The disciples came to the branch and surrounded it on all sides, so Gravis couldn’t flee without jumping off. The wind bird looked at the humans and kept itself away. It already had immense difficulty in fighting one. If there were more, it would be helpless.
"Betrayer, give yourself up," shouted one of the male disciples.
Gravis looked at him and the others and realized that this wouldn’t be an easy fight. There were 15 people in the fourth level of Energy Gathering, four people in the fifth level, and that woman in the front was even in the sixth.
"I have done unforgivable crimes, and I will do my best to repay the Lightning Sect, but I can’t die yet. So, I am sorry, but I can’t come with you," shouted Gravis while readying his saber.
Some of the disciples were surprised since they had imagined a bloodthirsty monster, yet, compared to the others, the woman in the lead didn’t bat an eye. "Attack," she coldly commanded. The disciples immediately readied their weapons, most of them spears, and charged forward.
Gravis grimaced. He wasn’t afraid of the fight, but he was already regretting what he was about to do. If they didn’t retreat, he could only kill them. One of the disciples charged at him and thrust his spear towards him. Gravis easily sidestepped.
WHOOM! SHINK!
He activated his Will-Aura and concentrated it on the disciple, who immediately froze. Gravis used this chance to cleave him in two diagonally. The disciple managed to release one last scream before his two halves fell down the tree.
The disciples on the branches stopped advancing and looked at Gravis carefully. He had killed someone easily, and that showed his strength. If he managed to kill someone in the fourth level of Energy Gathering that easily, he could probably also fight people on the fifth level.
"Go back!" shouted Gravis at them. "I don’t want to kill you, but if you keep coming after me, I am forced to! I do not want to hurt the Lightning Sect! I want to help! We both want the same thing, so stop!" he shouted in a last bit to stop the confrontation. Even if he didn’t want to kill them, he would do it if he had to.
The disciples looked at him more seriously now. Many disciples would die if they fought him. Escura looked at Gravis also in seriousness now, but the coldness in her eyes only increased when she saw how Gravis had killed a disciple.
Gravis, on the other hand, really didn’t want to kill the Lightning Guild’s disciples. He wanted to help them, and this was the first time that he had killed someone on the Lightning Guild on purpose. He didn’t want to, but he knew that he had to be coldblooded if he wanted to survive. If he let them go again, only stronger people would come for him later.
Due to distance, the main guild couldn’t be informed about every single little thing. If the disciples didn’t return, people would believe that they were still chasing him. That would delay the main guild’s reaction for multiple days. Yet, if someone returned and reported on him, an immediate hit squad would be sent for his head.
Escura looked at Gravis with a sharp look. "Today, only one party will survive. Everyone Attack!" she shouted with more fervor than before. Gravis gritted his teeth and readied himself. The disciples all increased their lightning powers further to increase their speed, blackening the branches.
CRRK!
A new branch came out of the current one and swatted one of the disciples away. The disciple hadn’t known that the tree was an Energy Plant and was too shocked to react appropriately. He got flung away for hundreds of meters and was out of range of his lightning movement. The disciple blanched when he realized that he would die since he couldn’t survive a fall from a height of several kilometers.
The other disciples looked at him in shock and grew wary of the tree. "Don’t worry. As long as you keep your lightning under a certain threshold of power, the tree will ignore us," said Escura calmly. Everyone calmed down a little, and they started moving towards Gravis.
Gravis was still sticking to the underside of the branch, being ready for the battle. The earth was above and the heavens beneath him. Gravis concentrated on the fight, and this sight had stopped looking odd to him.
The disciples came closer. Gravis could only see eleven of the remaining 18 disciples. The other seven were on the other side of the branch, cutting off his escape route. After a short moment, one of the disciples on the fifth rank readied his saber, infused it with lightning, and shot forward.
CLANK!
Gravis had also infused his lightning into his Energy Saber and parried the attack. Gravis’ body slightly trembled. ’His Energy is already as strong as my Energy and physical strength combined,’ he concluded.
BZZZT!
The disciples on the fourth level of Energy Gathering had surrounded him and shot all their lightning at him. As long as the lightning didn’t hit the tree, they could use their full power, so they did. Gravis was bathed in lightning and shook. The disciple in front of him realized his advantage and stabbed at Gravis’ chest with his spear.
PUCHI!
Gravis had only acted like the lightning was stunning him and jumped half a meter away from the branch. If he jumped further, it would be a hassle to get back to the branch, since he was currently upside down. The spear went cleanly through his stomach, and Gravis used that opportunity to attack the disciple.
SHING!
From Gravis’ perspective, he saw the shocked head of his enemy falling upwards towards the earth, his body quickly following. The other disciples grew shocked, and their jaws dropped. How could someone a whole level weaker than them have this much lightning resistance?
"Stop, you fools!" shouted Escura as she charged forward. "Don’t you know that all this lightning is useless?" she shouted as her spear shot forward with unreal speed. Gravis did a mix of a sidestep and a parry, yet still got shot away. ’What power,’ he thought.
The lightning ended, and they grew shocked when they saw no injury on Gravis. The stab wound had already fully healed. They felt like they were in a dream. Wasn’t he stabbed through by a spear just now? How did this happen?
One thing had to be known about lightning resistance. Lightning had a ratio of Destruction and Life Energy, yet it also had a density of both. If disciples used their lightning, they could create more of the lightning, but they couldn’t increase its density.
Theoretically, Gravis could bathe in their lightning as much as he wanted, and he wouldn’t care, yet the lightning of a fifth rank, or higher, disciple would injure him severely. The whole concept could be compared with 50 children with daggers trying to stab through someone’s armor. It didn’t matter how many there were. They couldn’t damage the armor due to their limited strength.
Yet, one adult with a dagger could damage the armor. Was one adult person stronger than fifty children? The children’s combined strength would be several times stronger than the adult’s, but strength didn’t work that way.
So, when all the lightning hit Gravis’ body, and all its Destruction Energy was depleted, what remained? Life Energy remained and got absorbed by Gravis’ body. With all their lightning, they were essentially all healers healing him. That’s how he regenerated from his wound, that quickly.
Was the wound necessary? Yes, because Gravis wanted to keep his condensed Will-Aura as a trump card. They might not suspect anything with just the first disciple dying like this, but if more disciples froze up while fighting him, they would adapt their battle strategy. As long as his Will-Aura was hidden, he still had a weapon to fall back on.
’And I’ll need that,’ he thought as he watched Escura, readying for another attack.