Russell Barnes

"Me? Hahaha… I am a non-blood."

- Grey Mask revealing that he is a non-blood.

"No. I will destroy your soul and everyone else's in here. You are nothing but witnesses."

- Grey Mask reveals his true plans for the trapped players, dismissing them as nothing more than witness, showing no remorse.

"Take them to the prison. I must finish preparations for shutting down the game."

- Grey Mask as he captures the protagonists and is about to shut down the game and kill all the players.

Grey Mask is the alias used by the main antagonist of the fourth Sapphirefoxx comic series Maker's Game. He is a non-blood man who found out about sorcerers a long time ago and learned magic. However, he wished to become a real sorcerer himself.

Appearance
Grey Mask, as his alias suggests, is well-known for the grey-colored mask that he uses to cover his face and identity. Back in 1999, when he found out about sorcerers, his entire face wasn't seen but he didn't wear his signature mask. When he hacked Star Reach Studios, he wore a black hoodie and blue jeans along with his mask.

In Age of Adenturers, in addition to his mask, he wears a black armor and black cloak that covers his entire body, and a quiver for holding arrows that he uses with his crossbow.

History
Grey Mask first appeared in page 1, where it is set back in 1999, Grey Mask encounters a man who had been injured by a fire, and realizing he just found something valuable, he decides he can't let anyone else find out and shoots the injured man. Later, in pages 10-11, where the year is now 2016, Grey Mask breaks into Star Reach Studios, cause a brief blackout and uses that time to hack the Age of Adventurers server directly to prevent players from logging out and giving himself total control of the game. In pages 47-48, it's revealed that Grey Mask has taken over the Source Zone, the spot for the admins to control the games, and has been holding the admins captive to prevent them from getting in his way. He reappears in pages 72-73, after Nick kills the Wanted Player CherryBlossom, Grey Mask and his minions arrive to take her away, and when Nick demands gold for the kill, Grey Mask divides the money equally between Nick, Yuzuki, Hikaru, and Leon, and afterwards, takes his leave with CherryBlossom as his prisoner.

He returns once again in pages 218-223, when he finds out that the creator of AoA, Russell Barnes has logged into the game and Grey Mask is determined to capture the last threat to his plans. He orders his minions to destroy the town and kill anyone that tries to leave, when Yuzuki tries to attack him, she only manages to deal one damage and is killed by Grey Mask. He then proceeds to kill Leon and Hikaru for showing attitude towards him, and threatens to do the same with Chris, but Chris doesn't badmouth him, which makes Grey Mask act merciful. When asked about his goals, he claims that after he gets what he wants, he'll let everyone go, and tricks Chris into working for him and upgrades his armor before taking his leave.

In pages 251-258, he appears after Chris kills the Wanted Player, Steelclaw. After capturing Steelclaw, Chris's party comes by and sees that he is working with Grey Mask. He watches as Chris fights his friends, Chris kills Hikaru, but Yuzuki and Leon manage to kill him, afterwards Grey Mask sarcastically applauds the two for killing Chris, because Chris will simply respawn, but then, Chris is marked as a Wanted Player, and it's revealed that the Wanted Players are all sorcerers. Chris tries to fight back against Grey Mask, but is overpowered and captured by Grey Mask. Grey Mask warns the party to not get in his way again, but when Yuzuki shows him attitude, he shows how he can make things worse, by turning Yuzuki into a male version of herself, and summons a rain in the area before taking his leave.

In pages 263-267, Grey Mask's true intentions are revealed, as he has been capturing sorcerers by marking them as Wanted Players and scanning their blood to find an Emerald bloodline, which is found through Chris. Grey Mask reveals his origin as a non-blood who found out about sorcerers and how he learned magic, but wanted to become a real sorcerer. So when AoA came out, he found the perfect opportunity to get his wish, and he revealed that he intends to accomplish his goal by soul transferring, and the fact that he never intended to let anyone leave AoA, and reveals that he intends to kill the souls of everyone in AoA, with artificial souls replacing them in real life. Afterwards, he hooks Chris to a machine to extract his soul in about 8 hours time.

In pages 275-285, he confronts Hikaru, Yuzuki, and Leon when they break into the Source Zone to rescue Chris. He reduces their healths to critical level, kills the dragon that brought them to the Source Zone, locks them up with the admins, and tells them to enjoy the last hour of their lives. However, Nick has also snuck into the Source Zone and frees his friends and the admins. When Grey Mask hears that the admins escaped, he leaves the room Chris is in to recapture the admins, allowing Chris's friends to free him and give Chris a Magebloom. When Grey Mask returns to see that Chris has been freed, Chris uses his regained magic to fight Grey Mask and successfully kills him. However, he respawns and summons five Level 100 Colossus to confront Chris's group and the freed sorcerers, killing Yuzuki and Leon; Chris tries to fight Grey Mask, but Grey Mask restrains Chris so that he can't use magic. However, CherryBlossom moves Chris's finger for him and everyone is able to escape before they get crushed by a Colossus, much to Grey Mask's anger.

In pages 299-300, Grey Mask rages at having lost his sorcerer prisoners and lash out at one of his minions. He decides to lure Chris to him by using an artificial soul of Chris in the real world to convince Chris's girlfriend, Isabelle into playing AoA. Even though she's paranoid about it, Grey Mask successfully makes her log in to the game. In pages 308-309, Grey Mask arrives to capture Isabelle after she was killed. He quickly kills the player who killed Isabelle, bruises Isabelle's left eye and captures her. Then, he sends an announcement to all players in Mysteria. He reveals that he captured Isabelle and tells Chris to come and get her within two days or he will start torturing her until Chris comes or he decides to move onto another sorcerer, stating that when he's done with her, she will wish she was dead for real.

Personality
Grey Mask is a selfish and power-hungry man who will do anything to get what he wants. He is also heartless and willing to commit murder, as seen in the first page, he killed an injured man to keep his discoveries a secret, and was willing to kill the souls of the 250,000 people trapped in AoA once he got what he wanted, merely dismissing them as witnesses to his crime and showing no remorse in the thought. He can deceptive and cunning, as he managed to trick Chris into working for him in exchange for freedom. He also shows no qualms of betraying those that work for him, as when Chris was revealed to be a Wanted Player, Grey Mask quickly turned on Chris.

Trivia

 * He is the first major antagonist in a Sapphirefoxx comic book series.
 * He is one of the few non-bloods who know how to use magic.