Lightning Is the Only Way

Gravis looked over at the other two battlegrounds and saw Escura running along the tree's trunk, destroying everything in sight, while Flern used his fire wheel to chase the bird. The only reason why the bird was not yet reduced to cinders was that it mainly tried to dodge and keep Flern at bay.

Gravis quickly used his full power and charged towards Flern's current location. Flern was moving very quickly with his fire wheel, but it was obviously not optimized to charge along a vertical surface. Gravis gained ground quickly.

BZZT!

Gravis shot a weak lightning bolt at the bird. The bird got hit, but it didn't hurt at all. It only noticed the lightning and turned to Gravis. Gravis then shot a small bolt to Escura's location. The bird watched a little but then understood what Gravis wanted. It had already seen that Gravis was fighting the other humans, so, for now, it thought of him as an ally.

The bird quickly charged towards Escura's location, passing Gravis. Flern, of course, followed. Gravis' and Flern's eyes locked onto each other, and they both radiated battle-intent.

BOOM!

Gravis could easily move in an unpredictable manner with his lightning movement and easily evaded the fireball. Flern didn't have this luxury, and Gravis destroyed his fire wheel with a well-placed lightning bolt. The fire wheel blew apart, and Flern used one last kick to catapult him towards a lower branch.

The branch was a hundred meters below him, but fire disciples had it very easy to survive high falls. Fire came out of his soles, and his descent slowed.

BZZT!

A lightning bolt flew at Flern as he was in the air, but Flern was very experienced in fighting. He quickly held his arm up and shot fire out of his hand while stopping the fire on his feet. This accelerated his descent again, and he evaded the lightning bolt.

Gravis saw this and narrowed his eyes. Hitting Flern was difficult. Gravis shot more lightning bolts, but they were always either on Flern's direct position or slightly above him. Flern could only evade by accelerating his fall to not get hit.

Flern realized what Gravis was planning. He wanted to stop Flern from mitigating the fall, and if Flern tried to slow his fall, he would get hit by a lightning bolt. On top of that, if he threw his fire against the lightning, he would be pushed back and might miss the branch entirely. Without his fire wheel, he would have incredible difficulty in getting back to the top of the tree.

"Tch," spat Flern as his whole body was encased in flames. Every direction had the same push back, and he only needed to stop the flames in one direction to shoot into it immediately. This gave him a lot more control in the air. Theoretically, he could even wholly halt his fall, but that would need an unreal amount of Energy. Even this fire armor already wasted a lot of Energy.

Yet, Flern started moving around gracefully in the air. It looked as graceful as a flying bird, except that Flern never rose into the air. He was not flying. He was only falling gracefully.

Gravis also slowly got issues with his Energy. He had used a lot of lightning and had also kept up his lightning movement for the entire time. He didn't have the massive Energy resources of Escura and Flern. It would be incredibly difficult to fight Flern in his current condition.

Gravis quickly thought of another plan and shot down at the branch, where Flern would land, with all his power. He quickly reached it while Flern was still 50 meters away. Flern looked down at Gravis with a bloodthirsty smirk. "Yes, no more running," he shouted to Gravis. "Let's have a proper fight to the death, AHAHA!"

Yet, Flern's expression changed when he saw what Gravis was doing. Gravis was infusing his weapon with lightning and started hacking at the branch. This branch was only three meters wide and way smaller than the earlier one. Gravis quickly severed half of it and went into the newly created ravine in the branch.

"What are you doing? Stop that!" shouted Flern in rage.

Gravis ignored him and angled himself, so his feet touched the branch, and his hands the trunk. Then, he used all his strength, and the branch started cracking loudly.

"Stop that, coward! Fight like a man!" Flern shouted in rage, but Gravis didn't stop and quickly tore the half-severed branch off. The branch flew away into the distance and fell to the ground. Gravis looked at Flern and stayed on the tree, while Flern was falling.

Flern's rage exploded, even more, when he saw Gravis producing lightning in his hand, daring him to come closer. Gravis might not be able to hit Flern when he was so far away from the tree, but if Flern came closer, he would be dead.

Gravis could move around on the trunk of the tree like a squirrel thanks to his lightning movement, but Flern was currently in the air, and even if he reached the tree, he would have incredible difficulty chasing Gravis on the tree. If they were on the floor, this entire scenario wouldn't have happened.

Even though Flern was a hothead, he wasn't stupid. He knew that if he decided to boost himself to the tree, that Gravis would already be waiting there. Gravis was following Flern's descent to the floor and was always on the same height as him. Gravis even charged through the fire like it didn't exist, which slightly surprised Flern. Yet, he only grew more frustrated.

"Cheater, you're playing dirty!" he shouted loudly, his voice filled with absolute rage. "Fight fair like a man and face me head-on!"

"No," Gravis said.

Flern waited for more, but nothing more came from Gravis. For some reason, this only made him angrier. "When I return, I'll tear you to pieces! You better never leave this tree again, or you'll be dead!" he screamed in anger as he continued falling to the floor.

Some seconds later, Gravis stopped chasing Flern and turned around. Gravis quickly shot up the tree again.

"Hey, where are you going? Stay here and fight!" shouted Flern as Gravis left his vicinity.

Gravis simply ignored him and charged up the tree towards the other battleground. Flern continued cursing him as he continued falling. Flern was already nearly two kilometers below the other battleground, and he knew that he couldn't return that easily.

Flern looked around, but his expression turned from rage to shock as he saw an intact fire wheel falling pretty close to him. That was one of the other disciples', and he couldn't believe the coincidence that it was intact and falling so close to him. "Huh, that's some dogshit-luck, alright."

Flern quickly boosted himself over to the fire wheel and managed to catch it before it hit the ground. He then slowed their descent and landed on the floor with the fire wheel in his hands. With practiced ease, he climbed it and started ascending the tree again.

"Just wait for me!"