Affinity: Chaos

Grey and Klaus left the area and headed straight for their target. Grey had contacted the man he tricked that he was a Gnome. The man has been loyal to him all this while, and he didn't bother to kill him, maybe it was due to the fact that he felt he might be useful in the future.

It took them over a week since they not only had to head to another region, but another Continent entirely. This time, Klaus opted they should use teleportation arrays since it would be faster. Besides, they had a large amount of stones from the people they've encountered while they had been traveling, it isn't bad to spend a few on the way.

After getting to the Southern Continent, they were directed to a secret location, where they were supposed to meet up with the man.

Klaus hid while Grey waited for the man to arrive. After some hours, the man arrived. Grey didn't know how to react when the man started worshiping him, and from the man's words, there is word from the Gnomes that they planned to invade very soon. So the man seemed to want to get on Grey's good books so he would be taken care of during the invasion.

To be honest, Grey didn't see anything wrong with what the man was trying to do, it was just unfortunate that he was doing it with someone who didn't care about him and wanted to wipe out the Necromancers, just as much as he wanted to wipe out the Gnomes.

Are all Gnomes bad? Definitely not. Will he give a chance to the rest of the Gnome world if it was up to him? Most likely not.

As much as killing the entire Gnome race seems horrible, it's the best choice of ensuring the survival of humans and also preventing future problems. But he didn't have to think about all these for now, he couldn't even keep himself alive given the current situation, much less being the one to decide if all the Gnomes should be killed or not.

For now, his survival is all that he was concerned about, and that of his friends and family.

When the man was done fawning over him, he went straight to the point.

"How many hideouts are here and what is the strength of those hidden there. I need to have an exact number so I can know how they will be used to work when the invasion begins." Grey spoke like a noble.

The man dropped his head and fell deep into thoughts, after a few minutes, he reported.

"There are seven in this region, and I know of three in the next region…"

The man told Grey every detail about each hideout, not leaving out the slightest detail.

Grey was very intentional as he listened, keeping notes on all the hideouts and what could be accomplished.

In total, the man knew about the location of fifteen hideouts around four regions. The one with the strongest Necromancer was one in the next region close to this one that had a Fourth stage Sovereign. As much as it sounded odd that there's only one hideout with a Fourth stage Sovereign, it goes to show just how difficult it is to advance in the Sovereign Plane.

There were a total of five hideouts with people above the Venerable Plane. Each of these five hideouts had five to seven Sovereigns in them. There were a few with Sage Plane Necromancers as the strongest, and then there were some with Venerables. Grey had his eyes set on only those in the Sovereign Plane. The rest could be wiped out with a blink from him.

After everything, he had to come up with a plan. He couldn't carelessly jump into the camp without sufficient planning. Since he only had two more Sovereigns with attack power, Void and Klaus, he needed to make sure they took the best choice in each fight to ensure their safety.

Taking out the strongest hideout wasn't a realistic move to make as the first one, but it was good to take out the next strongest one, which had a Third stage Sovereign. With Grey's ability to cut off the link to the puppets, he should be able to instantly incapacitate his opponent within a short period of time. Without their puppets, most Necromancers aren't really powerful.

Grey told the man to leave and that he would send for him later on.

The man bowed, and just as he was about to leave, Grey gave him a storage ring filled with essence stones.

The man was elated as he thanked Grey before leaving. Klaus was about to step out when Grey suddenly disappeared.

"He's going to jump him, isn't he?" Klaus blurted out when he saw Grey's figure disappear.

There's no other reason for Grey to leave as soon as the man left if not to block him and maybe rob him off the gift he just gave him.

A few minutes later, Grey appeared with a calm expression.

"Why did you give him a gift if you're only going to rob him?" Klaus asked.

"Not that, I just need him under my control so I can send him into the hideouts and switch places with him as soon as he's close to the strongest person there." Grey explained.

"And then you robbed him of the gift?" Klaus asked.

Grey rolled his eyes, opting not to answer Klaus' question.

Of course he went to rob the man. Why should he reward a Necromancer with his hard earned stones. Well, not really hard earned, but it doesn't change the fact that he didn't want Necromancers to have anything good. So of course, he was going to take them back from the man.

Klaus saw Grey's expression and knew he was right.

"Do you think they'll have a way to notify other hideouts?" He dropped the matter of Grey robbing the man.

"Not with me taking control of that guy." Grey grinned.