Chapter 98 - 98 – Gaining The Upper Hand
Gravis saw some shocked disciples and threw his lightning at one of them. The disciple got hit and screamed in pain, yet he managed to resist.
SHING!
Gravis had, by now, learned that, for some reason, his lightning was much weaker against those people. He hadn’t intended to kill the disciple with the lightning, but to blind and stun him. With an impressively quick charge, Gravis cleaved the disciple in two.
The others quickly recovered and attacked Gravis from all sides. Gravis chose one of the disciples on the fourth level and ran towards him. The others could only follow behind, but Gravis’ sudden increase in speed meant that they couldn’t follow him.
Gravis reached the disciple, who quickly stabbed his spear at Gravis. Gravis put his already injured left hand in front and let the spear stab through it. Gravis then moved the spear to the side and also killed that disciple. ’With that one done, there should be eight on the fourth level, two on the fifth level, and one on the sixth level remaining. About halfway done.’
Gravis quickly turned the spear in his hand towards one of the chasing fifth rank disciples and punched the spear on the back. The spear shot out of his hand, and the chasing disciple had to block. The others continued charging.
"SCREEE"
The still watching wind bird released a loud shout as it started attacking Escura together with the tree. It had kept watch all this time, and with its intelligence, it was able to understand a lot of things. Initially, it had intended to wait for them to end their fight, but when it saw that those humans were burning down its home, it started attacking Escura.
It had realized earlier that Gravis could have killed it in their previous fight. Beasts were also very sensitive towards killing intent, and it had felt nothing from Gravis. Yet, those other humans were burning down its home. That was something completely different!
Escura was already fighting equally with the tree, and now the bird also attacked. Due to its brilliantly calculated timing on its wind waves, Escura lost her balance multiple times, and the tree had already hit her once with a branch. The branch hit her chest and smashed her backward. Escura had trouble breathing, and her chest hurt immensely.
Gravis noticed this and smirked. ’Can I call this luck?’ he thought, but only sarcastically. If he had actually tried to kill the bird, it might have already attacked him in all this chaos. ’Well, let’s go all out.’
Gravis no longer restricted his lightning movement. He suspected that the tree was too preoccupied with Escura to care about him, and he was right. Gravis’ speed increased even more, and he caught another disciple on the fourth level by surprise.
A disciple in the fifth level used his poleaxe to stab at Gravis from the side.
SPLASH!
Gravis used the still open wound on his left hand and squeezed some blood out. Then, he threw the blood into the disciple’s eyes, who shouted and closed them. Gravis was easily able to dodge the uncoordinated attack and slashed. Surprisingly, the disciple was smart enough to retreat and used his free arm to block in desperation.
SHING!
His arm got severed, and the disciple screamed in more pain as he swung his poleaxe wildly in an attempt to keep Gravis at bay. Sadly, the disciple couldn’t see Gravis right now. Gravis quickly ran around him until he was diagonally behind the disciple.
SHING!
The disciple was only swinging at the height of Gravis’ torso, so Gravis slid on his butt and severed one leg. The disciple lost his balance, and Gravis punched him far away from the branch. The disciple couldn’t survive a fall from this height.
Another disciple quickly slashed at Gravis from behind with his saber. Suddenly, the disciple felt an incomparable pressure pressing down on his body. For him, it felt like Heaven was about to strike him. That was Gravis’ Will-Aura, and he no longer planned to keep it hidden.
There was only one disciple in the fifth level left, and Escura was too preoccupied to watch his battle. When the disciple froze, Gravis quickly stood up and killed that disciple too. Gravis quickly noticed how there were way fewer disciples than in the beginning, and he smirked. ’I should be done soon.’
Gravis quickly charged at another one, and this disciple used his lightning to strike the wood in front of Gravis. The disciple used the same trick that Gravis had performed earlier, but nothing happened. The disciple grew shocked, and Gravis quickly ended his life. What a joke! As if the tree could care about something like this now.
Some of the disciples slowly lost their battle intent and started being more passive. Gravis had killed two-thirds of them, and they were only able to injure his left hand. With Escura preoccupied, they realized that they probably couldn’t take Gravis down. Suddenly, Gravis noticed something and jumped back.
BOOM!
A huge fireball hit his earlier position, and everything in its surroundings blew up. A massive chunk of the branch was destroyed, and everything was burning in its surroundings. Gravis looked to the attacker and saw multiple people. They were riding on unicycles while fire came out of their feet. They left trails of fire as they drove upwards on the tree, towards the branch.
They completely ignored the fire and rode straight through it. The tree was continually trying to stop the fire by slamming its branches into it, but every time a branch was about to hit the people, a fireball destroyed the branch.
’Fire Guild,’ Gravis concluded as he watched them with narrow eyes fille with killing intent. They were also twenty people with the same power levels as the original arrivals of the Lightning Guild. ’Another four in the fifth level and another one in the sixth.’
"Rejoice! Your knight is here to save you, princess," shouted Flern, the leader of Earth Town’s Fire Guild, at Escura with thick sarcasm.
"Kill the bird!" Escura shouted at Flern immediately.
When the disciples of the Fire Guild started reaching the tree, they had seen one Lightning Disciple after another getting thrown off of it. By then, they had realized that the wanted former disciple of the Lightning Guild was stronger than they anticipated.
Yet, what kind of people were the disciples of the Fire Guild? They were hotheaded, battle-hungry maniacs who never ran away from a fight. Every other guild might have retreated, thinking that this would risk their disciple’s life, but the Fire Guild never had these thoughts. The stronger the enemy, the more their battle intent would burn.
Flern started helping Escura by fighting the bird. A lot of pressure was taken off of Escura’s shoulders as she started gaining the superiority in her fight against the tree. The bird also had issues while fighting Flern. Someone on the sixth level of Energy Gathering was more than a match for a low-grade Energy Beast.
On the other hand, the other disciples charged at Gravis, leaving a violently burning streak on the tree’s bark. The fire was getting completely out of control, and nearly the whole tree was burning below the branch. Everyone falling down would be roasted, except the disciples of the Fire Guild.
The disciples of the Lightning Guild had to train their lightning resistance to use their element. The same thing held true for the disciples of the Fire Guild. Something like a wildfire was nothing to them.
The towering tree was fiercely burning with intense fire everywhere. It was so hot that even the clouds above the tree started vanishing due to the heat. Black smoke started appearing everywhere, and it made it very difficult to see.
As the people of the Fire Guild arrived, they threw away their unicycles and started charging at Gravis, fireballs shooting out of their hands.
’Guess it’s not over yet.’