The people looked at each other with furrowed brows. They had no idea what the intruder was on about. One of them looked back at Gravis with furrowed brows.
"Wha-"
WHOOOM!
And lost consciousness before he could even finish his words. With the power of his fully concentrated Will-Aura, Gravis was now able to make Seed Stage cultivators lose their consciousness.
"Exactly!" Gravis shouted.
Before the fight with the Darkness Sect, he only had been able to stop Seed Stage experts in their tracks when he concentrated his Will-Aura. While being in the Illusion Array, he could have rotated it to not allow any Seed Stage cultivator to get close to him, but he needed to kill some of them to stop more from attacking him.
The eyes of the other people widened in shock.
"Wha-"
And another one fell unconscious.
"Hey, that joke gets old if it's repeated too many times," Gravis said in seriousness. His dry delivery made the people incredibly confused. Was the intruder annoyed? What did the intruder do? What was happening?
"Oi, bush," Gravis transmitted to the thorny bush. "I am going to walk forward now, and you better not touch me."
Before the bush could answer, Gravis started walking forward, right towards the wall of thorny bush. Unfortunately, the bush didn't retract itself.
BZZZ!
Gravis' body was surrounded by a bit of lightning, and as soon as he touched the wall, his lightning went into it, incinerating the whole cage surrounding him. The lightning traveled along the roots and destroyed a whole third of the bush. Gravis had only released around 5% of his lightning. Any more and the thorny bush would have died.
The thorny bush transmitted a scream of pain, and every root and part of itself moved as far away from Gravis as possible.
"Told you," Gravis transmitted.
The three remaining people looked with fear at Gravis. This was not how this was supposed to go! The intruder was incredibly powerful, and they were sure that they didn't have the power to stop him.
Meanwhile, Gravis just continued walking forward. When he reached the three people, he stopped for a short moment. "I have enough power to flatten your whole Clan. If I really wanted to hurt you, I wouldn't need to lie," Gravis said. Then, Gravis noticed something approaching at quite a fast speed.
BANG!
Gravis' condensed Will-Aura concentrated on the new arrival, sapping him of a lot of his power and slowing him down immensely. Then, he lifted his hands and grabbed the wrist of the attacker, who had just thrown a fist at Gravis. The attacker was an old man with fist-weapons, which encased his hands like some sort of spiky glove with a lot of Formation Arrays.
For some reason, when that attack arrived, Gravis felt an incredible surge of anger raging through him. The anger was so intense that it could only be compared to the anger that he had felt after he had newly created his Destruction Lightning. Yet, with his powerful will, Gravis buried that anger for now. Getting angry now wouldn't help.
The person's eyes widened in shock as he saw that he couldn't even get his attack through. How was that possible!? He was a whole Stage higher than the intruder! He might not have been able to upgrade his body to the Sapling Stage yet, but he was still at the Sapling Stage.
Gravis turned his head to the attacker. "Did you know," Gravis started talking, "the only reason why you are not dead right now is that you didn't unload the natural lightning in your gloves, and that I still owe you for giving me that Formation Array back in the Hunting Guild."
Gravis recognized the person. It was the person that Joyce had called teacher. The fact that he hadn't been able to upgrade his body to the Sapling Stage yet meant that he hadn't been on that Stage for long.
The older person narrowed his eyes and pulled his hand out of Gravis' grasp. "Who are you!?" he asked aggressively.
"Like I said," Gravis answered evenly, "I am the person you helped in the Hunting Guild near Wilderness Town. You know, the one with the Will-Aura? My name is Gravis."
A small glimmer of recognition appeared in the older person's eyes, but his battle intent didn't go down. "You look nothing like that young boy."
Gravis blinked with boredom. "Yeah, guess what. Shit happens. I look different now. Excuse me for my direct choice of language. I'm not used to talking to people that attack me." No amount of respect could be heard in Gravis' words.
He had come to the Freya Clan to repay his debt, yet they had immediately attacked him. The fact that he owed them something was literally the only reason why the present people were still alive. Gravis did not take kindly to people attacking him at all!
The older person jumped back a little but still remained in a battle stance. "That still doesn't explain your ridiculous power. It's impossible to become so powerful in only three years. I can't believe such an outrageous claim without proof."
