Lightning Is the Only Way

The other disciples all charged at Gravis, but Gravis chose to fight the disciples, which stood far away from the others. The remainder tried to reach Gravis, but their speed was limited due to the tree.

Gravis shot himself back with his lightning as a disciple on the fifth level of Energy Gathering tried to use his sword to slash him. Most of the disciples of the Lightning Guild used spears, but that was not exclusive. Another disciple at the fourth level waited for him and stabbed her spear at him.

Gravis sidestepped the thrust and shot his lightning at the disciple of the fifth rank, from earlier. The disciple sneered and sidestepped the lightning.

BOOM!

The fourth rank disciple, who was currently behind Gravis due to him attacking the other one, got suddenly hit by lightning. Gravis had controlled his lightning so it would move around the branch and hit her in the back. If he directly shot his lightning at her, she might sidestep, so he feigned attacking the disciple at the fifth level to get her by surprise.

She screamed and seized, but still remained on the branch. Gravis was shocked because, according to his experience, the disciple should have been blown to ashes. She was only at the fourth level, and Gravis controlled Destruction Lightning. He had been sure that even with her lightning resistance that she shouldn't have survived that.

'What happened?' Gravis thought, but couldn't continue pondering as she stabbed her spear at him, again. The other, stronger disciple, also used his sword again as he attacked Gravis from the right. To make it even worse, Escura charged at him from the front with her spear.

CLANK!

Gravis ran forward into Escura's attack, dodging the other ones. Escura's power shot Gravis back to the others, and he used his newly gained speed to throw the fifth rank disciple away with another attack. The fourth rank disciple and Escura charged at him from his back and left, as another disciple came from his right.

Gravis quickly charged into the only free direction, which was the direction of the fifth rank disciple. Gravis quickly reached him and slashed again, which the disciple blocked. Because of blocking, the disciple lost the initiative, and Gravis continued attacking.

Escura and the female disciple on the fourth level gained ground on Gravis, while another one charged from a different side. Gravis slashed again at the fifth level disciple, but only with his left hand, while he used his right hand to shoot lightning at the newly approaching disciple.

BANG!

The disciple stopped, and the lightning hit the wood before him. The disciple sighed in relief but was shocked as a new branch came out of nowhere and slapped him into the distance. The tree didn't have eyes and thought that this disciple was injuring it. Gravis only grinned as he saw the disciple flying into the distance. His plan had worked.

The fifth rank disciple Gravis was currently fighting saw his chance and slashed his saber at Gravis' waist. Gravis narrowed his eyes, ignored the attack, and used his saber to attack the disciple's head. The disciple grew fearful. Was this guy a madman? Didn't he care about his life?

The disciple, not willing to trade his life with Gravis', changed his attack into a make-shift block. Gravis saw his chance and quickly followed up, but at the same time, he used his lightning to stealthily crawl to his back.

PUCHI!

Instead of continuing his attack, Gravis used his lightning movement to move his body to the right. Not too soon, because Escura had arrived and had tried to stab him in the back. Instead of stabbing Gravis, she had stabbed the disciple in the fifth stage, and her face whitened.

Was she so stupid to not take the disciple in front of Gravis into account? Of course not! Yet, she had accelerated suddenly out of nowhere. That was due to the creeping lighting that Gravis had released. He had let it crawl to Escura and then used it like lightning movement, but on her instead of on himself. Her speed increased, and she accidentally stabbed the disciple in the fifth rank.

The disciple looked at Escura in shock, and she looked back at him with the same eyes. The two froze for a second.

SHING!

The other fourth level disciple from earlier, who had caught up by now, was quickly frozen by Gravis' Will-Aura and was beheaded. No one had paid attention to her right now, and Gravis had used that opportunity to use his Will-Aura, compressed on her. Since everyone was distracted, the Will-Aura still remained hidden.

CRRK! BOOM!

Due to Escura's involuntary increase in speed, the lightning exceeded the threshold of power and provoked the tree. Escura blew the new branch apart with her lightning, and the tree didn't dare to do anything else again. The disciple in front of her lost his life and fell upwards towards the earth.

She turned around and looked at Gravis, now burning rage and hatred in her eyes. She shot forward with unreal speed, no longer caring about the tree. The tree was provoked again and shot one branch after the other at Escura, but she only blew through them. Gravis charged away from her and noticed that she was even slower than before since the tree was actively restricting her.

Gravis saw his chance and moved to the left and then from the branch's underside to its left side. A disciple with a saber was in his way, while most other disciples followed behind Gravis. Everyone's speed was the same, due to them not going over the threshold of power with their lightning. That was the only reason why Escura had not overwhelmed Gravis yet.

The disciple slashed with his saber, and Gravis moved his hand to grab it. The disciple grew shocked. Why was Gravis sacrificing his hand? Yet, to his shock, Gravis' hand released lightning to weaken the slash and then caught the saber with his hand. The saber cut deep, but couldn't injure the bone. With Gravis' strong body and his lightning, he had weakened the strength of the slash enough so that he could catch it.

SHING!

Gravis cut the disciple in two with the saber in his free hand, the disciple's body falling to the side, towards the earth. Gravis quickly continued running because the other disciples started catching up. He went over the side and reached the upside of the branch. Gravis quickly spotted a fifth rank disciple on top of the branch, in the distance, who charged at him.

Gravis did the same and charged at the disciple. They were about to clash, but suddenly...

SHING!

Gravis immediately cut the fifth rank disciple in two. How was this possible? Gravis shouldn't have been able to do that since they had about the same strength. That was because, since Gravis was now on the upside of the branch, he could now also use his feet for speed, which increased his speed dramatically. Everyone was used to Gravis' speed by now, and this sudden increase came out of nowhere, catching the poor disciple by surprise.

The disciples, who just arrived at the upside of the branch, saw their dead brother and gasped in shock. How had Gravis killed that disciple so quickly? They just saw him going over the edge, and now he had already killed someone at the fifth level. What happened?

BOOM!

A huge lightning bolt hit the middle of the tree and destroyed a huge chunk of it. The hole and all the surrounding wood started burning wildly. Escura had enough of the tree. It had constantly stopped her when she was pursuing Gravis, and her hatred towards Gravis also extended to the tree now.

All branches of the tree went wild, and everything shot at Escura. The attack was incredibly imposing, and Escura completely stopped pursuing Gravis and, instead, started battling the tree. Earlier, the tree had only tried to warn and stop her from damaging it, but now it was afraid and enraged. It entirely concentrated only on her.

The surroundings started getting blurry as the heat and moisture in the air increased. The fire was humongous and raged wildly on the tree. What was even worse was that the fire was nearly exactly below the branch, which meant that the fire and the heat started to creep towards the branch.

'Seems like the fighting area will change,' thought Gravis.