Even though Deryl's awareness was numbed, he was sure that he wasn't so numb that he was hallucinating. The mysterious new disciple was talking to him. Nobody in the Lightning Sect knew exactly what was up with this person. He just showed up a little over a month ago and kept hanging around Old Man Lightning and the Sect Master.
This person was also responsible for granting the new generation the Destruction Lightning. On top of that, that person had created the tree in the middle of the plaza. Yet, no disciple had ever talked to him. It was always only the Sect Master or Old Man Lightning talking with him.
In total, all disciples in the Lightning Sect had no idea about Gravis. They didn't even know his name. They didn't know where he came from or why he was here. They only knew that he popped up out of nowhere. Gravis' unique status also created a divide between him and the other disciples.
"Sure," Deryl said absentmindedly. He wasn't sure how to proceed since he was just so shocked that this elusive new disciple was talking to him.
Gravis sat down and ordered some Spirit Wine for himself. For once, he wanted to see why people drank it. Was it a pleasure? Gravis wasn't sure. He couldn't imagine something that numbed his Spirit to be pleasurable. His drinks with Ballor were too long ago, and he was also younger. Maybe one needed some maturity to enjoy it.
"Tell me about your fight with the bird," Gravis said. He wanted to know how Skye's parent had died.
Deryl felt his insides shake. That was a memory that he didn't want to remember. The fight with the bird had been the worst day of his life. "I'd rather not," Deryl said.
'As expected,' Gravis thought. If someone with a Will-Aura didn't want to talk about something, then that something was probably a traumatic experience.
"Then let me tell you a story. Today, you and I are similar. I guess that the second person that didn't return from the mission was someone important to you. I have also lost someone important to me, and I want to tell you about it," Gravis said.
Deryl smiled sadly. "You're right," Deryl said with a shaking voice. "I have lost my love in the fight, and I don't want to remember it. I only want to forget." Deryl drank some of his Spirit Wine. "If you want to share your experience, I will listen."
The Spirit Wine arrived, and Gravis drank from it after looking at it for a while. The Spirit Wine created a burning sensation in his throat, but that was negligible compared to his will. He went through worse pain. The burning sensation wasn't pleasurable.
"When I reached the Middle-Continent, I saw a big green bird in the distance flying around. I wanted to test my newfound power, so I went after it," Gravis started narrating this tale. Of course, he didn't go into detail. He only spoke about the parts that included Skye and its parent, skipping over everything in-between.
When Deryl heard "big green bird', his insides shook. That sounded exactly like the bird he had killed. Did this person also lose someone close to him to such a bird?
Gravis told him about the fight at the tree but didn't reveal the element or identities of his opponents. That would shift the focus from the birds to why Gravis had killed people from the Lightning Guild.
When Gravis told Deryl about the time he stayed together with the birds, Deryl started realizing that was happening. His heart sank as he realized that the close person that died was the bird he had killed. His inebriation quickly started vanishing as nervousness and fear started building. Was Gravis about to kill him?
Gravis continued telling his story. He told Deryl about all the good times he had with Skye and how close they were. Of course, he also told Deryl about Skye's parent. When Deryl heard that the parent bird reached the level of a Spirit Beast and went to the Core-Continent, he didn't have any more doubt in his mind. He had killed one of the two birds.
Gravis took swigs from his Spirit Wine every couple of minutes, yet nothing happened. He felt no different than before. Gravis guessed that the ingredient that would numb his Spirit was probably destroyed as soon as it came into contact with the lightning inside it. The Spirit Wine wasn't working at all, but Gravis didn't mind.
"And today, I saw Skye's parent again, as a body that has been thrown to the Freya's Birch," he said, "and that's why I'm here."
Deryl was breathing rapidly. His nervousness had long transformed into fear for his life. Yes, he was still in a slump due to his dead lover, but as soon as a threat appeared, that had been forgotten. He thought that he wouldn't care about death, but as soon as danger appeared, his emotions changed.
