"I've been waiting for you two."
Both youths jumped in fright when they heard the voice. Of the five of them, they were the weakest. Seeing the other three dead, they instinctively wanted to escape from here as far away as they possibly could.
They turned around only to see Grey.
When they realized he was alone, they breathed a sigh of relief. Even if Grey was strong, it wasn't to the extent he could kill them, right?
"What are you doing here?" The youth called Nathan asked coldly.
He had striking gold hair, beautiful aquamarine eyes, and a slender body. The only thing that spoilt his looks was his unexpectedly huge front teeth. They were just like that of a rabbit, sticking out no matter how he tried to cover it up.
Even though he tried to hide his fear, it was still evident in his eyes.
"Killing people," Grey replied casually.
"Huh!" The other youth exclaimed, not expecting Grey to be this forthright.
"You're saying you killed them?" Nathan asked, pointing at the corpse on the ground.
Grey was the only one present, so naturally, he should be the one who killed them. But, Nathan and the other youth couldn't believe he was the one who killed all of them. They had seen him fight against Quinn previously so they knew he was powerful, but at that time, Quinn suppressed him, so even if he could kill the other two, there was no way he could kill Quinn.
Grey couldn't be bothered with their thoughts, he slowly walked towards them. He wanted to end this quickly and return to his friends. He had already spent a long time here.
Twenty minutes later.
Grey could be seen walking away from the forest. Five figures were lying motionless close to each other.
Although fighting against two opponents was harder than fighting against one, given that both youths were already consumed by fear, they couldn't really put up much of a fight. After killing them, Grey didn't forget to search them properly, along with the others.
Unlike Quinn, they didn't have any valuables in their person, he only found some items after rummaging through their bags. From the four bags, he managed to obtain two earth element techniques, one wind element technique, and four water element techniques. He also found three elemental weapons and about a dozen or so elemental stones.
'The gains aren't bad. Although I expected more given the strength of their group, I'll have to do with this. Maybe, I could rob people.' Grey pondered while walking back to the building.
The idea of robbing others was quite interesting since he wouldn't need to worry about searching for treasures, but after thinking more about it, he decided against it. Doing something like that would mean creating a huge number of enemies for himself, unless, he'll have to kill everyone he robs.
But he wasn't that type of person. He might be cruel to his enemies, but that doesn't mean he'll start killing people who didn't even offend him. Had Quinn not tried to kill Alice, or tried to search them forcefully with the intent of killing them, then he wouldn't have killed them. All in all, this was something he'll think about some other time, for now, it's time for another upgrade.
"The others should be up by now." Grey increased his speed and darted towards the building quickly.
At the building.
Alice, Klaus, Reynolds, and Void were currently looking at the forest in shock. Of the four, Void was the first to wake up, after not finding Grey, he decided to explore the building. On getting to the top floor, he was left dumbfounded by what he saw. The others followed him to the top floor after they woke up and couldn't find Grey.
For almost thirty minutes now, they had been looking at what used to be part of a forest.
"How did this happen?" Klaus couldn't help but ask.
"I don't know," Alice and Reynolds answered.
They were just as astounded as Klaus was. How could a well-nourished and lively forest turn into this within a matter of hours?
"This should be the result of an attack," Alice said with a hint of uncertainty after contemplating for a while.
She still had doubts about it though, but since only some part of the forest was like this, an attack was the only thing she could think of. But, how powerful can one be to unleash such a catastrophic attack?
"Grey should know the cause. But he isn't here, unfortunately." Reynolds said.
"'Hopefully he's safe," Klaus said.
Normally, given the strength of the people who entered the trial land, they weren't scared for the well-being of Grey. But, the current state of the forest frightened them. If there was someone who could unleash such a powerful attack among those who entered the trial land, then there's a chance that Grey wasn't the person's match.
And since the attack wasn't far from the building, they felt there was a chance Grey was battling against such an opponent. No matter how much confidence they had in Grey, they still felt fearful seeing the state of the forest. Now, all they could do was hope Grey didn't battle against this person, and even if he did, he should be safe.
Another ten minutes went by before they saw a figure moving towards the building from the destroyed forest at an outstanding speed.
"It's Grey," Klaus said happily.
The others impatiently stood up from their sitting position and ran closer to the hole on the wall.
"*Sigh* Thankfully, he's okay." Reynolds breathed a sigh of relief.
When the group confirmed it was Grey, they felt like a heavy stone had been lifted off their hearts. They had been worried sick when they couldn't find Grey, only Void wasn't bothered since he could still feel the connection he had with Grey.
Void was able to sense this was a darkness element attack since he also had the darkness element. The first person that came to his mind was Quinn, but he couldn't be sure since Quinn wasn't the only Darkness Elementalist.
Grey was left speechless when he was bombarded with questions by the group. It took him a while before he managed to tell them this was the result of a technique Quinn used.
"He's that powerful?!" Reynolds exclaimed in shock.
"I was also surprised by the power of the attack. If not for my quick getaway, I'd have most likely been severely injured if I didn't die from it." Grey replied still fearful of what might have happened to him had he tried to block the attack.
"It's good you've killed those bunch of hateful fellow though. I'm quite sad I wasn't able to witness it." Klaus said sadly.
He wanted to be present when Quinn died, but he was still satisfied since he died under the hands of one of them. It was better than him escaping, right?
"We should forget about that and focus on the matter at hand. I think since you all have recovered completely, it's time we refine the Great Earth Essence Liquid." Grey said looking at the others seriously.
If they didn't want to refine theirs now, he'll still refine his. Although the Great Earth Essence Liquid wouldn't give them a sudden boost in strength and might only push them a stage higher, the benefits in the long run were amazing. Even if he didn't refine anyone, it wouldn't change anything since he could still increase the grade of his elements in the future.
But being in a place like this, it was important to increase your strength at any given chance. You can never tell what might happen, so improving further was a must for him.
"I originally planned on asking about that, it's just seeing the forest made me forget about it temporarily," Alice said.
"Hmm, okay then it's settled. We should all head back into the building. I have some essence stones with me, I'll use them to create a protective array around our rooms." Grey passed one drop of the Great Earth Essence Liquid to them.
Each drop looked like a single teardrop that had congealed over time and formed into a pearl. It was quite comfortable to hold and just breathing in the air around it nourished the body.
After each person collected their drop, they went over to their rooms. Grey quickly went to work to set up the protection arrays before going to his room. The array required him to use four essence stones, so he had to collect from Klaus to complete the last array.
Grey's room.
"Here's one for you," Grey threw one of the drops to Void.
'Hmph! I thought you had forgotten about me," Void snorted, but was still unable to hide his happiness.
'I'll improve the grade of my wind element, it's the one with the lowest grade currently. I still have four drops left with me, I'll think of who to give them to later on.' Grey thought before entering into a state of cultivation.
Since he wanted to improve the grade of his wind element, then he'll carefully guide the drop to merge with his wind essence bead. The bead will then slowly absorb it. Given his speed in absorption, it should take him at least half the time the others needed.