"And how the fuck am I supposed to prove such a thing?" Gravis asked with annoyance. "I showed you my element. I never initiated an attack. I didn't lie. I gave you information on when and where we talked. What else do you want? Do I also need to tell you about how awkward I acted in front of you? Or how, when you opened the door to the Hunting Guild, you knocked over a hunter? What about that glimmer of understanding in your eyes when I said that I could only accept an equivalent trade? The fuck do you want to hear from me?" Gravis spat one thing after another.
The older man's eyes started losing resolution. Gravis had said a lot of details that others shouldn't know. Yet, the sheer impossibility of what he said still made this hard to accept. After all, it was physically impossible to reach the Seed Stage in only three years. It was like finding a mortal kid on top of a massive tower with the kid saying that it just flew up there. That was impossible for a mortal!
The older person took a deep breath to calm down. "If what you're saying is true, then just wait for a couple of minutes. Everything will resolve itself by then," the older person said carefully.
"Oh? That's interesting. Alright, I'll wait," Gravis said.
While they were talking, another person came closer, charging right at Gravis. Gravis had, obviously, already noticed the person and looked at him with cold eyes. Luckily, the person was stopped by the older person before he could attack. Otherwise, he might have lost an arm. Gravis had been kind enough up to now.
"Why did you stop me, Reginald? If we don't take the initiative, we might all die today," the new arrival asked with a voice transmission.
"Calm down, Marvin," Reginald, the Grand Elder, said. "I think he's maybe telling the truth. On top of that," Reginald narrowed his eyes. "I doubt that we have any chance of winning. He stopped my full-power attack without even using his weapon. His Will-Aura alone is impossibly powerful, and his lightning also feels different than any other lightning I have ever seen. Something very strange is up with this guy."
The Patriarch, Marvin, looked at Reginald with shock. The intruder was this powerful? He was able to easily handle multiple people at the Sapling Stage while being in the Seed Stage? There were cases of some people jumping a Stage to barely win against someone a Stage higher than them, but those cases were supremely rare and were always fought bitterly until both parties nearly died. Yet, this person was basically not even taking them seriously. This was unheard of!
Marvin released a shaky breath. "Then, we can only wait for the Lightning Sect. I have already informed them a couple of minutes ago that someone very powerful has attacked our Clan. They will send, at least, several elders. At that point, the intruder can only surrender."
Reginald nodded his head in agreement.
Of course, Gravis noticed that exchange of gestures and knew that those two were talking about him. Though, that didn't matter at all. The only reason why they were trying to gain some time was probably because they had already contacted the Lightning Sect.
"What's your name?" the Patriarch asked after a couple of minutes of silent waiting.
"Gravis, like I've already said," Gravis answered with annoyance.
The Patriarch remained silent for a while after he had heard that. He tried to think of an instance where he had heard that name before. Someone with such power should be famous in the Core-Continent, after all. He had also heard some big news about someone with that name recently.
When the Patriarch remembered that piece of news, his eyes widened in shock, and he stopped breathing. He had heard that about two weeks ago, someone called Gravis had annihilated the Darkness Sect, alone. At first, he hadn't connected that Gravis to the one standing in front of him. After all, when thinking about someone annihilating a whole Sect, one would think about someone in the Tree Stage, at least. Yet, wasn't Gravis showing power similar to someone at the Tree Stage right now?
"Gravis? Lightning Calamity Gravis?" the Patriarch asked with a shaky voice.
When Reginald heard that, his eyes also widened in shock, and looked more closely at Gravis. Could this really be the Lightning Calamity?
"Lightning Calamity?" Gravis asked with furrowed brows. "Where did that come from?" he asked.
"Someone with the name of Gravis annihilated the Darkness Sect around two weeks ago," the Patriarch answered. "This whole thing could be considered a calamity for the Darkness Sect. The person had also used the lightning element. Therefore, the name Lightning Calamity was born."
Gravis scratched his chin in thought and looked at the sky. "Huh, Lightning Calamity," he muttered. "It sounds a bit too cruel and overbearing, but I guess that's how I would appear to people who don't know all the details. Though, isn't a nickname or title given based on how someone else perceives someone?" Gravis asked himself. "I guess Lightning Calamity kinda fits then."
Suddenly, Gravis perked up and looked to the south. "Oh hey, Lasar's coming."