Lightning Is the Only Way

Gravis activated his Will-Aura and felt the space around him. The lightning from Heaven was nowhere to be seen. Instead, something similar to fog filled this barrier. Gravis felt the Primal Energy in the air, and it seemed to mold to whatever he wanted. It was similar to how the elements followed what he wanted by him activating his Elemental Synchronicity.

"It's time!" Gravis shouted with mad glee.

Gravis absorbed a lot of the Primal Energy into his body and willed it to transform into Destruction Energy.

BOOM BZZZZZZZ!

A part of Gravis' chest was destroyed as a second Lightning Seed, made out of pure Destruction Energy, was created. Gravis ignored the pain as he activated his Elemental Synchronicity. The Lightning Seed quickly moved through his body without damaging it. The second Lightning Seed was moving right towards his mind!

"The Pre-Forming Technique said that if the mind were completely filled with Energy, it would come into life-threatening danger. At that point, the mind either had to be destroyed, or it had to adapt! The main reason why people needed a Will-Aura to reach the Spirit Forming Realm had never been the pain, but this adaptation process. If someone formed their Spirit without a Will-Aura, they wouldn't be able to force their mind to adapt to the Energy."

Gravis' smirk intensified. "So, if the mind can be forced to acclimate to Energy, can't it also be forced to acclimate to Lightning?" he shouted to himself with madness.

As he shouted that, the Lightning Seed broke into his mind, transforming all the Energy inside of it into Destruction Lightning. Without his Elemental Synchronicity, he wouldn't have been able to move his Lightning Seed into his mind safely. Without it, the Lightning Seed would have burned a hole into the walls of his mind, destroying it.

What did Gravis feel during all this?

Indescribable, infinite pain.

Gravis immediately fell to the floor, violently grabbing his hair in both of his hands. Nothing he had ever felt came even close to this intense pain. The relatively calm Energy was already creating so much pain that people needed a Will-Aura to survive that. Pure Destruction Lightning was infinitely more violent than this calm Energy.

Gravis felt his Will-Aura shake as he fought with all his power against this pain. The pain was absolutely unreal, but he had to force his mind to adapt! If it didn't adapt, Gravis would die right now! Anyone with just a normal Will-Aura would have already died from the pain.

Gravis had severely underestimated the pain he felt. When he came up with this plan, he knew that his Will-Aura was already leagues above anyone else. Some people might have tried something similar in the past, but he was sure that they hadn't had such a powerful Will-Aura as Gravis.

But, Gravis was still struggling with his life even with his newly upgraded Will-Aura, which Aion had called a Unity Will. Gravis guessed that a Unity Will was probably the power a Will-Aura required to break into the Unity Realm. That had affirmed him even more in his decision. His will was already powerful enough to reach the Unity Realm, so how could a non-standard breakthrough into the Spirit Forming Realm be a danger to him?

Yet, Gravis was close to losing his consciousness. He had already ripped out half of his hair, leaving bloody wounds with ripped-off skin behind. His fingernails cut into the flesh of his face as he screamed so loudly that it reverberated for hundreds of kilometers. The Formation Array was not blocking sound.

Aion, who was watching and listening to all of this, felt a deep nervousness and fear inside of him. What could make someone with a Unity Will scream this hysterically and violently? There shouldn't be anything in this world that was a danger to such a powerful will! The Unity Will was the highest will that someone could achieve in this world! Nothing could shake it!

This continued for over half a minute, but for Gravis, it felt like years. The more pain someone felt, the longer a short moment would feel. The time would only pass faster if they lost their consciousness during all of this. As long as someone remained conscious, it would feel like forever.

Gravis' will shook more and more as it slowly lost its circular form. Its borders transformed and warped into different forms, wreaking havoc on the surrounding hundreds of meters due to its instability. The impact of Gravis' will was even stronger than before due to all the instability in it, and Aion jumped back, leaving its range.

