Complete darkness surrounded Gravis. His Spirit was cut off from the outside world, and his eyes were closed. He also ignored everything that he heard. After all, he had to walk forward without any distractions. He only opened his eyes and Spirit for a split second every couple of seconds to see if he was still inside the Illusion Array.
While walking forward, Gravis swung his saber continually to destroy everything before him. He couldn't risk touching a tree right now. If he did, his lightning would unload into nothingness.
His heart pumped quickly. It wasn't because of nervousness, but because of excitement. He could see and feel nothing while one enemy at the Tree Stage and, at least, five enemies at the Sapling Stage watched him. Any one of those could attack him suddenly.
Gravis felt extremely close to death right now. Walking blind around an area where an enemy could strike him created waves inside his mind. This sensation alone was good tempering for him. Even if the others didn't attack him, in his mind, he would have still gone through a life and death crisis. Perception was everything when it came to the tempering of one's will.
BANG!
10% of his lightning unloaded again. This time, Gravis felt his lightning unload itself via his leg. He also quickly felt around 10% of his lightning regenerating. Apparently, he had just killed someone at the Seed Stage.
BANG!
Another unload from the same leg, and another wave of Energy entered his body.
BANG!
And again. Gravis was quite surprised by the disciples' willingness to throw their lives away, but he quickly thought of a reason. Some of the disciples probably made a pact where they decided to exhaust Gravis. After all, every single lightning strike cost Energy, and Gravis couldn't possibly have an infinite amount of that.
He also guessed that Byron had probably offered that gamble. He probably said something along the lines of that any disciple that managed to injure him would get some powerful weapon or something similar.
BANG!
And again!
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Six more unloads came in rapid succession, and every bang resulted in the death of one disciple at the Seed Stage. One had to know that cultivators at the Seed Stage weren't rare, but also not abundant. From the around 1,100 Spirit Forming disciples in the Lightning Sect, only around 150 were in the Seed Stage. The others were all in the initial stage.
Gravis guessed that the Darkness Sect probably had even less of those. After all, they didn't temper themselves as crazily as the Fire or Lightning Sect. Gravis guessed that he had probably killed around 10% of all their Seed Stage disciples.
After that, no more unloads came. The disciples had probably seen that Gravis had killed ten of the Seed Stage disciples and decided against taking the gamble.
BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG!
An avalanche of unloads appeared around Gravis, and he quickly widened his eyes as he realized several things. The unloads didn't come from a single point of his body but form all over him at random spots. On top of that, every single unload didn't give him 10% of his Energy back, but only 5%. This could only mean one thing!
'The elders are throwing disciples at the initial stage at me to exhaust me!' Gravis realized with anger. He didn't mind killing weaker people that attacked him, but it was something different when an elder threw their own disciples to their deaths.
Gravis deactivated his lightning and felt a lot of bodies hitting and burying him. The impacts weren't attacks or punches, but just bodies colliding with him. After a lot of bodies hit him, Gravis threw everything to the side with all his power. His physical body was very powerful, and the invisible pile of bodies got shot into the distance. Then, Gravis immediately reactivated his lightning and increased the power to 30%!
BOOM!
Gravis felt a huge amount of lightning leaving his body. Yet, surprisingly, no Energy came back. Instead, the world crumbled apart. As soon as Gravis noticed that something was happening, he opened his eyes and Spirit again. What he saw matched a lot of what he had expected.
Gravis was, right now, at the side of the Darkness Sect, facing diagonally outward. One kilometer more and he would have reached the outside of the Illusion Array. The elders had probably grown nervous and decided to act right now. Sadly, no elder wanted to sacrifice their life.
The illusion world had broken apart, and Gravis could see a lot of disciples standing up from the ground around him, scrambling away. As expected, they didn't flee towards their Sect, but away from it. Their panicked faces affirmed Gravis' suspicion. The elders had thrown the disciples at him against their will.
A hundred meters behind him, Gravis saw two elders standing behind a group of disciples in the initial stage of Spirit Forming. The eyes of the disciples showed pure horror. Those were probably the "lucky" disciples that had the "privilege" to give their lives for the Sect.
Gravis also noticed another elder lying just ten meters besides him, shock written across his face.
"YOU IDIO-"BANG! SHING!
Just as Byron had angrily shouted, Gravis had burst forward with all his speed and cut the elder apart. The elder had been too shocked to react. Earlier, he had charged at Gravis, thinking that he was empty. Yet, he spotted the reappearing white dots on Gravis and barely willed for the Formation Array to protect him. The Formation Array blocked the lightning and broke apart, destroying the illusionary world, while the elder got shot back due to the shockwave.
Yet, when the elder had just realized that he had actually survived, Gravis had taken the initiative and finished him. 20% of his lightning regenerated, but his storages were still very low. The avalanche of bodies thrown at him had been cruel but effective. Every single lightning strike used 10%, while the corpses gave him only 5% back.
Right now, Gravis only had around 40% of his lightning left. At least the Formation Array was destroyed along with one elder. Gravis took note of the two elders behind the disciples and another two elders standing beside Byron. The Darkness Sect still had four elders and their Sect Master left, while Gravis only had 40% of his lightning.
"Plan D!" Byron shouted with frustration. Gravis knew that Byron wasn't frustrated about the dead disciples or the dead elders. Gravis was sure that Byron was frustrated because the elder had used the Formation Array to block Gravis' attack. With the destruction of the Formation Array, they lost their most significant advantage.
After Byron had shouted, all the elders vanished into the darkness.
"Run! right now!" Gravis shouted at the disciples. "They are in stealth and can't risk showing themselves! This is the best opportunity to run!"
Like an avalanche, the disciples fled into the distance.
"None of you will escape!" came a sound transmission into everybody's mind. At the same time, one of the fleeing disciples got decapitated.
SHING!
The elder's eyes widened in shock as a Lightning Spear penetrated his chest. Gravis had felt the fluctuation of the elder's Spirit. When someone got emotional, their Spirit released a small fluctuation, which was barely noticeable. This was how the High Priest knew about his priests' emotions.
Such a fluctuation was very difficult to feel, but with Gravis' heightened sense of battle, nothing left his sight. Gravis was as concentrated as never before, and such a subtle fluctuation was nearly blinding to him. Thus, he had quickly condensed 20% of his lightning into a spear and shot it at the elder.
BOOOM!
The Lightning Spear exploded, obliterating the elder in the process. With the help of his Spirit, Gravis managed to make the spear powerful enough to kill the elder. Without his Spirit, he would have needed around 30% of his lightning for that.
Why had the elder acted like this even if it meant putting himself into harm's way? The main reason for that was the disappearance of the white dots on Gravis' body. The fact that Gravis had stopped releasing these white dots when they threw those disciples at him meant that they were successful in exhausting him. Otherwise, Gravis surely wouldn't have undertaken the risk of deactivating it.
They had wanted to weaken Gravis more with these disciples, but Gravis' sudden shout had thrown a wrench in their plan. One of them had to stop the disciples, and that's how this situation happened.
Gravis' attack had cost just as much lightning as he regained, but he had used around 25% of his Spirit for the Lightning Spear. At least, another elder had died. Like this, the numbers of his enemies had reduced to four.
Gravis deactivated his passive lightning and readied his saber. There was no Illusion Array anymore, so he could finally fight normally again. His eyes narrowed as he kept close watch over his surroundings.
The elders and Byron couldn't be seen anymore, but that didn't mean that they weren't there. After all, they were darkness cultivators, the supreme experts in stealth. They were probably close to him, ready to strike.
Like this, Gravis waited in silence.
