The Grand Elder was a bit taken aback for some time while his face went through a lot of different emotions. It went from shock to disbelief, to deep thinking, and then to uncertainty.
"How sure are you about this?" the Grand Elder asked.
"The whole point of my demonstration was to show you how sure I was and that I have no reason to target any Emperor from our Empire," Gravis said evenly.
The Grand Elder looked at the Law Comprehension Area in deep thought. "I have known him for a long time," the Grand Elder transmitted to Gravis while looking into the distance. "I have seen him use lightning and the Laws associated with it also a couple of times."
"And that makes it impossible that he managed to fool all of you?" Gravis asked back.
The Grand Elder sighed. "No, there are ways to fake an element. If someone understands a Law related to imitation, they can fake something like that. To everyone present, it would look like he had a different affinity. Of course, the attacks wouldn't have the imitated powers. They simply look very convincing."
"It doesn't matter that you have seen it. You're only considering the fact that you've known each other for a long time. To me, this sounds more like an emotional reason than a logical one," Gravis answered.
The Grand Elder remained silent for a couple more seconds. "Are emotional reasons so bad?" he asked. "He has risked his life many times for the Empire. If I would doubt him just like that, all his loyalty and hard work will be ignored."
"So, you're saying that if he is a traitor, he has earned his place as a traitor or spy by working so hard," Gravis said back.
When the Grand Elder heard that, he sighed again. "Of course not," he commented, "but I feel like I would be violating my trust in him and devaluing what he has done for us by even considering that."
Gravis shook his head slightly. Beasts were really different from humans. If a human heard that a long-standing member of their group had been working for the enemy the entire time, they would be even angrier than if it were someone new. The reason for such a reaction was that the long-standing member had much more time and opportunities to endanger their goals.
Gravis still believed that most beasts could be called naïve. They were simply too honest, too straightforward, too direct, too forthcoming, and too trusting. They would kill their enemies without hesitation, but if someone managed to become their companion, they would trust them with all their heart.
The reason for that was the relatively small number of traitors in the beast ranks. Yes, Gravis had met some of them before, but those had only been some single individuals among thousands.
Ironically enough, the fewer traitors there were among a group of trusting individuals, the worse it was for the collective whole. This might sound contradictory, but it made sense if one went through some examples.
If there were a group of 100 naïve individuals with one psychopath among the group, the psychopath would quickly be able to become the most powerful individual of the group by manipulating everyone.
Yet, if there were ten psychopaths among the group, not everyone would be swayed to one side. Naïve individuals might not spot the psychopath, but psychopaths can spot each other very well. So, in order to reach their goals, they needed to stop the others that proved to be a danger to them. Such a clash might go on for a very long time with no conclusion.
Additionally, with more of these individuals present, the naïve portion of the group might be able to notice the actual situation. They would have more dealings with these individuals and gain experience with them.
Due to this reason, traitors among beasts proved to be more devastating than traitors among humans. Humans were used to traitors, and it was not a unique occurrence to find one. Additionally, humans often had so much experience with these people that they might even use the traitor to achieve their own goals. Feeding false information to the traitor was one of the things the group could do.
The Grand Elder was much older than Gravis and had much more experience. His power and knowledge about Laws had helped Gravis immensely. Yet, not everyone lived the same life and received the same experiences.
In terms of Laws, power, wisdom, and many other things, the Grand Elder was superior to Gravis, but in terms of knowledge about psychology, Gravis was superior.
All of these thoughts went through Gravis' head in about a second. "By not acting upon this information because of such an emotional reason, you're endangering the very members of the Empire," Gravis said.
The Grand Elder sighed. "I know that," he said back. "I'm not some young and foolish beast that hasn't seen the world. Of course I will act upon this information appropriately. It just hurts me to see someone betray us."
Gravis nodded. "Then, that's good."
"I believe you to 99%, but I still need to see it for myself," the Grand Elder said.
Gravis lifted an eyebrow. "How?"
"By confronting him," the Grand Elder answered as his eyes narrowed. Yet, he turned to Gravis again. "Are there any other beasts without the Lightning Affinity present?"
"One other one," Gravis answered. "It's some kind of mole that stays at the foot of one of the mountains."
