Chapter 828 - 828 – World
Gravis followed the teenager and got introduced to several Immortals and Immortal Kings. All of them accepted Gravis readily without questioning his background.
Simply talking to people like this reminded Gravis of his home. The people in Opposer City also only talked to Gravis without caring about anything else. Of course, there were the occasional people that were only interested in him due to his background and profession, but there were plenty of others as well.
Gravis talked for several days and also got to know a lot of things.
The children of this congregation left home when they understood their first Law. So, how come that there were also Immortals here?
The reason was that these Immortals and Immortal Kings were only visiting. They had left home and had created a new home for themselves. However, this was their childhood home, and they liked to visit from time to time. One could liken it to adults visiting their old orphanage from time to time.
Gravis also received quite a shock when he heard how many Immortals had actually come from here.
Right now, there were over 10,000 Immortals and Immortal Kings that came from here. However, they were all living outside and only visited occasionally. On top of that, due to Arc's incredible teachings, basically all of them lived in the Core Regions of the world.
Several Immortal Kings even had prominent positions in powerful Sects. Their Battle-Strength was powerful, which allowed them to hold these important positions.
However, when they were here, they were just like everyone else. No one was overly respectful to someone else simply because they held an important position. In here, everyone was the same. This was probably also one of the main reasons why these powerful beings liked to visit this place.
Gravis even met some people from the Peak Sects.
Gravis had no idea how many Peak Sects there were or how they were called, but after talking with everyone for a while, Gravis finally knew what the Peak Sects actually were.
Peak Sects were Sects that had at least one Peak Immortal Emperor. These Peak Immortal Emperors were theoretically at the Realm where they should ascend. Sadly, they couldn't. The reason was that they hadn't comprehended a level six Law.
However, that didn't mean that their Sects didn't have plenty of Ascenders. The Peak Sects had by far the most Cultivators that ascended to the highest world. Of course, these Ascenders didn't take up any critical positions in the Sect. After all, they were focused on ascending, not on running a Sect.
Even if they were not Ascenders, the Peak Immortal Emperors of these Sects were important to protect the knowledge and power of their Sect from other Peak Sects. If an ancestor died, they quickly had to push another Immortal Emperor to that position. Without an ancestor, other Sects might start to become more direct with their trades and demands.
Additionally, these ancestors were essential to protect the humans from the beasts.
Yes, there was a real war going on between the beasts and humans. This war didn't have tempering as its goal, but genocide.
No one knew how this war started, but after millions of years of war, both sides started to absolutely hate the other one. At least, that was how the humans generally described the war.
In truth, it was a war with a one-sided enmity. The beasts didn't really hate all humans since they felt that the death of other beasts was just natural. The stronger one kills and eats the weaker one. That was how life worked.
Instead, it was the humans that wanted to eradicate all beasts. So many loved ones had died to the beasts, which created an unending abyss of hatred towards beasts among humans.
It went so far that the entire human territory didn't have a single beast left.
Every single beast had been eradicated from their territory.
So, what were the territories?
Apparently, the world was shaped like a disc. The closer one got to the middle, the denser the Energy. In the very middle of the world was a small lake, which was surrounded by a humongous forest.
That was when Gravis realized that he was currently in the middle of the world.
Arc's lake was precisely the lake in the middle of the world. However, there were no powerful beasts present in the lake, even though it had the highest Energy density.
The reason for that was obviously Arc. He had created a Formation Array that kept everyone out that he didn't want in here.
So, what did the humans think of that?
The humans had no opinion.
After all, they didn't even know how the middle of the world looked like. Not even the people Gravis talked to knew that they were currently in the middle of the world. They all came and went with the help of Arc's emblem.
Of course, it was natural that they didn't know. Arc's strength was unknown among the congregation. Everyone knew that he was powerful, but no one knew how powerful he actually was. Yet, no matter how powerful he was, he couldn't possibly live in the middle of the world, could he? After all, there would be a ton of Immortal Emperor Beasts all around him, and they hated humans due to their constant threat.
Yes, the middle of the world was entirely within the beasts' territory.
The gigantic forest that stretched on for billions of kilometers was the beasts' territory. One could say that the human and beast territories were in the form of a donut. The human territories were the donut itself, while the beasts were the hole in the middle.
Why was that?
Because of Arc.
If the beasts didn't have the advantage of Energy density and a smaller territory to defend, they would have long been eradicated by the humans. The humans fought far smarter than beasts. Without this advantage, it wouldn't take long for the humans to eradicate all the beasts.
Like this, the beasts could become more powerful more quickly thanks to the Energy density. A ton of new beasts were born every second, and if they reached a certain population density, they would run out of the forest in waves.
This was called a beast wave.
How often did a beast wave happen?
