Affinity:Chaos

Chapter 2022 2022: Strange Small World

The group of youngsters sat by the side as the Elders from each Family tried to open the passage.

Grey and his friends were digesting the information they just received from the Old Lady. From what she said, this was a Small World that does not allow anyone above the age of fifty. However, it is fraught with danger and only those with strength above the Fifth stage of the Sovereign Plane could guarantee their safety. In fact, she said those in the Fifth stage can barely guarantee their own safety and it was preferable if only Sixth stage and above Sovereigns were sent in. In Silvan's group, there is only one Sixth stage Sovereign, with the rest being in the Seventh stage and above. Silvan himself is even a Ninth stage Sovereign, while there were a few Eighth stage Sovereigns like Grey, Klaus, and one young lady whom the group got to know was a Lightning Elementalist from one of the top Lightning Elemental Factions in the Aurora Continent. Her name was Colette Moore.

Klaus knew a bit about this young lady since she became pretty famous a few years ago before the invasion of the Gnomes. Her family was pretty average, having only a Late stage Venerable, but she was able to grow to the Sovereign Plane thanks to her Faction, bringing prestige to her small family. It is also rumored that she is very powerful for her cultivation stage. Of course, all these were the rumors Klaus had heard and he did not know much about the young lady or her strength, but he was sure the bit about her family was right since there was no reason for people to lie about that.

The silver-haired young man was called Gareth, he was from a top Family of Ice users. Although they could not compare to Grey's mother's family, they were still pretty well known. The others did not have anything noteworthy.

While the Old Lady told them about this Small World, Grey asked the important question, why did the Eldenford Family request help from them? He did not believe they were doing it out of goodwill and wanting the youths to grow. And just as he guessed, the Eldenford Family indeed had motives of inviting them, and that was to help Silvan obtain an item that was discovered inside the Small World. All the Eldenford Family cared about was that item, as for anything else they find, they could keep it.

Grey thought about it and did not see anything wrong with their thinking. As long as they do not covet what the Eldenford Family are after, they were free to take whatever they found inside which was a good trade. As for the dangers, they were already aware that any place holding any great treasures will naturally be filled with dangers. Besides, none of them started cultivating a year or two ago, they have all experienced one dangerous situation or another.

Everyone had a tactic agreement and did not try to do anything out of sorts. Even Gareth did not try to speak to Klaus in any demeaning way as they all focused their attention on the passage that was being opened. It took a few minutes before the space before them started to show signs of distortions.

Grey's gaze was fixed on a particular point in the air. Being a Space Elementalist, he was sensitive to any form of spatial fluctuations and had noticed this specific spot since he arrived here. Now it looked like his guess was correct as it is indeed the spot the passage was hidden.

A small dot soon appeared, before quickly turning into a ten meters wide passage.

"Quickly go in, don't forget your objective." The Old Lady called out to Silvan's group. Surprisingly, the Middle-aged man did not object to Silvan's group going in first.

After taking a step into the passage, the feeling of lightheadedness coming with spatial teleportations came over everyone excluding Grey. Being a Space Elementalist, he could protect himself from the feeling of discomfort caused by long distance teleportation. When his vision returned, they were in a Small World that had a somewhat gray outlook. Looking in the sky, Grey was not sure if it was daytime or night due to not seeing the sun nor moon.

"We should get moving." Silvan said while taking to the sky and flying in a particular direction.

The others did not comment, all rushing after him. As they flew through the sky, Grey surveyed the surroundings and was shocked to discover a number of hidden auras lurking about in the mountain range they appeared in. From what he could tell, most of these auras belonged to Magical Beasts that were as strong as Late stage Sovereigns. If there were only a few he would not have been dumbfounded, but in the space of ten minutes of flying, he had sensed nothing less than fifty such auras, and there was even one that radiated a Peak Sovereign's aura. The group took a detour the moment they found this aura as they did not want to get entangled with such a figure, especially when said figure was a Magical Beast. It's common knowledge how terrifyingly powerful Magical Beasts were compared to their human counterparts in the same cultivation stage.

After almost two hours, the group landed in a barren expanse of land.

"From this place we can no longer continue flying." Silvan explained as he landed, he continued seeing the inquisitive gazes from the others, "When we last passed through the place, we were shot down by some of the locals, so it's best to keep a low profile this time so as not to raise their vigilance."

The others nodded.

Grey and his group were at the back, silently following behind Silvan and the others. They had nothing to discuss with Silvan and the rest, so they focused on studying the environment they were in. This place was very strange, when Grey tried to absorb the essence here, although he did not sense any abnormality, he noticed that after only a few minutes, his body started to show signs of rejection, seemingly like it did not want the essence. Normally, this should happen from the moment he attempted it, yet it happened a few minutes after which was odd.