The Grand Elder nodded. "That's fine. She's a special case since she has the earth element and quite some lightning resistance. She's here to understand the destruction and defense of earth. Anyone else?"
"No," Gravis answered curtly.
"Alright, then let me just deal with that snake for now," the Grand Elder said. "Try to remain at a distance for the eventuality that he wants to attack you for some reason."
"As long as I'm more than 40 kilometers away from him, I'm in no danger. This entire area is under my control, and if I will it so, the sky will collapse upon them," Gravis commented dryly.
The Grand Elder nodded one last time at Gravis. He had seen the powerful lightning ball that Gravis had summoned. If he could gather 20 of these lightning bolts without showing any exertion, he could surely gather more. With that number of lightning bolts, no level two Emperor or weaker would be able to stand against him.
"Then just wait here. I will be back soon," the Grand Elder said.
Gravis nodded.
Then, the Grand Elder flew further into the mountain range. After some seconds, he arrived in front of the snake.
"Hello, Grand Elder. Do you need something?" he asked with surprise. Obviously, he hadn't heard anything of what Gravis and the Grand Elder had talked about. At most, he maybe saw Gravis' demonstration of his control over lightning.
The Grand Elder looked with narrowed eyes at the snake, who quickly felt like something terrible was going to happen.
"Attack me with your lightning," the Grand Elder commanded.
The snake was taken aback. "Excuse me, what? You want me to attack you with my lightning?" he asked.
"You are under suspicion of being a traitor that knows a Law related to imitation. Prove that you're not a traitor by attacking me with your lightning. If you can't, I will kill you right here and now," the Grand Elder said coldly.
The snake and the other elders were shocked to the core. This time, the Grand Elder didn't transmit his thoughts but publicly spoke them. All the elders naturally had their senses spread out, which made them involuntarily hear the Grand Elder's words. There was a traitor among them?
"Is this a joke, Grand Elder?" the snake asked with an offended expression. "What have I done to warrant such a baseless suspicion?"
"What you have or haven't done isn't important. Some evidence has come to light that you do not have a lightning affinity. If you had told us that earlier, there wouldn't be an issue right now. Yet, you have kept it secret and lied to us regarding that, which demonstrates malicious intent," the Grand Elder explained.
"Oh?" the snake asked with a sneer. "What evidence?" he asked.
"That's unimportant right now," the Grand Elder answered. "The only important thing is that you need to prove your innocence right now. You can't talk your way out of this."
The snake's face transformed into a grimace. "This is a blatant humiliation! I have fought for our Empire for many years, and that's how you thank me!?" the snake shouted with fury.
"As I've said before, what you have or haven't done isn't important. Prove your innocence right now or die. This is the last time I'm going to say this. You have ten seconds," the Grand Elder said coldly as he looked into the snake's eyes.
The body of the snake shook as his rage intensified. Some seconds passed, but just before the ten seconds were up, the snake's body relaxed, and he sighed.
"Alright, I give up," he said. "Yes, I don't have the lightning element. I have the darkness element and understand the Law of Imitation."
The Grand Elder narrowed his eyes more at the snake.
Yet, the snake seemed to be relaxed just now. "I didn't want to tell you because I was afraid that you would doubt my allegiance. Everyone knows that beasts like me are the perfect spies. As soon as you know my power, you might start suspecting everything I do and might interpret malicious intentions in actions that were not there in the first place."
The snake looked into the eyes of the Grand Elder. "Please understand my position. I'm not some spy of the sea beasts. I was simply afraid for my own life."
The watching beasts were unsure what they should think right now. The reasoning of the snake made sense, but he had still lied to all of them. This was not an easy situation.
The Grand Elder looked at the snake and sighed.
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Before anyone could react, the Grand Elder had killed the snake. He simply shot forward with unreal speed, put his hand on the snake's body, and then the snake just exploded.
The watching beasts were shocked and terrified as they saw this happen. Gravis simply nodded from a distance.
"If you had good intentions," the Grand Elder said to no one in particular, "you wouldn't have become so angry and enraged by my confrontation. I saw no guilt in your eyes for being exposed. This shows that you had no feeling of belonging to the Icy Pride Empire."
The Grand Elder's eyes narrowed again.
"I'm not so naïve that I would believe such a blatant lie."
