Lightning Is the Only Way

Gravis waited for 55 minutes, but nothing happened during that time. No one from the Darkness Sect came for him, while Lasar and Old Man Lightning were still away. They were probably still fighting, which was a surprise for Gravis. They should have actually finished by now.

Gravis guessed that they might have already finished fighting but didn't want to distract him. Wanting to know the result of a fight was also a motivation to return alive. Maybe they thought that Gravis would grow "content" when he knew that Lasar won. Maybe they thought Gravis would lose his calm if they told him that Lasar died.

Of course, all of this didn't matter to Gravis. He was used to his companions dying. Something like that wouldn't affect his mind by much. He still had a connection with his companions, but his will allowed him to quickly deal with grief.

In a fucked up way, Gravis also knew that if someone close to him died, his will would become more powerful. Of course, he would never put the people close to him into danger just to increase his will. If he ever did that, he wouldn't be able to consider himself human anymore.

And like that, the time was up. It was time for Gravis to initiate the fight. The midday sun hung above the world, but Gravis saw nothing of that. When he had been in Fear City, he had already seen the constant, black, overbearing clouds in the sky. These clouds were only more extreme around the Darkness Sect.

Even though it was day, the surroundings were darker than a new-moon night. Without Gravis' powerful eyes or Spirit, he wouldn't even be able to see his hand in front of his face. The only visible light was the horizon behind him, which created a small, blue line, stretching into seemingly forever.

Like this, Gravis started running forward. He wanted to keep his Lightning Board a secret. Who knew, maybe he would need it to run for his life? Gravis had to be ready for any eventuality. Losing wouldn't mean the end of one's journey, as long as he managed to stay alive.

Gravis came closer and closer to the Darkness Sect, but as soon as he reached a distance of ten kilometers from the Darkness Sect, a bright light shone. The light vanished just as quickly, and Gravis saw that he was on a beautiful meadow now. He could see green grass, beautiful flowers, and many animals. The light shone upon everything around him, illuminating his surroundings.

'Illusion Array, eh?' Gravis thought. 'The look of the Illusion Array is so much different to real life that probably no one would be fooled by that.'

Yet, just when Gravis thought that his mind started to become woozy. The surroundings started to become blurry and distorted while his mind slowed down to a crawl. His thoughts deviated and got sidetracked. 'This illusion is worse than I thought. Even the birds look distorted. I wonder how birds got to have their wings? How do wings even work?' he thought.

Whenever he tried to think about his current predicament, his mind started going from one tangent into another until he thought about the most menial and unimportant things. Pretty soon, he started looking at the animals like he was a kid in a zoo. He no longer moved forward as he started wandering around.

WHOOOM!

"STOP!" Gravis shouted as he activated his Will-Aura. In a sudden moment of clarity, he managed to activate his Will-Aura and concentrate on what was important. As soon as his Will-Aura activated, his immediate surroundings became solidified. He still only saw the meadow around him, but the area inside his Will-Aura was, at least, not blurry anymore.

Shhhhh.

Gravis noticed that something was hitting his Will-Aura, which surprised him. After all, he had never seen an attack that was able to strike a Will-Aura. He inspected that area more and saw small and powerful strands of darkness being diverted by his Will-Aura. The strands looked like small hairs.

He felt that those strands hit his Will-Aura with quite some force. Even though they only gently flowed around his Will-Aura, it felt like they were putting quite some pressure on it. Luckily, his will was powerful enough to withstand those. A will couldn't be exhausted, so, as long as the Will-Aura held, he would have no issues.

Gravis took a deep breath. 'That was close. I should have activated my Will-Aura earlier,' he thought. 'Well, at least I now know how an Illusion Array feels. There are probably two Formation Arrays working right now. One is there to hinder my concentration, while the other creates an area full of emotional stimulus. If I couldn't concentrate, I would remain in here and grow interested in every single little thing. That's pretty smart.'

BANG!