Seeing that Deryl didn't react, Gravis took the initiative. "So, tell me about your fight with Skye's parent," he said.
Deryl didn't dare slight Gravis, so he finally started telling his tale. "I saw many new missions for hunting beasts, so I took one appropriate to my level. Seline, my love, always joined me in these hunts. We wanted to ascend together, so we always were together. Like this, if one dies, the other one would die too. There was no reason to keep living if one of us is dead. What is power worth if you have no one to share it with?" he said with a nervous but sad look.
"We quickly found our target, but the target also found us. Before we could even prepare ourselves, it attacked," Deryl's voice started becoming shaky at this point. "We fought for a couple of minutes but couldn't win. It's way of fighting was brilliant. We also couldn't flee since it was many times faster than us. We had to win, or we would die."
Deryl took a deep breath and some more Spirit Wine to calm down his raging emotions. "Seline said that she had a plan. She would distract it, and I would only need to release all my power in one slash. I regained hope, and I followed her instructions. She took the initiative to attack, and it attacked back. At some point, Seline gave me the signal, and I ran forward with all my power while the bird attacked Seline with its beak."
Tears started flowing down Deryl's face as it became harder for him to continue. "At that point, Seline smiled at me and told me to live on. My heart sank at those words, but before I could react," his words started becoming hard to decipher due to his emotions, "she had released all the lightning in her body. She had compressed it inside her body and made it explode. The bird was stunned due to the lightning, and I beheaded it. That's the fight," Deryl finished with tears streaming down his face.
Gravis looked at him neutrally. "So it was a fair fight, and Skye's parent had a chance to win," Gravis said to himself more than to Deryl. With Deryl's inebriation, will, and similar temperament to lightning, he wouldn't lie about something like this. This was not the way of lightning, and if he didn't have a similar temperament to lightning, he wouldn't have reached the Seed Stage.
"Thank you," Gravis said as he stood up and left the table.
Deryl noticed Gravis standing up and leaving with shock. Gravis didn't intend to kill him? Why? "You're leaving? Just like that?" he asked involuntarily. After speaking these words, his fear returned. Why hadn't he just accepted the situation as is?
Gravis didn't turn around. "It was fair tempering, and one party would die. Killing you because you were the stronger one would be hypocritical. Cultivation is like that, and there is no way around it."
With that said, Gravis left the pub, leaving Deryl alone.
Outside, Gravis looked at the sky and released a sigh. "If that had happened about a year ago, I wouldn't even think about all this. I would immediately kill the person that killed my companion. Yet, here I am, not doing anything," Gravis said to himself.
Melancholy took hold as he remembered his personality and thinking of the past. 'When I started cultivating, I promised that I would never become like father. On the day Stella died, I have seen so many people getting killed due to the conflict between Heaven and father. I swore that I would never become this apathetic.'
Gravis released another breath. 'Yet, here I am. My cultivation has involuntarily killed thousands of beasts and many disciples of the Lightning Sect. 1,500 people of the Lightning Sect died in those missions, while thousands of beasts died. Without me or the tree, none of these lives would have been lost.'
Gravis turned his head to the Sect and looked at it. 'Yet, I see that this is how the world works. If something powerful acts, the weak suffer. So many lives had been lost because of father, and now, I am the reason for thousands of lives ending. In the past, I would have felt guilty beyond comparison, but now, I don't seem to care that much. People die on the way to power, and that is how the world works.'
Gravis released a bitter laugh. 'It took the death of a companion to make me see this. I also now realize that I hadn't thought about all the beasts I killed before I achieved my Will-Aura. Were all those beasts in the practical tests out of their own volition? Of course not. Yet, I went through hundreds of them without a guilty conscience.'
Gravis laughed slightly, but it wasn't bitter this time.
'I was really naïve. Times and people change, and I don't know how I will think many years from now. I wonder, would my past self hate my present self?' Gravis asked himself.
Then, he shook his head. 'It doesn't matter. I am me, and that won't change, no matter how much I change.'
