For the last remaining hours in the Formation Array, Gravis decided to check his Will-Aura. He was happy when he saw that it had increased again. Another life and death crisis was over, and he had gotten the reward. Gravis also noticed that he was able to compress his Will-Aura into a small circle now, which he could place wherever he wanted.
The circle would have a radius of five meters, and that increased the power of his Will-Aura even further. Based on what Gravis had seen previously, he expected that his Will-Aura, when fully concentrated, could make someone at the third level unconscious.
Someone at the fourth level probably couldn’t move anymore inside of it. Of course, all of this was only true if the receiver had an average will. There were people with stronger and weaker wills, and Gravis couldn’t be sure about how everyone reacted. He could only calculate according to the general standard.
The strength of a Will-Aura didn’t increase with the cultivation level of a person, but a higher cultivation level for the user would decrease the enemy’s resistance. Its inherent strength stayed the same, but if Gravis, theoretically, were at the ninth stage of Energy Gathering, he would be able to make someone at the ninth stage of Energy Gathering unconscious.
People at the same level as Gravis had some resistance to Will-Auras, while people lower than him in cultivation had no resistance. The resistance doubled for every increase in the level of Gravis’ opponent. Right now, it was strong enough to make someone at the same level unconscious. This was already very terrifying since that showed that no one was his match at the same level.
Of course, there could be others who went through many life and death fights, and they would also have their own Will-Aura. That would reduce Gravis’ Will-Aura’s effectiveness. Gravis pondered about other usages of his Will-Aura, and he got some ideas. Such a Will-Aura was not only useful for fighting.
PLOP!
The Formation Array burst like a bubble, and Gravis started falling. Long expecting this outcome, Gravis simply threw his saber at the nearby tree. Initially, the Formation Array was touching the tree, but a lot of wood had burned off. Luckily, it was only ten-meters, and Gravis could still pull himself to the tree.
Gravis arrived at the tree and looked around. The smaller bird had noticed him and screeched. It then landed on the branch, which led to its nest and cawed at Gravis some more. ’Does it want me to come?’ he thought and decided that he might as well go. If the parent wanted to hurt him, it would have already attacked.
Gravis used his lightning movement to move up the tree, to the branch. When he arrived, he saw the bird, and it walked closer. Gravis wasn’t sure what it wanted, and he shot a look at the parent bird, which was still at the top of the tree. It looked like it didn’t care about Gravis, but he noticed that it shot him a couple of glances from time to time.
Gravis walked closer, and the smaller bird lightly tapped Gravis’ face with its beak. Gravis lifted his hand and touched its beak, scratching it. The bird didn’t seem to mind and let him scratch. It then went closer with its head and rubbed it on Gravis’ side. That was a little weird for him because its head was bigger than Gravis’ whole torso.
Gravis felt more courageous and started ruffling its feathers, which the bird seemed to like since it released some soft caws. Gravis decided to continue scratching it for a while.
"SCREE"
The bird shouted and then shot away. It circled a little on the tree and then hovered in mid-air while looking at Gravis. Then, it started aggressively releasing its winds, still cawing at him.
"Do you want to fight?" Gravis asked involuntarily, even though he knew that it couldn’t understand him. The bird just cawed again and released a wind-wave at Gravis. The wind-wave was not really strong, but it could be considered as a rough shove. Obviously, it wanted to fight.
Gravis was unsure about that and looked at the parent bird. It just looked at him and gestured nonchalantly with its head to its child. Apparently, the parent was okay with it. Gravis looked back at the smaller one and guessed that a small spar couldn’t hurt. They had fought together, and if he could repay it by sparring with it, why not?
Gravis took out his saber and looked at the bird with battle-intent. Even if he was more powerful than it, he should still act realistically and be a good opponent for the bird. The bird cawed at Gravis, and Gravis shot a weak lightning bolt at it. The lightning bolt was about as strong as the bird’s earlier shove.
The bird cawed excitedly and charged at Gravis. Gravis smirked and readied his saber.
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"I wonder when leader will return," said one guy to the other. They were inside a blackish-blue building inside of Earth Town and played some cards. They were the weaker disciples of the Lightning Guild, who had been left behind in the town. They were just staying there so that no one would steal their stuff while the elites were away.
"Don’t know. Could be anywhere from now to a couple of days," the other answered. "That guy is probably very slippery, and they haven’t found him yet. Who knows how long they have to search for him?"
"What if he killed them?" the first guy asked with a serious look at the other one. The other one looked at him with confusion but then noticed that the first guy couldn’t completely hide his smile. The second one just looked at him with a ridiculing look, and then the first one broke out in laughter.
"Man, could you imagine if I actually meant that?" he laughed, and the other guy joined him. A guy who had just broken into the Energy Gathering Realm, killing their whole department of Earth Town? That would be the biggest joke!
BOOM!
The door nearly exploded as someone charged through it. The two guys immediately narrowed their eyes and readied their weapons, but when they saw who it was, they sighed. "Man, don’t surprise us like that," one of them said to the arrival.
The arrival was someone in the fourth level of Energy Gathering and was part of the hit-squad that had been sent to deal with Gravis. "Contact the main guild! Everyone’s dead!" he shouted loudly in panic.
The two guys looked at him in shock and then broke out in laughter. "Senior brother is way better at this than you!" the second guy said through laughter to the first guy.
"Ahaha, yeah, I can’t compare to senior brother!" the guy laughed.
SLAP!
The new arrival slapped the first guy with his full power, and the poor man shot away and hit the wall. The second guy looked in shock at the new arrival and took a deep breath through his teeth.
"I am not fucking joking!" shouted the new arrival directly and with a big serving of aggression. "I saw everything!"
The first guy stood up again and wanted to complain to his senior brother, but he halted that thought when he heard that his senior brother was actually serious. "What happened?" he asked, instead of complaining.
The new arrival released a deep sigh to relieve stress and started narrating. "We followed the tracks of the betrayer, and then we saw him fighting with some bird atop a huge tree. We quickly charged to him and surrounded him atop the tree."
The new arrival started scratching his left shoulder as he remembered a particular memory. "The first one that charged forward was bisected before he could even do something. I was the second one that charged in, but we didn’t know that the huge tree was actually a Magic Plant. I used too much force in my lightning, and that angered the tree."
The guy sighed deeply. "Out of nowhere, it shot me far away. I was over two kilometers up in the air and falling. I thought I was gonna die."
The others looked at him in shock. That was impossible for them to survive. Some elements could help people survive from such a fall, but lightning was not one of them. "How did you survive?" they asked, noting that their senior brother didn’t even seem injured.
"Surprisingly, a demonic beast bird passed right below me. I landed on its body, killed it, tore off its wings, and used them to glide to the floor. I was incredibly lucky," he narrated.
The others looked at him in shock. A bird just so happened to fly below him? What were the chances of that? Their senior brother had probably used up generations of accumulated luck from his ancestors to pull that off.
"Anyway, I landed on the ground and wanted to go back to the fight, but I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. Everything was in chaos, and the whole tree was burning. I only caught some glimpses through the fire and smoke, but when I saw our Leader’s corpse falling out of the fire, I knew that everyone was dead. I immediately ran back to the guild, then and there."
The two were so shocked that they couldn’t believe what he was saying. "Are you sure leader is dead?" one asked for confirmation.
"She fell down the tree in more than one piece," their senior brother said in seriousness.
The others gasped. "I’ll immediately run to the guild!" said one of the two and ran to the back of the guild, where some big demonic beast birds stood. He quickly climbed on one and shot away, towards the main guild.