Suddenly, Gravis' lightning unloaded itself on something close to him. His lightning storage had been full, so multiple strands had been surrounding his chest and neck. Gravis immediately jumped back when he felt his lightning unload. Still in the middle of the jump, Gravis checked his storage and saw that the 20% outside his chest unloaded themselves on something. Gravis was sure that this was not part of the illusion. Something had come close to his chest or neck.

Sure enough, Gravis quickly felt some Energy entering him. Someone had tried to assassinate him just now and triggered his lightning, dying in the process. Yet, the Energy that came towards him was not much at all. It barely reloaded 5% of his lightning. When he felt that, Gravis narrowed his eyes.

"Are you really so shameless that you sent someone at the initial stage of Spirit Forming to test me!?" Gravis shouted. The amount of Energy entering his body could have only come from someone at the initial stage of Spirit Forming.

No answer came.

"Listen here!" Gravis shouted with everything. "Anyone at the Seed Stage and below is only throwing their lives away! You want power, influence, respect, wealth, and similar things, right? In order to get all that, you need to survive! Don't get scammed by Byron and his poisonous words! He might promise incredible rewards, but you wouldn't be able to receive them! Even if you manage to kill me, Byron will just kill you instead of handing over the rewards!"

Gravis' voice grew even louder. "You are darkness cultivators, and you feel you are smart enough to outsmart everyone! Yet, don't forget that you have a Sect Master that went through more than every one of you! If you try to scheme against him, you will only be played to death by him! The only real choice is to keep yourself out of the fight! I swear upon my cultivation that I will kill no one at the Seed Stage or below on purpose, as long as they don't attack me first!"

After shouting all this, Gravis took a deep breath again. He had no idea if that shout had worked, but he needed to remain careful. He might be able to see the darkness cultivators coming under normal circumstances, but the Illusion Array made this nearly impossible.

While Gravis had shouted, he moved the lightning inside his body around. His lightning naturally remained spherical, but that didn't mean that he couldn't change its form. The only reason why it was always spherical was that Gravis needed to concentrate actively on the lightning if he wanted it to stay in any other shape. Doing that for hours or days on end was troublesome, but it was no issue to change its shape in a fight.

His lightning changed until it had the forms of a many pointed, three-dimensional star. There was one round core, while thick strands came out of it like growths. If one saw this without color, they might say that his lightning looked like a tumor. Many small spikes of his lightning touched the skin of his torso, head, neck, arms, and legs. Like this, his lightning would react to any attack.

From outside, it looked like many white dots appeared all over Gravis' body. Right now, he looked more sick than dangerous. Yet, if someone took him lightly now, they would make a grave mistake. Every single dot was connected to his lightning, and if anyone came close to one of those dots, they would feel 10% of his lightning.

Byron knew a lot about Gravis' powers and weapons, but he didn't know about how the Heaven's Balance Cultivation Technique affected him right now. Gravis was sure that his speech from earlier would stop most, if not all people at the initial stage of Spirit Forming. Killing someone at that Stage would give him 5% of his lightning back, which would become a net-loss for him.

Yet, if someone at the Seed Stage attacked him, he would get around 10% of his lightning back. 10% of his lightning would also be easily enough to kill someone at that level. With this, he was basically immune to anyone at the Seed Stage or below.

After taking another big breath, Gravis started walking forward on the meadow. Everything around him looked the same, and he couldn't make out which position was which. On top of that, he had been distracted for several seconds earlier and had turned multiple times during that time. All in all, Gravis had no idea in which direction he had to walk to reach the Darkness Sect.

Yet, that actually didn't matter. As long as Gravis continued walking in one direction, he would either enter the Darkness Sect or leave the Illusion Array's area of effect. As long as he kept walking straight, he would get some results.

Like this, Gravis walked in one direction and closed his eyes and Spirit. The illusion might fool his eyes and Spirit, making him walk in circles. Yet, if he completely ignored everything, he would not get sidetracked.

It was only a matter of time.