Lightning Is the Only Way

Stella and Liam inspected the building with curious eyes.

"It looks professional," Stella said.

Liam nodded. When Gravis was around, he didn't talk much.

Gravis smiled widely. "10% of every trade goes to you," he says. 

Liam frowned. "Only 10%?" he asked.

"We will be dealing with big customers," Gravis said as he smiled at Liam. "Every trade will go into the tens of millions Immortal Stones. Just by talking a little bit, you can earn a couple million Immortal Stones, and that's it. You don't even need to do anything else. We don't even need multiple people on one side. You can simply decide amongst yourself who is going to deal with the customers while the other one does whatever they want."

Liam still wasn't happy. "But you will be earning much more," he said.

Gravis rolled his eyes. "You are only officially an employee. You are still basically my brother-in-law, so I will obviously give you money when you need it."

Liam looked at Stella and saw that she didn't even react when Gravis called Liam brother-in-law. 

This meant that Stella was all-in on Gravis, and Liam had to sigh.

"Fine," he said. 

"Oh, wait a sec," Gravis said.

SHING!

Gravis suddenly took out Arc's emblem and broke it, vanishing instantly.

Stella and Liam furrowed their brows.

SHING!

However, Gravis returned in just a couple of seconds.

"Mortis just arrived in Arc's clearing, and I had to give him my Life Ring so that he could get your last colleague, Siral," Gravis said.

Stella and Liam had heard about Mortis and Siral, but they hadn't met them yet.

They didn't really care about Siral since he was basically just Gravis' slave, but they wanted to meet Mortis.

However, it would take a while for Mortis to arrive with Siral, so Gravis decided to begin teaching Stella and Liam about how to conduct business.

Liam and Stella knew some of the concepts, but they had never truly traded with anyone. Why would they? The Nine Elements Sect had always given them everything they needed.

Gravis showed them around and quickly transmitted a ton of concepts about how to conduct business into their minds. 

The Spirits of Immortal Kings were supremely powerful, and learning something like this was easy for them. 

How could learning a bit about trade compare to high-level Laws?

Business was complex to mortals but easy to Immortals.

It only took two hours until Liam and Stella basically knew everything there was to know about running a business and dealing with customers.

"I will do the initial trade," Gravis said. "After all, we need to use my remaining hundred million Immortal Stones well to give the Gravitas a good start."

Liam huffed. Did Gravis think that Liam couldn't deal with customers?

Stella didn't mind. She wanted to see how Gravis dealt with a customer.

Then, they waited.

SHING!

A day later, someone teleported into the underground cave from the beast side.

It was a black demon with white scales, making it pure white, which was a bit contradictory to its species' name.

Liam and Stella looked over and furrowed their brows.

This was Mortis.

Mortis also looked at Liam and Stella.

His gaze lingered much longer on Stella.

Mortis was made with Gravis as a blueprint, which meant that he also held some attraction towards Stella. This had only become worse after Gravis was constantly sending these warm, lovey-dovey feelings to him. It was already hard enough to comprehend Laws under this emotional assault.

For the past 2,000 years, Mortis had been fully focused on comprehending the Major Body Composition Laws. He knew the composition of his own body and the composition of Gravis' body, but not the composition of a normal body.

Because of that, Mortis had captured many different Immortal beasts and experimented on their bodies.

Mortis didn't have any reservations when it came to experimenting on weaker beings. Yes, Mortis was a very fairness-oriented individual, but one first had to be seen as an actual being in his eyes to receive that fairness.

Humans didn't care about the ants they stepped on while walking through a field. 

Yet, weren't these ants also living beings?

Sure they were, but no one cared.

They were too far beneath one to be considered as living beings.

The same was true for Mortis in regards to anything multiple levels below him. 

Gravis was not a good person, but in comparison to Mortis, he was a saint.

While Mortis looked at Stella, a feeling of rage appeared in his heart.

He wasn't jealous or envious of Gravis. That was not why he became angry.

No, he became angry because Stella was the reason why he was constantly assaulted by these distracting feelings from Gravis.

Mortis didn't want to feel these feelings of love since he saw them as a weakness. Emotions were a weakness and had to be suppressed!

However, when Mortis saw Stella, these loving feelings still appeared in his heart.