'ENDURE! ENDURE! ENDURE! ENDURE! ENDURE! ENDURE!' was all that Gravis shouted to himself in his mind. He had known from the very beginning that there was a big chance of death doing this, but his goal was not to become stronger, but to reach the peak! Everyone else had used the same way to break into the Spirit Forming Realm, and everyone else couldn't reach the peak.

If no one else reached the peak with these methods, then the methods were most likely wrong! Gravis had to create an entirely new way, a better way! Even if the chances of death had been 99%, he still would have done it! His goal was never survival, but the peak! He hated Heaven for everything it had done! Being powerless in front of Heaven had created all this deep hatred inside of him.

When he had reached this lower world, this lower Heaven had also trampled upon him time and time again! It had tried to kill him with the environment. It had tried to weaken his will. It had tried to send him only good people so he wouldn't find any enemies, and worst of all, it disallowed him from gaining companionship from others by threatening him with their karmic luck!

Heaven had been constantly trampling upon Gravis, and his hate had only intensified over this past year. The only thing that Gravis could do was fight and remember all this hatred. Yet, the hatred had accumulated with no possibility of release.

When Gravis had just reached this lower world, his life had been more important than destroying Heaven, but that had slowly changed over time until it had reached this enormous amount. Heaven had abused Gravis so much that he didn't care about his own life anymore! He only wanted Heaven to die!

WHOOM!

After nearly a minute of hysterical screeching from Gravis, his Will-Aura started getting absorbed back into his body. It looked like his whole Will-Aura was being absorbed by his mind. Gravis, who saw this, managed to feel some shock through all the pain. He was not controlling his Will-Aura. He was not condensing it.

His Will-Aura was being absorbed by the lightning in his mind!

Over the next ten seconds, his Will-Aura was completely absorbed and vanished into nothingness. Gravis couldn't activate or deactivate it. It had just vanished. Slowly, Gravis' thoughts also started vanishing one by one.

That happened until his whole mind and Spirit vanished into the lightning. Yet, the body rose again. Gravis' body opened its eyes, and nothing but lightning could be seen in the eyeholes. Then, lightning started coming out of Gravis' mouth, nose, ears, and all over his body.

This was not Gravis anymore.

This thing had replaced Gravis after absorbing him and now inhabited his body. The thing opened its lightning-covered hand and raised it to the sky. Out of nowhere, storm clouds appeared, and before they could do anything, all the lightning inside of them was absorbed into the thing's hand, absorbing it.

Meanwhile, in a different place, someone was watching all of this happening. The time difference of the lower world and this highest world made no difference to this person. They were strong enough to ignore this. They wouldn't even have a problem to keep up with a time-dilation of millions of times.

This person was the Opposer, Gravis' father.

The Opposer had watched all of Gravis' struggles with a calm heart. Through all this time, he had remained proud of his son. Gravis had made him prouder than any of his other children! None of his other children had Heaven directly attack them as this one did. Their only drawback in the lower worlds had been their lack of Karmic luck.

Yet, due to Gravis' apparent enmity with Heaven, Heaven had treated him like an enemy from the very beginning. Of course, Gravis also had bad luck that he got this particular world. Not all Heavens of the different worlds interfered with their cultivators like this!

The heart of the Opposer had always been calm through all this. He trusted in Gravis. The Opposer didn't even bat an eye when Gravis had been thrown into a cesspool. Difficulties were part of a cultivator's journey.

Yet, when the Opposer looked at what Gravis was doing right now, he couldn't remain calm anymore.

In fact, his emotions hadn't been this riled up ever since he had his first battle with Heaven.

Why was he so riled up?

Because this thing that had replaced Gravis was an embodiment of the pure concept of lightning. It had full control over all lightning, no matter the source.

This thing would absorb all the lightning in the world, becoming stronger in the process, and then absorb all the lightning in the higher world.

This thing would reach the power of the highest Heaven,

In a matter of seconds!