Lightning Is the Only Way

Realizing the danger they were in, Skye started speeding up even more. Gravis had said that they would be safe as soon as they reached the building on the horizon. Gravis was not part of the Heaven Sect yet, and the guilds could still kill him without punishment, for now. Everyone was outside of the Heaven Sect's property, and they surely wouldn't dare to do anything as soon as Gravis reached the building.

The person in the Spirit Forming Realm, down below, was a new disciple that had recently broken through. If he managed to kill Gravis, he would receive a lot of Energy Stones, and that would help him when he would eventually go to the Lightning Sect in the Core-Continent. Even if another person managed to kill Gravis, he would still get at least 50% of the eventual earnings because he held down the fort in front of the Heaven Sect.

There were still around ten kilometers to go before Gravis reached the Heaven Sect's property, and disciples from the Lightning Guild quickly started following Skye from down below. Those disciples were taking a massive risk in attacking Gravis. If Gravis died before he reached the Heaven Sect, they would all be fine, but if he reached it and joined them, things could get ugly.

The Heaven Sect required strength and pride from their disciples. Heaven would give them tempering experiences and enemies they could win against, and that, of course, included enmities that the disciples had created. Right now, Gravis couldn't fight anyone from the Lightning Guild who guarded the Heaven Sect. Everyone was, at least, at the eighth level of Energy Gathering.

Surprisingly enough, there were actually also people from the Fire Guild, but they couldn't compare to the forces of the Lightning Guild. Just like Flern had said, the Fire Guild wanted to use Gravis as tempering for their disciples, and they also used him to weed out the disciples who weren't up to par. So, the Fire Guild only sent disciples in the sixth and seventh level of Energy Gathering. If the disciples they had sent were too strong, then that would defeat the whole purpose of tempering.

The disciples of the Fire Guild had heard the words of the Spirit Forming expert of the Lightning Guild, but they weren't intending on shooting Gravis down. Shooting Gravis from afar was not a fight and wouldn't help in their tempering. They simply watched as the disciples of the Lightning Guild started shooting their lightning into the sky.

Many lightning bolts reached Gravis and Skye, and Skye did its best to evade those bolts. It was challenging to hit Gravis since he was over five kilometers away and was also moving with incredible speed. Over 80% of all attacks didn't even arrive at their surroundings.

Skye managed to evade all the other lightning bolts. The speed of the lightning attacks increased with the additional strength of the attacker. Still, even at the ninth level of Energy Gathering, those attacks were nowhere close to the speed of actual natural lightning. If those attacks were just as fast as natural lightning, Gravis could only wait for his death.

Skye avoided every single attack, even if some of them weren't easy to evade. By coincidence, some of the attacks arrived together to block nearly every direction. Gravis' luck was showing its full effect in that scenario. How could so many attacks arrive with such excellent timing while the disciples could only blindly shoot?

It was already a miracle that 20% of the attacks reached his surroundings. Skye was moving over 400 meters per second, and hitting a small area of around 50 meters from five kilometers away was incredibly difficult. If Gravis went to the Heaven Sect without Skye, he would have long since died.

After several seconds, only five kilometers were left until Skye would be directly above the Heaven Sect. Gravis had a chance, and he grew excited. Safety was close! Gravis still counted as a Heavenborn in the Heaven Sect's eyes, and they wouldn't allow anyone to hurt him, no matter their reason. The Heaven Sect was the hegemon of this world, and no one dared disrespect them.

Gravis guessed that even if all sects combined their strength to attack the Heaven Sect, the Heaven Sect would still come out victorious. The Heaven Sect had the backing of Heaven, and no one in this world could go against Heaven. Heaven might even ignore its own rules to strike some sects that attacked the Heaven Sect.

Heaven was also not allowed to communicate with the mortals, even if they were its children. Of course, Heaven regularly ignored that rule and gave the Heaven Sect lots of missions to complete. The Heaven Sect had to know whom they should kill, after all.

Yet, Gravis was sure that his father forced Heaven to abide by its rules if it involved Gravis. Heaven wouldn't dare to expose Gravis in this situation. Strength was everything, and Heaven was the strongest in this world. It could do whatever it wanted, even if it broke its own rules.

But there was always someone stronger out there, and Gravis' father had way more power than this lower Heaven. Gravis knew that his father could slap this Heaven into oblivion without even moving, and that was why Gravis was so sure that Heaven wouldn't break its rules. If Gravis reached the Heaven Sect, he would be safe for a long time.

"Alright, everyone. You all had your chance, and you failed," shouted the Spirit Forming expert and readied some lightning in his right hand. "Now, it's my turn!"

The expert shot his lightning into the sky, and it was way faster than all the others. The lightning quickly closed in on Gravis, but the expert misjudged Skye's speed, and the lightning would miss at this rate. The expert didn't care, because there was no reason to aim properly when attacking Gravis. He was a Spirit Forming expert after all, and what was it that made people in the Spirit Forming realm so powerful?

It was their Spirit, which exponentially increased their control over their element. Everything with their will could be controlled inside of their Spirit Domain. His lightning was shot by him, which meant that it had his will imprinted on it, and thus, allowed the expert to control his own attack remotely.

His lightning bolt quickly changed direction and shot straight towards Skye. Gravis had learned a lot about the Spirit Forming Realm in his theoretical classes in his homeworld, so he also knew that those experts could control their attacks remotely. He had long prepared himself.

When the lightning reached a distance of 60 meters, Gravis quickly concentrated his Will-Aura on it, shaking the will. It was impossible to destroy the will in an attack, and Gravis could only shake it slightly to distort the will for a second. The attack would still continue, but controlling it from a distance was nearly impossible in that scenario.

This was another advantage that someone with a Will-Aura had over someone without one. This advantage would only show itself in the Spirit-Forming Realm because only people at that level would be able to control their attacks remotely.

The Will-Aura didn't decrease the attacking power of the attack or its speed. It could only hinder the control. That was also why using one's Will-Aura on an attack was senseless while fighting against people in the Energy Gathering Realm. They couldn't control their attacks remotely, either way.

Gravis quickly used all his strength to throw his saber upward, which created a counterforce that forced Skye downwards. The lightning bolt passed over their heads, and both of them could feel its sheer power. If it hit them, they would surely die.

The expert looked at Gravis, and his eyes widened when he noticed that his control of the attack weakened. He had not expected that Gravis' Heavenly Pressure was already this powerful. With such a domineering Heavenly Pressure, Gravis counted as an immense genius, even for a Heavenborn.

The expert clenched his teeth, and his fury erupted. He could already see what would happen in the future. Gravis would probably quickly reach the Spirit Forming Realm, and would then challenge the disciple to a life and death battle. The bad part about that was that the disciple had to accept this challenge. The Heaven Sect would enforce its rules, and it didn't matter if the Lightning Sect accepted or not. The duel would happen.

The expert got his control back a second later but ignored his previous attack. It was faster and better to shoot a new one. He quickly shot two lightning bolts at Gravis and angled them to hit him directly. The Spirit Forming expert was only in the first stage of the Spirit Forming Realm: The Seed Stage.

At such a great distance, he could only control one attack at a time. He might be able to control multiple attacks in total, but he had to switch his control around to do that. It could be compared to a one-armed person who had to activate two levers. The person could only activate them one by one.

The expert angled the attacks so that one would hit Skye directly, while he controlled the other one to prepare for all eventualities. Gravis would have to dodge the first attack, and the expert could angle the second bolt to hit Gravis' new position.

"I doubt that you can evade this one!" the expert said with clenched teeth.