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.

it would just end with their death on Heaven's hand. Something like this isn't tempering. My only chance

wrong, and now Gravis showed her that his situation also wasn't simple.

but it hasn't been an active choice from my part until I realized that nothing happened to Lasar or Old

"I'm sorry for judging you

entering the room. "The same holds true for me. I shouldn't have assumed that your life has been easy." Then, Gravis looked out of the window. "The still progressing cultivators in

progressing?" Joyce asked unamused. "Only

comparison to the higher worlds, every single person in this lower world could be considered weak. Yet, every person has the potential to become truly

the end, you only care

nodded. "This might only be my opinion and not the objective truth, but I 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

end, your goal of freedom is not only for yourself but also for your

is," Gravis said. "But until then, I can't build too many relationships

agreed that your coldness is a choice. Why do you

I have a choice," Gravis said, making 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 you that you need to stop cultivating, or it will kill everyone in your entire family. What

too cruel to be real. Who would do such a thing? Yet, after

took a shaky breath. "I think I would stop cultivating,"

nodded and looked out at the Freya Clan again. "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 when it comes down to it is very real. I can't risk

something like this will only happen when you become a danger to the Heaven in your homeworld," Joyce said. "The chances of that happening are infinitely close to zero. Why go through so much pain just for the nearly non-existent chance

my 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

"Until recently, I have had many regrets. I have killed a close friend and mentor of mine about two and a half years ago. This has weighed heavily upon my mind, and the guilt had manifested in regret. But I have learned to accept the world as it is, and I can say with certainty that I am living without regret right now. If I don't do everything for my goal, I

smiled bitterly. "A life without regret, huh?" she muttered sadly. "I can't imagine something like that. The faces of my dead companions still haunt me, and there is not even a