Lightning Is the Only Way

"You tried to sneak-attack me!" shouted Gravis into the surroundings, obviously enraged, at least he appeared to be. "You should fight fair and square if you have any self-respect!" he shouted again. Of course, he wanted them actually to continue to sneak-attack him, but he couldn't show that. He had to appear like a spoiled, naïve brat.

In the surroundings, the darkness disciples sneered in disdain. "Sure enough, he is a spoiled brat," someone whispered to the others. The others nodded in affirmation. How could someone blessed with nearly infinite karmic luck know about the things they had to do to gain power?

Gravis had already collected the Energy of the dead disciples until his Energy was ready to condense into the eighth level of Energy Gathering. Instead of breaking through, he let the remaining Energy disperse. If he absorbed everything, he would probably reach the middle of the eighth level, but he preferred to stay at the seventh level.

If he suddenly broke through into the eighth level of Energy Gathering, some disciples might decide against attacking him. Like this, he might not even be able to reach the ninth level of Energy Gathering, while his actual goal was the tenth.

Gravis shouted some more into the surroundings while the disciples made a new plan.

Whoosh gulp!

The one corpse that hadn't been reduced to ashes was picked up by some wind and thrown into Skye's maw. Skye was looking at Gravis with a disapproving look. That guy had burned its other nine pieces of food. After having a small snack, Skye went back to sleep. In its mind, nothing could harm it while Gravis was around.

After shouting some more, Gravis looked to the ground and found some Energy Stones and weapons. He picked them up, walked to Skye, and placed them beside it. He couldn't carry so many weapons at once, and he doubted that anyone would dare to steal something so close to a high-grade Energy Beast.

Some of the disciples spat silently in disgust. They had planned on stealing those resources, but now it was impossible.

Inside his darkness map, Gravis saw more people pooling pills together. Sadly, most of them were at the seventh level of Energy Gathering. Gravis did some calculations and realized that if he killed all of the attackers, he wouldn't even reach the ninth level of Energy Gathering. He had to change his tactic. If that ambush also failed, they might not come at him again. He had to make use of this ambush to bait them into another one.

After they pooled ten pills together again, another disciple walked closer to Gravis, visible. The others surrounded Gravis, but this time, several meters were between him and them. They had learned from their predecessors' mistakes. As he saw them, Gravis got an excellent idea. 'That's perfect!' he thought.

The disciple walked over with a friendly smile plastered across his face and gave Gravis the sack with pills. "I apologize for the shamelessness of my former disciple brothers," he apologized. "As an apology, please take these ten body tempering pills. This time, only I will fight you!"

Gravis looked into the sack and nodded with a happy expression. "I accept your apology. Not everyone can be chivalrous, but I can see that you are an honest person! I won't forget you!" Gravis shouted with righteousness.

"Thank you, Heavenborn," said the disciple humbly. Of course, inside, he was sneering at Gravis' naivety. That idiot didn't know that he had just accepted another battle with ten people. The disciple almost felt bad about scamming Gravis like this.

Almost.

"Everything checks out. Let's fight!" Gravis said with a nod, and the disciple nodded back with a deferential smile.

BANG!

The disciple was immediately turned to ashes as Gravis shot a lightning bolt with his full speed. The eyes of the others' widened. They didn't even get into formation, and their distraction had already been eliminated.

"Ha!" shouted Gravis while pointing his fingers into the surroundings. "You see that? You attacked me with an ambush, so I did the same to you! How does it feel?" he shouted self-righteously.

The darkness disciples sneered in anger and annoyance. They didn't care about Gravis attacking out of nowhere. That was actually a quality they admired. What they cared about was that they had already paid for the fight, but their distraction didn't work.

The chances of killing Gravis were way lower if his focus wasn't on something else. If one, or all of them, attacked simultaneously, Gravis might release his lightning into the surroundings. They had to get him when he didn't pay attention!

Yet, they had already paid! Those pills were expensive, and they didn't want to just give them to Gravis. They couldn't give up now.

"Wait," whispered one of the disciples to the others. "We have already paid. We don't need to attack immediately. We just need to wait for a new wave to arrive. Then, we can attack together with them," he explained, and the others realized that that was actually a really good plan.

One of them walked over to some surrounding disciples and paid that disciple some Energy Stones to get some more people. The disciple smirked but actually didn't go immediately. Instead, he said that he had an even better idea, but the first disciple had to pay him way more if he wanted to hear it.

Those two haggled for quite a while until the first disciple gave the second one even more Energy Stones. After getting the stones, the second disciple whispered something back, and the eyes of the first one lightened up. This plan was brilliant! After that, the second disciple left for the guild. They had to prepare!

Meanwhile, Gravis waited. At least, he appeared to be waiting, but in actuality, he was listening to the disciples. His darkness map not only showed the people but also let him hear what they were saying. Subconsciously, Gravis' eyes narrowed with coldness and a bit of rage. That was too dirty! If he didn't hear them, he might have fallen for their scheme.

Gravis picked up the resources of the dead disciple and carried his weapon to Skye. After that, he returned to his earlier position.

He waited for several minutes until new people arrived. Gravis looked at their strength, and sure enough, they were as strong as he had expected. He saw several people at the ninth level of Energy Gathering.

This would be the last fight that he would fight in the Darkness Guild.