Gravis closely watched the new arrivals, trying to be as stealthy as possible, which was not that hard. He only had to look at the map in his head, and he would see all of them very clearly. Those disciples quickly talked with some other ones to create a more specific plan.
Of course, Gravis heard everything but didn't react. He stealthily clenched his fist in anger. Those bastards were playing as dirty as it got.
WHOOSH!
Skye seemed to be bored at its current position, so it flew a little bit closer. The disciples first felt surprised but calmed down when they saw that Skye was still around 300 meters away. This wouldn't impact their plan. Sadly, the bird had taken all the loot with it, so they couldn't use Skye's absence to steal it.
When Gravis noticed that Skye flew a little closer, he released a hidden sigh of relief. After Gravis had heard about the darkness disciples' plan, he had acted like he wanted to put his loot beneath Skye. In reality, he had told Skye that it should come closer later, but stealthily. Skye and Gravis had known each other long enough, so Skye understood what Gravis had meant. Like this, Gravis could deal with their plan.
"Come on! Does no one in the Darkness Guild have the guts to fight with me one-on-one? I also accept fights with people at the ninth level of Magic Gathering!" Gravis shouted into the surroundings. He had to act his part.
The darkness disciples didn't look angry or enraged but just annoyed and bored. Honor, guts, and glory were unimportant in their eye. Someone who insulted them with one of those three things wouldn't manage to anger them. That person would just draw their ridicule. They didn't look at Gravis like an opponent, but like he was some beast. He just needed to wait for his death, and his words were irrelevant to them.
They finalized their plan, and then they split up. One disciple at the eighth level of Energy Gathering took ten more body tempering pills with him and walked towards Gravis. Gravis just looked with pride at the person. He had to look like he underestimated them. Like this, the bait would be even more delicious.
"I am very confident in my victory, so I am ready to bet ten pills at once, but please, don't immediately attack me, okay?" the disciple said with friendliness as he threw the sack of pills over.
"Don't worry! I only did that before to show you how I felt. I won't do this a second time," assured Gravis as he looked inside the sack. He saw some pretty good pills inside the sack and smirked a little.
"Alright! Everything checks out. You can attack anytime you want," said Gravis magnanimously. While he said that, he also kept his eyes on the disciples at the ninth level of Energy Gathering. They had not contributed to the pills since they were not here to fight with Gravis. They were here to kill Skye!
That had been the idea of that one disciple that wanted more money. He had said that they could probably lure in a lot of their seniors with the bird. High-grade Energy Beasts were rare and very valuable, after all. Those seniors would ambush Skye, and Gravis would quickly turn around and look at Skye in shock. That would be the time when the other disciples attacked Gravis. This was the perfect diversion.
Would the darkness disciples at the ninth level care about Gravis' loot? A little bit maybe, but not enough to risk their lives. Yet, with the addition of a high-grade Energy Beast, the potential gains would be worth the risk. On top of that, they had never paid Gravis, so he was not allowed to attack them, as long as they didn't attack him first. This perfectly took advantage of the rules.
Gravis noticed how the disciples around him came closer and also noticed how Skye had been surrounded. Suddenly, Gravis' eyes narrowed into coldness. All the previous emotions of pride, anger, confidence, and similar things vanished in an instant. Those who had looked into Gravis' eyes at the time felt like the whole atmosphere changed.
Gravis had not activated his Will-Aura yet, but his whole demeanor had changed. The one disciple right in front of him suddenly felt a deep nervousness and fear. This wasn't right! Something was wrong about this situation!
"You know," said Gravis in an even, cold voice. "I wanted to get some more pills, but you had to target Skye," Gravis cracked his neck. "I could have acted longer like a pig to catch the tiger, and maybe I would have gotten more out of that, but I think it feels better to just kill all of you."
WHOOOOSH!
The onlookers' eyes widened in surprise, but that was quickly halted by them fainting due to Gravis releasing his Will-Aura. The surroundings cracked under the pressure, and every disciple below the ninth level of Energy Gathering fell over. Every single disciple was inside his Will-Aura.
The only ones who could still think were the disciples surrounding Skye, but they couldn't move. It was like their whole bodies were encased in metal, and they couldn't even release their Energy. They could only wait for their deaths.
BANG!
"Oh?" said Gravis in surprise. "Another breakthrough?"
One of the disciples in the ninth level had condensed their Will-Aura right there. The disciple immediately fled into the distance. He knew that, even though he had condensed his Will-Aura now, he would die if he stayed. He was not stupid.
Gravis only smirked at the fleeing disciple. Instead of chasing, he looked at him.
BANG!
Gravis condensed his Energy and broke into the eighth level of Energy Gathering. The level suppression of the Will-Aura got reduced by a level, and the fleeing disciple immediately froze again. Meanwhile, the other disciples at the ninth level of Energy Gathering lost their consciousness.
BANG SWOOOSH!
Skye jumped up and flew away. It could resist Gravis' previous Will-Aura, but this one was too strong. Moving its body was incredibly difficult, and its survival instincts kicked in. It retreated until it left the Will-Aura, looking back warily.
Gravis walked around casually and went from one unconscious body to another. Whenever he arrived at one, he would look through their wealth and pocket anything that he needed. After that, he would just behead them and absorb their Energy.
While walking to the fourth body, Gravis looked at the unconscious bodies of the audience. He only sneered. "You haven't killed or offended me, so I'll keep you alive. If I break the rules too heavily, the Spirit Forming people might actually chase me."
After a minute, Gravis cleaned up all the people that had surrounded him. He made quite some gains. Then, he walked over to the two unconscious people at the ninth level of Energy Gathering. Just like with the other corpses, Gravis looted and then killed them.
BANG!
The last conscious disciple lost his consciousness as Gravis broke into the ninth level of Energy Gathering. Gravis ignored that guy and continued harvesting his rewards. After he had finished with those two disciples, Gravis also slashed his sword at the last disciple's neck.
CLANK!
"Oh?" Gravis uttered in surprise. "Quite a hard body. That body is probably at the ninth level of Energy Gathering. This guy is probably an elder." Gravis looked closer at his face, and sure enough, the person was not a youngster, but middle-aged. "Huh, interesting." Gravis infused his saber with a lot of lightning and swung down with all his power.
BOOM!
The earth exploded with lightning, and the head flew away into the distance. Gravis had used the same technique as when he had fought Red. With his physical body alone, he wouldn't be able to injure people like that. He used a lot of lightning to move his saber into the elder's neck and then made his lightning explode, which cut the head off.
Gravis also looked through the loot of that guy and found a lot of body tempering pills. His eyes widened when he saw the sheer amount. After he looked at them in shock for several seconds, he started laughing. "Finally!"
Together with those pills, he finally had enough to boost his body into the tenth level of Energy Gathering! After laughing for a while, Gravis calmed down and looked around at the unconscious disciples. "They should be out for, at least, 30 minutes."
Gravis deactivated his Will-Aura and called Skye back. First, Skye didn't dare to return into the range of Gravis' Will-Aura. All its instincts screamed at it that it would die if it entered. Yet, after some coaxing, it arrived before Gravis. "You can eat everyone that is dead," said Gravis.
Skye immediately forgot about Gravis' Will-Aura and only saw food. Without further ado, it started gorging itself. Those were a lot of corpses!
Surprisingly, it took Skye less time to eat all the bodies than it took Gravis to loot them. When Gravis saw that Skye was done, he packed all the dead disciples' weapons into a sack and jumped onto Skye's back.
WHOOOSH!
Skye shot off into the distance, and Gravis smirked.
"Time to temper my body!"