Gravis’ insides churned as he heard Wendy. This came out of nowhere and threw all his suspicions about why she wanted to meet him into disarray. "What do you mean?" he asked with narrowed eyes.
Wendy released a dry laugh. "You’re not a Heavenborn. I have felt the Heavenly Pressure of Heavenborn, and I know that they can’t keep their Heavenly Pressure up for more than ten minutes," she explained. "When I saw you keeping your Will-Aura up for several hours, I was already sure that you were not a Heavenborn."
She knew his secret, and he couldn’t risk her fleeing and telling others. He walked closer and took out the jade token. She didn’t seem to mind and didn’t attack Gravis even when she stood inside the Formation Array’s activation range. Even though Gravis knew that she could have told others earlier, he didn’t want to take any chances.
"Tell me," started Gravis. "If you already knew that I am not a Heavenborn, then why didn’t you just publicize it? If you did that, I would already be dead."
Wendy smiled slightly. "I don’t want to kill you," she said, and Gravis furrowed his brows. He had thought, based on how she had acted, that she wanted his life. Her not wanting his life came as a surprise to him.
"Then why all this slandering?" Gravis asked her.
Wendy looked a little apologetic. "I wanted to meet you," she explained. "How could I meet you when you were inside the Heaven Sect without awaking suspicion? I also don’t know where and when your missions would take place, so I had no choice but to become your target."
Gravis furrowed his brows further. "But you know that becoming my target means that I either have to kill you or flee from the Heaven Sect," he said, "and I don’t plan on blowing my cover just yet."
Wendy continued smiling, for some reason. "I know that, and I don’t want you to blow your cover."
Gravis lifted one of his brows. "Are you telling me that you intend to die here?" he asked incredulously.
Wendy sighed. "Maybe," she said and made a pause. She sat down and patted the spot beside her for Gravis to also sit down. By now, Gravis knew that he would already be dead if she wanted to kill him. She would’ve just needed to tell others about his Will-Aura. So, Gravis took her offer and sat beside her. They both looked at the quiet forest.
"I want to tell you my story," she said after a while. "Could you grant me this last wish?"
Gravis nodded. "Sure. I’m also interested in what reason you could have to throw away your life like that."
Wendy’s smile brightened a little. "I had a husband once," she started. "We knew each other ever since I was a young teenager. We basically grew up together, and we were best of friends. My father wanted me to become a strong cultivator, so he had sent me out into the Outer-Continent when I was just twelve. Of course, before sending me out, he helped me temper my organs and blood. I met my husband in a town in the Outer-Continent."
Gravis felt that this situation was similar to his own. He also arrived in this lower world when he only had tempered his organs and blood. Gravis looked to the sky and thought about his homeworld.
Wendy looked at Gravis and guessed that he had gone through something similar. She moved her legs closer to her chest and hugged them in a comfortable position. "When we met, he was just a teenager from a town. He was about one year older than me and had already tempered his skin. In the beginning, we fought a lot, but then we started getting closer."
Wendy looked up into the sky. "I stayed in that town until I was 14. By then, I had also tempered my skin and bones by hunting in the Hunting Guild. We were already very close at that time, and some romantic feelings started blossoming in my heart. Yet..."
Wendy sighed in sadness. "It wasn’t meant to last. One particular day, we went on a hunt together, and after we had slain the beast, we were exhausted and injured. Just when we had decided to rest, some raiders jumped out of the bushes out of nowhere. I don’t know if you know, but in comparison to bandits, raiders are the real outlaws. They kill, destroy, rob, and do other unsavory things."
Gravis nodded. He still remembered the raiders that attacked that one village.
Wendy sighed. "If we were at our peak, we could have won against them, but at that time, we had no chance. My husband managed to give me a chance to flee while he remained behind to keep them at bay. I wanted to help him so badly, but I knew that that would only make his sacrifice meaningless. I fled to the Hunting Guild and told them what happened. Luckily, we were not that far away."
"About an hour later, I returned with several hunters, and we only found some corpses and some blood, but nothing more. I knew how many raiders attacked us, and I saw that only a third of them died to him. I knew that they had taken him captive. Raiders often do business with slave-traders, and someone with tempered skin and bones was worth a lot of money."
Some tears ran down Wendy’s face, but she didn’t seem to notice. "I was heartbroken, and I lost all my will to cultivate and live. I remained in the town and waited for him every day. I couldn’t accept that he was gone and spent most of my time looking over the wall of the town, into the wilderness, hoping that I would see him return."
Then, Wendy smiled. "About six months later, he actually returned. At that time, I thought I was dreaming. It was a miracle from Heaven! I knew that Heaven wanted him to return! I was so happy, and I wept for days out of happiness. All the light in my life returned at that point, and I was happy that I held out. Before that, I had contemplated suicide every day."
Gravis could feel that Wendy’s feelings were genuine, and he felt for her. "How did he manage to escape?" he asked.
Wendy smiled sweetly. "They trained him to be a slave. It’s a very torturous process where they break someone down over a long time and make them lose their individuality. At that point, they would only live for their masters. He acted like he was slowly losing himself, but always held out."
Her cheeks reddened a little. "He said it was because he wanted to see me again and didn’t want me to feel bad for him. At some point, he managed to escape, and they chased him. He used guerilla tactics to engage in many smaller fights, and his life was always hanging by a thread. After a particularly difficult fight, he managed to materialize his will."
Gravis was surprised. "So, due to all the torture and the fights, he managed to create a Will-Aura in the Body Tempering Realm?" he asked.
Wendy nodded. "Yes, and with the power of his Will-Aura, he slaughtered every last raider and freed the slaves. After he had taken his revenge, he immediately ran back to our town to meet me. We fell into each other’s arms and confessed our mutual love for each other. We decided that we would marry each other as soon as we would turn 16."
Wendy’s expression turned back to sadness. "We lived in happiness, and every day felt like I was living in a dream, but after six months..."
"An executioner of the Heaven Sect appeared."