Well, it hasn't happened for millions of years.
Why?
Because humans knew what a beast wave was, and such a beast wave would kill every human and would destroy every building for millions of kilometers around. Because of that, humans constantly sent in armies to kill as many beasts as possible, making it impossible for the beasts to become too numerous.
Of course, such an insane offensive ate up an unreal amount of resources.
How much?
80% of all resources of all Sects went to this offensive.
It was insane!
These offensives were heralded by the five Peak Sects. They were the most powerful ones, and they were the leaders of humanity.
Who were these five Peak Sects?
The Nine Elements Sect: A Sect that concentrated on combining their Weapon Laws with all the elements.
The All-Matter Sect: A Sect that concentrated on the creation of equipment. They owned most of the ores in the world, and their disciples fought with a lot of armor, weapons, and Formation Arrays. One could call this Sect a Sect of forgers and different weapon users. Obviously, they concentrated on the Matter Laws.
The Primordial Force Sect: A Sect that concentrated on the three primordial forces, space, time, and gravity. One could only truly join them when one understood the Law of Primordial Force. This Sect had the most disciples since over half of all Immortals had an Avatar created with the Law of Space. Of course, they would still only take the best ones.
The Life Sect: A Sect that concentrated fully on the Laws of Life. The people that had saved Surem back then had been from the Life Sect. This Sect had a monopoly over pills and healing services. If one needed to raise their physical power or their Realm, they would employ the services of the Life Sect.
Back then, one of the Immortal Kings that had saved Surem wanted Gravis to join them. This meant that Gravis had been invited by a Peak Sect. These couple of people that Gravis had met back then had been on an entirely different level compared to the Sect Alliance.
The Purist Sect: A Sect that concentrated on element-neutral attacks. They focused on the Laws of the Spear, the Sword, and so on. They had to comprehend a ton of Battle-Laws from different elements to combine them into these element-neutral Battle Laws. They had the least people, but every single one of them had an incredible Battle-Strength. Even the lowest disciple could fight an entire level above themself.
Now, Gravis knew who the human rulers of this world were.
However, Gravis noticed that one Sect was missing.
Underworld was missing.
Gravis asked about Underworld, but no one really liked talking about them. Apparently, Underworld was a sore topic among Sects. The Peak Sects tried to get rid of Underworld, but whenever they actually accomplished something, armies of assassins would target all their weaker disciples.
The Sects became enraged by Underworld's conduct. This was a war between adults! Why pull the children into this conflict!?
However, Underworld didn't care. No one knew where their actual headquarter was, and as long as they didn't know, they couldn't end Underworld with a single strike.
So, since they didn't have another choice, the Peak Sects decided to ignore Underworld to a certain extent. As long as Underworld didn't accept certain missions or did certain things, the Peak Sects would ignore them.
Underworld was receptive to this resolution and implemented all these restrictions. After all, one shouldn't forget that Underworld also suffered under the Peak Sects' wrath. The Peak Sects were too powerful for Underworld. If the Peak Sects decided to go all-in, they would, at most, lose a generation of disciples.
However, Underworld would be eradicated.
Was it worth it to sacrifice a generation of disciples to destroy Underworld?
Maybe.
However, there was a massive problem with that.
The beasts.
If the humans started an all-out war amongst themselves, the beasts would profit, and humanity might lose valuable territories. So, in short, it was possible to eradicate Underworld, but that would put humanity in jeopardy.
Gravis had learned a lot of things from talking with others in the clearing.
And the best thing was that Gravis would learn a lot more!
Gravis had so much time to spend. He could just talk and talk and talk with everyone.
Old visitors would leave while new visitors came with more interesting information.
So, Gravis spent his days simply talking to everyone. Well, at least while he didn't have a class to teach.
Gravis got to know a lot of influential people, and these people were also interested in Gravis. Gravis even received a lot of invitations to some Sects, but Gravis declined for now. He wasn't sure what he would do as soon as he entered the Core Regions.
However, the invitations were still valid. Gravis simply had to visit the Sects.
Days, weeks, months, and eventually, years passed.
In the beginning, Gravis felt like time was progressing at a snail's pace, but the longer he remained, the faster time seemed to pass.
Gravis had lost himself in talking with others.
Gravis no longer cared about his power during this time and simply did whatever he wanted for the day.
And before he knew it, the century was up.
Gravis was ready to return to comprehending Laws again, and he also knew that he had returned to his previous self.
Right now, Gravis saw power only as a means to an end. Talking with others brought color into Gravis' life, which reminded him of why he wanted to become powerful.
Gravis didn't want to lose this color, ever.
'Time to return to my Laws,' Gravis thought with a smile.
CRACK!
Then, he broke the emblem and teleported away.