Lightning Is the Only Way

Silence returned as Gravis sat on the ground with his head in his hands while Stella looked with shock into the Life Ring.

SHING!

Liam came out of the Life Ring. He could have left whenever he wanted, but Gravis told him not to leave until he saw Stella again. Liam had had no connection to the outside, which meant that he had not seen what had happened between Gravis and Stella. 

Liam looked at his sister as his right hand shakingly stretched to her. He saw two intense, red handprints on her cheeks, and he saw that her right arm was broken. 

However, that which shocked him the most was the fact that half of Stella's robes had been torn off. 

Cultivators constantly got injured during battles, but these were not battle injuries.

These were injuries of abuse.

Liam's hand balled into a fist and shook violently as his rage exploded. He had heard from Gravis that Gravis needed to push Stella to the point of no return, but he didn't know what he would do. 

Back when Gravis had looked at Liam for several seconds, the two of them had communicated with voice transmissions. Gravis had told him that he needed Liam's cooperation to resolve Stella's issue, but also that it required Gravis to tell Liam what Stella needed to comprehend.

However, explaining it to Liam meant that it would be harder for Liam to learn the Law of Freedom in the future. 

Liam hadn't even hesitated and directly asked Gravis to explain.

So, Gravis had explained to him the concept of freedom and how it was possible to comprehend it. One could only comprehend freedom when someone was at the lowest point of their life, but that was not all. When the person was in the lowest point of their life, they needed to be put to a choice.

A choice between the right thing to do and what they wanted to do.

Samantha's father had been at that point. He had just lost his daughter, and the murderer of his daughter stood in front of him, being protected by all the Sect Masters. The smart thing would have been to wait, but he had wanted to kill Gravis so badly. 

When one arrived at this choice, one only had to choose the correct thing, which was ironically the stupid thing, throwing one's future away to follow what one wanted. 

Gravis explained to Liam that he needed to "die" first. Luckily, Liam had some insight into the Laws of Life, making it easier to create some fake body parts. Otherwise, Gravis would have needed to create them, and Liam would have needed to infuse them with his aura, but it was much more convincing with Liam doing it directly.

Both of them had higher Realms than Stella, which meant that it was easy to leave her Spirit Sense. After leaving her Spirit Sense, Liam took out some body parts he had prepared while they had been talking. Then, Liam threw nearly all his belongings onto the ground and entered Gravis' Life Ring.

The last thing that Gravis had had to do was to unleash a Lightning Crescent. 

This was the last time Liam had seen his sister up to now.

However, when Liam saw Stella like this, he couldn't control his anger anymore. 

Stella was injured with tears and blood staining her face. 

In her destroyed state of mind, she had even forgotten shame as she only looked at her brother like she was in a dream. 

"I'm so sorry," Liam said quietly.

PACK!

Stella jumped into her brother's arms as she cried her heart out. 

Her brother was still alive!

Liam couldn't return the hug but repaired Stella's robes instead. Seeing her like this pained him, and he felt an incredible amount of guilt.

Yes, it had been a necessity to put her through these things, but it was still a betrayal in his mind. 

Liam's shame stopped him from returning the hug. He just felt too horrible. He didn't deserve to hug his sister right now.

"Have you comprehended freedom?" Liam asked quietly. 

Stella was still crying in Liam's embrace, but Liam felt Stella's head nod slightly. 

Liam released a sigh of relief. "Good," he said quietly.

Then, he pushed Stella gently to the side, breaking the hug.

SHING!

And he pulled out his thin rapier as he glared at Gravis.

"Then you don't need him anymore," he said coldly. 

Stella's emotional mind froze as another feeling of foreboding appeared in her mind. 

However, Liam was too fast, and he immediately unleashed his most powerful attack.

SHING!

Liam slashed down as a mixture of Inferno, Punishment Lightning, and Frost shot at Gravis, who was still sitting on the ground. 

Stella felt like she had woken up from a nightmare just to fall back into one. 

No, not again!

BOOOOOM!

The attack exploded, but the explosion was not nearly as big as it was supposed to be. In actuality, it barely reached the power of a level three Law. 

Liam narrowed his eyes as he realized that Gravis couldn't have died from that. 

"STOP!" Stella shouted as she threw herself at Liam, holding him back with all her power. 

"Let me go!" Liam shouted at Stella, just to be assaulted by more guilt as he realized that he had just shouted at his sister aggressively. His eyes became cold as he looked at the location of the explosion. "He must pay!"

SLAP!

Stella slapped Liam, his head turning to the side as his mind stopped working.

"Shut up!" Stella shouted with tears in her eyes. "I didn't go through a world of grief just to lose you again! I don't want you to throw your life away!"

Liam's mind was shocked as he felt his stinging cheek. Stella had never slapped him before. 

However, Stella's words kept ringing in his ears. She didn't want him to die.

Liam's grip on his rapier tightened with rage and frustration. He wanted to kill Gravis so badly right now, but he knew that he couldn't win. Additionally, he didn't want his sister to go through more turmoil. She had suffered enough for today.

Liam put his rapier away. "I'm sorry. I lost control over myself," he said quietly.

Stella jumped into his arms again. "It's fine, as long as you're okay," she answered.

Like this, the two of them remained.

Meanwhile, the smoke of the explosion vanished, revealing Gravis sitting on the ground. However, his head was no longer in his hands. Instead, he was massaging the bridge of his nose in stress. 

This entire thing also wasn't easy for him. However, Gravis went through enough trouble in his life that something like this wouldn't break him. 

The reason why he was trying to calm himself right now wasn't because of the issue with Stella.

Right now, Gravis was trying his best to resist the will of his lightning.

Liam had attacked him, and his lightning wanted to kill him. 

Gravis' lightning was screaming at him to kill Liam, making Gravis feel rage and hatred towards Liam. However, Gravis didn't comply. 

Liam had been in a horrible position, and he was very emotional. Gravis did all of these for a good reason, but that didn't mean that Stella didn't go through some heavy trauma just now. 

Gravis would have probably acted very similarly to Liam, which was why he didn't want to kill Liam right now.

Gravis was willing to overlook this one attack, but not a second one. 

'I need some time for myself, and they probably also want to be alone,' Gravis thought.

Gravis created a jade token and put it down before him. After that, he teleported away.

The jade token told them that he would be waiting about a million kilometers to the north. If they wanted to talk to him, he would remain there for one more week. If they didn't come, he would take it as them telling him that they wanted to cut off all contact with him. 

Gravis' mission was complete. 

Stella had only followed Gravis because Gravis had agreed to help her with the issue of her Will-Aura. With Stella's mindset and the Law of Freedom, such interferences would no longer be an issue. This meant that there was no longer any reason to remain in contact with him. 

Additionally, after everything that had happened just now, even if it had been for a good reason, Gravis could understand that they wouldn't want to see him again. He didn't care about Liam, but he would miss Stella. 

'I did the wrong thing for the right reasons,' Gravis thought with a sigh.

'They can decide to do whatever they want.' 

'Whatever happens, happens.'