Lightning Is the Only Way

Gravis had regained his calm by now. "You know what?" Gravis asked. "You're right."

Joyce was taken aback by the sudden surrender. Wasn't Gravis supposed to defend his point some more?

Gravis looked away and started scratching his chin in thought. "Though, not completely. I have to concede that you are right in the sense that my distant coldness is a choice, but that hasn't always been the case. Before I reached the Spirit Forming Realm, my coldness wasn't a choice but a necessity. Yet, you are right that it is wrong when I say that I have no control over my coldness in my current situation."

Joyce furrowed her brows. "What do you mean?"

Gravis turned back to her. "Do you remember how I told you that it was important that you gave me the Formation Array in an equal trade?"

Joyce nodded.

"That was because Heaven is my enemy, and it tried to force me into isolation. It killed everyone I came close to. In comparison to your way of tempering, this wasn't something like a chance of dying or tempering. In my case, it was a definite death sentence."

Joyce looked with skepticism at Gravis. "Quite a bold claim, but how are you still alive if Heaven was your enemy? After all, it could just strike you down."

Gravis sighed because he knew that this would take a while to explain. "I'm not from this world."

Joyce's eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

After that, Gravis told Joyce about how he came from a higher world and that his father had a huge enmity with Heaven. This had implicated him, and the Heaven of this lower world had tried everything to kill him or stop him from cultivating. He didn't describe the concept of Karmic Luck and only said that Heaven would kill everyone he came close to. After all, that wasn't a lie. He also told her that it was his father that stopped Heaven from directly annihilating him.

choice but to become cruel and cold. If anyone liked me and decided to help me, it would just end with their death on Heaven's hand. Something like this isn't

brat was wrong, and now Gravis showed her that his situation also wasn't simple. All in all, both had realized that they had judged the other without

active choice from my part until I realized that nothing happened to Lasar or Old Man Lightning. I only

heard that, she released a sigh. "I'm sorry for judging you without

that your life has been easy." Then, Gravis looked out of the window. "The still progressing cultivators in the Freya Clan are very powerful in their own

progressing?" Joyce asked unamused.

"As soon as someone gives up on their cultivation path, they will never become stronger. In comparison to the higher worlds, every single person in this lower world could be considered

only care

believe that everyone desires freedom. This is my ultimate goal. I want to become so powerful that no one can hurt my close ones or me ever again. Yet, that goal is very far away. Until then, I have to live with the knowledge that anyone I

time, Joyce also smiled a little. "So, in the end, your goal of freedom

Gravis said. "But until then, I can't

is a choice. Why do you still intend to distance

Joyce furrow her brows. "If I build too many connections, Heaven might use all of them to force me to stop cultivating. Imagine the scenario where Heaven tells

thought about this, and her insides shook. She had never thought about such a scenario because such a scenario was simply too cruel to be real. Who would do such a thing? Yet, after hearing Gravis' story, she couldn't

think

"I don't know how I would choose in that situation, because I've not been in such a situation before. But the possibility that I will stop cultivating

of that happening are infinitely close to zero. Why go through so much pain just for the nearly non-existent chance that you will ever reach

goal is the peak, and my goal is more important than everything else," Gravis said with resolution. "That is my current belief, and even if my mindset changes in the future, I know that I will

has weighed heavily upon my mind, and the guilt had manifested in regret. But I have learned to accept

smiled bitterly. "A life without regret, huh?" she muttered sadly. "I can't imagine something like that. The faces of my dead