Lightning Is The Only Way

After thinking about their current situation, Gravis and Mortis entered Manuel's faction.

Back when Gravis had just been a level four Star God, everyone had thrown him weird looks. The Battle-Strength of the average hadn't been powerful enough to feel Gravis' Battle-Strength, which was why they had looked at him with weird expressions. After all, he felt like an average level four Star God, which was far too weak for being around here.

Now, no one looked at Gravis.

Why?

Because they still couldn't feel Gravis' Battle-Strength, and he was a level nine Star God.

He was now the most normal person there could be.

As Gravis looked at all the people, he remembered how it had been when he had just come back to the highest world.

Back then, there had been nearly no Star Gods, and the strongest one's had been level two Star Gods.

Star Gods had been an incredible rarity.

Now, everything was full with them. 

The population of Star Gods had fully recovered, and it had only taken around a million years.

If Gravis had entered the highest world at this point, he wouldn't have needed to worry about finding tempering.

But that didn't matter now. Gravis' Will-Aura was already equal to a Peak Ancestral Gods', and his Law Comprehension was already equivalent to the middle of the Divine God Realm.

Star Gods were no longer relevant to Gravis.

Mortis quickly left Gravis as he found Azure. To him, it had felt like he hadn't met her in forever, and he couldn't wait to see her again.

Meanwhile, Gravis frowned.

Stella was nowhere to be seen.

However, Gravis could see Manuel, Dorian, and Exar talking in a meeting room. According to what Gravis was hearing, they were talking about unimportant things. 

SHING!

Gravis teleported and directly arrived in the room.

The three of them furrowed their brows as they felt someone teleport into the meeting and looked over.

Yet, when they saw Gravis, their eyes widened.

They hadn't expected it to be Gravis.

Why?

Because they had been able to feel Gravis' Battle-Strength before, but now, they could feel nothing.

They had gotten used to perceiving Gravis by his dominating aura of Battle-Strength. It had basically become one of his trademarks.

Now, that trademark was gone.

"Impressed?" Gravis asked with a smirk.

"Tch," Dorian spat to the side. "Why does this remind me of the lower world?" he asked with a sneer.

Gravis had to laugh when he heard that. Dorian had also acted like this when he had realized that Gravis had already had a level two Unity Will in the lower world.

Manuel's frown transformed into a bright smile as he saw Gravis. "You never fail to surprise us, Gravis."

Gravis nodded. "It's been difficult. Everything alright here?" he asked.

"Yeah, everything finally calmed down after a long time," Manuel answered. "We are finally powerful enough to no longer be under an immediate threat of extermination. Now, we can fight with the other huge factions."

"Well, that's at least as it appears on the surface. They don't know that we also have Meadow and Narcissus. Additionally, we kept Stella and Azure hidden. Recently, their powers have become ridiculous, which puts them above basically everyone."

Gravis nodded.

After Gravis, Mortis, and Stella had comprehended the True Law of Empathy, the Laws they could share were no longer restricted by level.

This meant that Azure and Stella had comprehended some of Gravis' and Mortis' strongest Laws.

First of all, the two of them had comprehended the Law of Heavenly Lightning, a level nine Law. Something like that vastly outclasses other Star Gods.

Then, they had also comprehended the three Pure Matter Laws.

Lastly, they had also comprehended the level eight Law of Lightning Manipulation, but that wasn't very relevant since they already knew the level nine Law of Heavenly Lightning.

Just the Law of Heavenly Lightning alone would allow someone to jump two levels. 

With everything combined, Stella and Azure could probably jump three levels, which would allow them to fight an Ancestral God.

How many Cultivators from other factions could fight Ancestral Gods as Star Gods?

No one.

They would have long since become Ancestral Gods themselves.

Because of their power, Manuel's faction was invincible amongst the other factions.

"What's the next step?" Gravis asked.

"Factions officially transition as soon as they have created three Ancestral Gods," Manuel explained. "At that point, the leadership will join the Core Faction of the Eternal Fire Sect, which gives us many more options in how to integrate our factions into the core of the Eternal Fire Sect."

"So, the normal members also join the Core?" Gravis asked.

Manuel nodded. "The level nine Star Gods anyway," he said. "The weaker ones will have to search for another faction."

"What about after you join the Core Faction?" Gravis asked.

"The competition will still be there, but it will become more subtle. Open warfare between the factions is strictly prohibited, and if someone has been found out to have broken the rules, they would be severely punished."

Gravis nodded and smirked. "So, when do you plan to take over the Eternal Fire Sect?"

If anyone outside of this room had heard these words, they would have taken a deep breath in shock. 

However, Manuel didn't strongly react to Gravis' words. "I need to get acquainted with the atmosphere in the Eternal Fire Sect's Core first. I can't plan anything big if I don't know how everyone thinks and what their ideologies are. After all, I don't want to lose 80% of all members to competing Sects just because I didn't know the members."

"So, no plan of taking over leadership for now," Gravis added.

"None," Manuel said calmly. "It's too early, and my strength has to reach a satisfactory level first. I can't truly lead a Sect when every single member of the Core is stronger than me. Even if they know of my capabilities, a hidden resentment would still be created just based on the fact that they feel like they could snap me out of existence without any effort."

"Makes sense," Gravis answered. "By the way, what were you guys talking about earlier?"

Manuel gestured for Gravis to come over and look at a map. "Right now, we're thinking about how to properly distribute our forces along our borders and resources. This is not for defense purposes but for appearance. We want to give off the image that we are not weak, but we also don't want to appear too powerful."

"You want to bait them into an attack, right?" Gravis asked with a smirk.

Manuel nodded with a smile.

After that, Gravis gave some suggestions, but they had basically all been laughed away since they wouldn't work. 

The three of them had lived in this political climate for nearly a million years, while Gravis' experience only came from some looks he had gotten while going through Samsara.

One had to remember that all the people Gravis had used Samsara on had, at most, been equal to the people of the Eternal Fire Sect.

Because of that, Gravis couldn't be of any help.

He had been amazing at leading a power in the middle world, and he could probably also reach astounding results by doing the same in a higher world.

Sadly, this was now the highest world, and everyone had nearly reached the Ancestral God Realm.

It was actually ridiculous how smart everyone was regarding planning.

The phrases that left Manuel's mouth the most were "They know that we know that they know that we know" and so on. 

After a couple hours of talking, Gravis could only look on with a confused expression.

It was like his brain didn't work anymore after being assaulted with so many meta-concepts shoved into each other. 

"Yeah, I give up," Gravis said after a while.

The three others in the room only snickered.

"So, where's Stella?"