Affinity:Chaos

The man didn't take any offense with Klaus' words, he prepared himself and attacked.

His fire attack was stopped by Klaus' domain. Klaus didn't use anything else, he didn't set up any defenses, he only caused it to snow on the platform and the man's fire attack was extinguished before it got close.

To the ordinary eyes, Klaus used the extreme cold in his domain to stop the attack, whereas in truth, there were a lot of things involved. Klaus not only made use of his ice domain, but he brought to full effect the power of the heavy water. Integrating it into his domain made each snow falling in the domain one of substantial power.

It took multiple snowflakes to take down the attack.

"He always wants to look good. I'm afraid he'll hit himself on the foot one day." Grey shook his head at the antics of his friend.

Klaus, on the other hand, used the side of his eyes to spy and see the reactions of the crowd watching.

Seeing their flabbergasted expressions, he chuckled, while giving Grey a look of disdain. He wouldn't have had to work this hard, but Grey's performance was just too extraordinary. He knew he couldn't match him, but he didn't want to be left behind.

The challenge was just like the previous one, only this man was stronger than those skeletons. If all Peak Venerables are graded in terms of strength, then the skeletons were grade one Peak Venerables, while this man was a grade three Peak Venerable.

Grey and Klaus were far above their grades. So defeating them with one attack was within their ability.

Reynolds had it better since he was not yet at the Peak, so the strength the man shows is on the same stage as himself. But once he adds the Elemental Warrior to it, his strength shoots well above that of a grade five Peak Venerable, hence his superior ability.

Klaus didn't attack immediately, he gave the man time to prepare himself to block the attack, "Are you ready?"

The man didn't reply to his question. He knew the man wouldn't reply, but he just felt like asking.

With all eyes on him, Klaus took in a deep breath and his domain shrunk in an instant. A single long silver ice needle appeared. The air around the needle started to show signs of freezing.

"What the hell?!" Someone exclaimed from the crowd.

Everyone was in awe at Klaus' ability with his ice. One has to recall that this was a volcano and all Water Elementalists, especially ice users are at a disadvantage, yet Klaus was outright freezing the hot air.

Now, a few of them started to understand the reason behind his cockiness. For someone as talented as Klaus, he had every right to be cocky. A proud genius is not arrogant, they just can't hide their glow.

To most people present, they felt they would act in the same manner as Klaus. They didn't see anything wrong with how he was acting in the first place.

The ice needle floated in front of Klaus, it was like he was giving everyone time to take it in its full glory. After making sure everyone had seen it, he pointed at the man.

No one saw the ice needle move, but they all saw Klaus walking in Grey's direction.

The man started to turn into an ice sculpture. Just as Klaus said he would, he turned the man into an ice sculpture.

The array formation was working hard to unfreeze the man, but the ice was faster. Before long, the man was frozen completely.

Silence.

The entire place fell into silence. Not just here, but outside the volcano, in the large Hall of the Phoenix Faction, everyone watching the scene held their breaths, unable to react.

Klaus froze the man with such a powerful technique. The most shocking aspect of the attack was not the extreme cold, but the speed. The attack was so fast that very few people caught sight of it, and they were all above the Venerable Plane. Even Grey wasn't able to keep up with it. Those at the Early stages of the Sovereign Plane could barely keep up with it.

The middle-aged man said after a few seconds, "What sort of monsters are they? They will wreck the ancestor's formation at this point."

The middle-aged man was on the verge of crying. The formation was in charge of giving the man energy to attack and defend. If he sustained any injuries, the formation would heal it, but it took a large amount of resources.

The man had already used a lot of resources to heal up from Grey and Reynolds' attacks, now, he was fully frozen.

The array was currently working on multiple stages of the trial, so it couldn't put its entire focus on this level, hence Klaus being able to fully freeze the man.

It took a while before the other Elders regained themselves, "Such a frightening Water Elementalist. He's going to be well-known in a few years."

"The Lightning Elementalist is no different." Another Elder added.

"The girl as well. We've not seen her in full strength."

The Elders all started to make their assessments of the group, some of them almost completely forgot about Grey. Yes, he was the one who did the first damage, but Klaus' performance was so exceptional, and since it was the recent one, it overshadowed Grey's performance for now.

….

Back in the Volcano.

The entire place was still silent after Klaus' attack.

It took a while, but the man started to unfreeze. After unfreezing, he looked at Klaus and said, "You passed."

Klaus had a wide grin on his face and said, "It's nothing special."

Grey felt like smacking the back of Klaus' head. What was the point in replying to the man's words? He knew the man wouldn't say anything else, then why bother?

Alice jumped onto the platform, landing before the just unfrozen man. The man opened his eyes and stood up, repeating the same words to Alice.

All eyes fell on Alice, her friends' performances had been nothing short of extraordinary, they all wanted to see if she could repeat the same feat.