several ancient trees, forced to a halt. His breathing was ragged and uneven. The broken leg hung at an awkward angle, barely able to support any weight. Darkness elemental energy flickered unsteadily around his body as he turned to face the four figures that emerged from the trees moments later.

Grey hovered at the front, eyes cold and steady, the mark on the man’s ankle still clear in his senses like a beacon that had nowhere left to hide.

”You ran far enough.”

The Space Elementalist’s gaze burned with fury, humiliation, and residual fear. He tried one last time to tear open a portal behind himself, pouring what remained of his spatial power into the attempt. Grey’s opposing spatial pressure crushed the forming gate before it could fully stabilize. The bunny leader’s presence made any second attempt even less viable.

Cornered, injured, and running out of essence, the Peak Sovereign still refused to surrender completely. Dozens of darkness spears formed around him in a dense, desperate wave and shot forward toward Grey and the others.

Grey did not retreat. His figure blurred as he moved through the incoming attacks with precise, economical motions, closing the remaining distance without wasted movement.

His voice remained flat when he spoke again.

”Who sent you?”

The Space Elementalist did not answer. His eyes darted once toward the deeper forest, then back to Grey, still searching for any possible path that no longer existed.

There wasn’t one.