Lightning Is the Only Way

Gravis quickly exited the third trial and made his way to the usual hall. After around an hour of walking, Gravis reached the hall and saw his group. Everyone was still alive, making Gravis smirk. Everyone's Will-Aura had increased, and Claude had also condensed his Unity Will.

The darkness disciple also had a fully concentrated Will-Aura now. Joyce was well on her way to reaching a level two Unity Will, but that would still require some tempering. Manuel had also started to slowly concentrate his Unity Will, but he was still a long way off from a level two Unity Will.

When the group saw Gravis, their eyes opened in shock. Gravis had already reached the Tree Stage? Wasn't that a little too fast? His will also felt much more powerful, but by now, the strength disparity was just too large. They couldn't judge Gravis' Will-Aura anymore. It just felt incredibly powerful.

"Congratulations!" Joyce shouted with a smile as she clapped into her hands, excitedly. "Now, no one below the Unity Realm can fight with you anymore!"

Gravis nodded with a smile. "Thanks. I should be able to reach the Self Stage in another ten months. Then…" Gravis trailed off as his smile transformed into a smirk.

Gravis didn't need to finish his sentence to make the group understand. They knew exactly what his goal was. After two more trials, Gravis would reach the Self Stage and then the Unity Realm. At that point, he would fight against Heaven, something that had seemed unimaginable to them a couple of years ago.

"I want to see it when it's time," Manuel said with a smirk as he stepped closer.

Instead of smirking back, Gravis' face transformed into a frown. "Manuel. There's something I need to tell you," he said.

The group noticed Gravis' change in tone and grew serious. Yet, how did Manuel react when he heard that?

Manuel only sighed.

"I think I know what you want to tell me," he said with helplessness. "Since humiliation didn't work, Heaven probably wanted to make you regret and rage. My disciple brothers are dead, aren't they?" he asked.

Gravis nodded solemnly.

When Manuel saw Gravis nod, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Tell me how it went down," he said with a calm tone as he sat down in the middle of the hall.

far. Gravis walked closer and sat down opposite Manuel. The remaining three people also walked closer. Claude was just

Bang!

shoved Claude to the side, surprising him. Then, she sat down beside Gravis. When Claude saw that, he laughed a little and sighed again. Helplessly, he sat down beside Manuel.

trial…" Gravis

was still somber, but after a while, it turned to laughter. While the thought of their deaths was still harrowing, their antics and the

earth shake for such a long time," the darkness disciple chimed

also felt that even though

"Yeah, we were surprised why the earth started shaking out of nowhere," Claude said and then laughed. "I would have never guessed that the earth shook because the Wind Sect's group was insulting Heaven. It must

Then, he continued telling the tale of the five heroic men from the Wind Sect. Their inevitable deaths elicited some laughter. The five men had been

his eyes to better imagine that scene. He knew all five of these men, so he

ruler and captor," Manuel said slowly. Then, he laughed. "This is a better death than nearly all cultivators will ever

they lived, free," Gravis said, and Manuel

said, "and don't feel bad. It's not your fault. Even though they have died, they had been able to show their disrespect to Heaven, something we won't be able to ever do, well, except

sighed and shook his head. "I didn't do anything. I only told them why they were in this

that, the group started talking for a couple more hours. Apparently, the group had been fighting a mixture of the first two trials in their third one. They had fought solo and in groups, always outnumbered two to one. Yet, surprisingly, even though the trial could objectively be called harder, subjectively, it wasn't harder

way stronger than the enemies that Claude had faced. If the enemies' power were uniform, either nearly everyone would die, or the strongest of the bunch wouldn't receive

had opened only a day after they had passed the third one. This also showed the progress that everyone had made in the trials. One could even say that their battle-strength

Yet, instead of being a full Stage weaker, Manuel was now only about half a Stage weaker. He had made a lot of progress. Previously, he had been able to win a one-on-one fight against someone

this Heaven's Trial started. But if one compared her to the rest of the group,

he stopped when he noticed something. Meanwhile, the group smirked at

had a big '5' inscribed above it. When Gravis

bit surprised that Gravis had talked to Heaven. Wasn't that useless? After all, Heaven didn't answer.

ridiculous. The highest Heaven would, obviously, not accept that. Yet, if Gravis entered the trial, shouldn't

Pack!