Because of that, Mortis drowned out these loving feelings with anger and hatred.

Gravis also felt the anger and hate and didn't resist them.

Mortis had kept himself emotionless while Gravis had his 3,500 years of fun, and Gravis wanted to repay Mortis for that.

If Mortis could deal with 3,500 years of being assaulted by Gravis' feelings, Gravis could at least deal with a couple of minutes of Mortis' feelings.

Gravis kept himself at the side. He didn't want to, but he felt incredible anger and hatred right now.

In that state, Gravis might say something wrong. So, he decided to remain silent for a while.

This was how Mortis felt when he saw Liam and Stella.

Yet, how did Stella and Liam feel when they saw Mortis?

'This is not Gravis,' both of them thought at the same time.

They knew about Mortis' origins, which made them believe that he would be similar to Gravis, even when Gravis assured them that Mortis wasn't really similar to him.

However, as soon as they saw Mortis, they didn't feel anything familiar.

Right now, Liam felt like he was looking at a furious beast on the frontlines.

This didn't feel like a meeting between strangers, acquaintances, or friends. 

This felt like a meeting between enemies on a battlefield.

Liam immediately became wary of Mortis.

How did Stella feel?

Stella knew the level three Law of Empathy. 

At least, in the past.

After uniting with Gravis, her Law of Empathy reached the power of a level five Law.

Stella now knew the level five Law of Empathy.

And the Law of Empathy allowed Stella to feel the hidden conflict of emotions in Mortis.

She felt a complex mix of love, resentment, hatred, anger, pride, and even pain.

Yes, there was a slight feeling of pain in Mortis' heart.

Mortis himself didn't even know about it, but Stella felt it.

In Stella's mind, Mortis seemed like an angry teenager that went through a ton of horrible situations, becoming bitter and hate-filled in the process.

However, even though Stella could empathize with Mortis, Mortis was still an angry, cold-blooded, and hate-filled being.

She didn't have the luxury to feel bad for him.

'There is a core of good inside him, but everything is drowned out by anger and hate. This core of good has been completely lost, and I don't think it can ever be uncovered.'

'He is a very dangerous individual. A single wrong word might provoke him into killing anyone.'

'He's unsavable.'

Usually, Mortis was very neutral with his feelings. 

This wasn't how Mortis was normally. 

Normally, he didn't feel anger, hate, pain, or anything.

It was just after seeing Stella with his own eyes that Mortis became filled with anger and hate.

After all, he had to drown out this feeling of love.

Because of that, Liam and Stella got the wrong impression of him.

SHING!

Siral appeared in the cave, and Mortis teleported the Life Ring to Gravis.

After that, he went back to the beast territory without a word.

The less he interacted with Liam, and especially Stella, the better.

Stella and Liam looked at the tunnel that led to the beast territory for a while.

"Is this what you would have become if you had lost to your lightning?" Stella asked.

Gravis nodded wordlessly.

Stella took a shaky breath. She still remembered how Gravis had told her that he might change in the future if he failed. He also told her that she should consider him dead if that happened.

It was hard to believe something like that. After all, how much could someone change in such a relatively short amount of time?

Yet, when Stella saw Mortis, she saw it with her own eyes.

This was not Gravis.

If Gravis had really become Mortis, he truly could be considered dead.

Stella had underestimated the danger Gravis had been under. After all, Gravis would have still been Gravis, right?

But now, she saw the true extent of the danger Gravis had been under.

"Master," Siral said respectfully.

Gravis nodded. "We need to wait for a while."

Siral bowed. "Yes, Master."

"Sorry," Gravis said with furrowed brows to Stella and Liam. "You know about the connection between Mortis and me. Currently, thanks to Mortis, I can't control my emotions."

"I will wait near the edge of the cave until everything is over. You can get acquainted with Siral in the meantime."

With that said, Gravis left the vicinity of Stella, Liam, and Siral as he closed his eyes and sat down at the edge of the cave.

Stella looked at him with a pained look.

She had the Law of Freedom, and she knew how much Gravis valued freedom.

Yet, Gravis didn't even have freedom over his own emotions.

Wasn't something like this one of the worst forms of suppression?

Gravis couldn't even be himself.