Chapter 290 - Gray World
Theo slowly raised his hand towards the city.
A huge grin grew on his face as the excitement inside his chest became stronger.
He could already feel the huge thundercloud start to move towards the city.
RUMBLE! RUMBLE!
The sky began to shake violently.
’Let’s see what—’
Theo’s expression suddenly changed.
’What?!’
The seemingly endless mana coursing through his body was disappearing at an unbelievable rate.
It wasn’t being used for a spell either.
Instead, it felt like it was simply getting locked away again.
At the same time, the strange changes surrounding his body began to disappear.
The golden lightning flowing around him flickered before fading away.
The water droplets rising into the sky suddenly fell back towards the ground.
Even the gray chaos mana twisted one final time before vanishing into his body.
’Already?!’
Theo tried to hold onto the strange state, but there was nothing he could do.
The black substance covering his body rapidly seeped back into his body, while the dark cracks across his skin disappeared one after another.
Within seconds, the overwhelming feeling of power was completely gone.
Theo glanced around in a daze.
’huh,’ he thought, feeling an immense exhaustion set in.
The strange excitement that had filled his mind moments earlier was rapidly disappearing.
As his body started lowering back to the ground, Theo’s gaze fell on the distant city for a moment.
’Wait...’ he thought weakly. ’Was I really about to attack the city?’
His expression stiffened slightly.
’What the fuck...’
The moment his body touched down on the ground, his legs gave out beneath him.
His vision darkened in an instant as his eyes shut.
Thud!
Theo’s body collapsed on the ground.
...
The moment Theo collapsed, Feng immediately shot through the desert.
’’He’s only fallen unconscious,’’ it said calmly. ’’But I can sense several powerful people moving from inside the city.’’
Owen and Iris nodded right away, their faces slowly regaining color.
Even now, their eyes still fell on the ruined desert below, completely speechless.
’’There’s no way we can explain this,’’ Owen muttered while scratching his head. ’’We better get him and get the fuck out of here...’’
Iris nodded beside him, worry flashing through her eyes as she glanced at Theo.
Within thirty seconds, Feng had already descended into the crater.
Iris jumped off right away and picked Theo’s unconscious body up.
Without hesitating for even a moment, she jumped back on top of Feng with Theo in her arms.
Just like that, the unicorn shot off into the sky again, surrounded by thick emerald mana.
As Owen glanced at Theo’s body, he couldn’t help but shake his head.
’’Do we call off the expedition?’’ he asked, glancing at Iris. ’’We have no idea how long he’ll be out for.’’
Iris clenched her arms even tighter around Theo for a moment.
’’Let’s wait,’’ she finally said. ’’He wouldn’t want us to call it off.’’
...
Meanwhile, Theo slowly opened his eyes.
For several long seconds, he just stared ahead of him in confusion.
An empty gray sky stretched out far above him.
’Where... am I?’
Theo slowly pushed himself upright.
The moment he did, his expression changed.
’What the hell?’
He was no longer in the desert.
Instead, an enormous gray wasteland stretched out endlessly ahead of him.
The ground beneath him was completely flat aside from a few large cracks and covered in something that resembled ash.
But other than that... there was nothing.
No mountains, no trees, no grass. There wasn’t even a single rock sticking out of the ground!
Theo slowly climbed to his feet.
’’Where the hell am I now?’’ he muttered, confused.
As his mind slowly cleared up, everything that had happened before he lost consciousness came rushing back to him.
The breakthrough, his new ridiculous powers and even...
Theo’s expression stiffened.
’’What was I doing?’’ he muttered, glancing down at the ground in confusion. ’’Why did I want to destroy the city?’’
For a moment, Theo simply stood there in silence.
He could still remember exactly how excited he’d felt.
’Was it because of my new affinity?’ he wondered, brows furrowing. ’Or maybe it was the transformation itself.’
Thinking back to the system’s last message, it mentioned granting him an affinity, bloodline and... racial abilities?
Theo didn’t even know what those were!
Then there was the name itself.
’Calamity...’ he thought, clenching his fists.
It wasn’t an affinity he knew even existed.
But of all the names an unknown affinity could’ve received, it just had to be that one.
His mind wandered to the Calamity Covenant immediately.
The organization responsible for countless deaths, experiments and the beast tide on his city.
And now he’d awakened something called the Calamity affinity?
’You’ve got to be fucking kidding me...’
Theo rubbed his forehead as his expression darkened.
He already deeply hated the name.
Worse, after what had just happened outside, he couldn’t exactly argue that it didn’t fit.
’No, whatever it was,’ he thought angrily. ’That was not me.’
Biting down on his lip for a moment, he decided to think about the rest later.
There were more important things to worry about right now.
Like where the hell he was.
Theo’s gaze swept over the wasteland once more.
’Did the system bring me here?’ he thought, raising an eyebrow. ’It seems like the same thing that happened when I awakened the chaos element...’
Only, this place felt kind of different from then.
There were no strange creatures, no mist and no enormous eye watching him from above.
It was just an empty wasteland.
As Theo turned to glance behind him, his eyes suddenly widened.
Far behind him, a colossal stone throne stood completely alone in the wasteland.
It was easily several hundred yards tall, with strange, unknown inscriptions carved into it.
’What... is that?’ he thought, brows furrowing. ’Why is there a throne alone in the wasteland?’
Theo took a step forward, his hand reaching out towards it.
Before he could take another step, the entire wasteland suddenly warped around him.
’Huh? Again?!’
The throne twisted together with the dark gray sky before everything went black.
Theo’s eyes snapped open only a second later, still breathing heavily.
He immediately felt a pair of arms wrapped tightly around him.
Theo blinked several times before slowly looking up.
Iris was holding him tightly against her chest, while the wind rushed past them on Feng’s back.
’’Iris...?’’ he muttered, still completely dazed.
She glanced down in surprise.
’’You’re awake?’’