Lightning Is the Only Way

Power Walker left Silent Walker and Broad Walker behind as he entered Opposer City. He didn't want the person that framed Silent Walker to run away. After all, if he felt that Silent Walker had returned, he might become scared.

As soon as Power Walker arrived in the city, he waited.

The person had to appear in Opposer City eventually.

Sadly, Power Walker couldn't see through the Formation Arrays that isolated the buildings. Because of that, he had to wait until Gravis showed himself openly.

He waited for nearly an entire century before Gravis showed himself to get his second paycheck.

When Power Walker saw Gravis, he locked down on him and remembered his Aura.

However, he didn't act immediately. Power Walker wasn't stupid. If Silent Walker could have a backer such as himself, so could others.

Power Walker wanted to kill Gravis immediately for daring to hurt his favorite child, ehm, junior brother. However, he had to be careful.

After remembering Gravis' Aura, Power Walker went to a gigantic, black building in the middle of Opposer City. The fact that this building was so big and in the center of the city meant that the organization running it was an incredibly powerful one.

Power Walker restrained his Aura and entered the building.

The hall had an oppressive and dark aura, and everyone inside the building wore equipment that hid their auras. Wearing such equipment in Opposer City was forbidden, but it was okay to wear the equipment here.

After all, the Information Pavilion paid a hefty sum to the guards of Opposer City every century to get an exception to that rule.

Power Walker had also hidden his Aura with equipment as soon as he entered.

Why?

Because people that came here always had enmities, and they wouldn't want their opponents to find out that they had dug up information on them.

The Information Pavilion had created specific rooms before the entrance that were isolated even from their perception. After all, if the Information Pavilion gathered information while their clients were trading with them, no client would be willing to buy from them. Wouldn't that just be exposing their whereabouts?

Power Walker entered the gigantic hall and went to a free clerk, who was also clouded in dark robes and a dark cloak.

These clerks knew an incredible amount of information due to their job, which made them a prime target to everyone. If someone could gather the information of these clerks with a Law related to the Spirit or brain, they could blackmail so many organizations. Even more, the Information Pavilion would get compromised if something like that happened.

Because of that, every clerk in the Information Pavilion had to be protected with no cost spared.

If one of the clerks was about to face their tribulation, they were required to inform the higher-ups so that they could purge the clerk's mind from sensitive information. This was something the clerks had agreed upon after joining the Information Pavilion.

If they refused to do that, they would be killed.

Being a clerk in the Information Pavilion came with incredible danger and draconian restrictions.

However, the pay was ridiculously high!

A Peak Immortal Emperor working there earned even more than Gravis!

That was why so many wanted to join the Information Pavilion, but also why over 90% of the clerks quit after they managed to get through their tribulation. Their minds had already been purged, and they had an insane amount of wealth now.

Power Walker stopped in front of the clerk, and the clerk smiled under their hood. "Are you here to buy or sell?" they asked.

"Buy," Power Walker answered. Then, he lifted his right index finger and simulated Gravis' Aura.

The clerk looked at the Aura and then at Power Walker. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything," Power Walker answered.

"Sure thing. Let me just check the information," the clerk said.

Then, the clerk's Spirit Sense entered a gigantic and complex Formation Array as he submitted the Aura.

In an instant, several million similar Auras appeared in front of him. This was the Formation Array asking the clerk which one it should look at.

There were so many beings in this world that there was a ridiculous amount of other people that had similar Auras to Gravis' Aura.

However, the clerk was used to something like this. He put Power Walker's information into the Formation Array to check which one was related to him.

But wait, how did the Information Pavilion know that this was Power Walker? Wasn't his Aura hidden?

Yes, it was, but that didn't matter. The Information Pavilion didn't look into the customers entering their building, but they had plenty of information about everyone in its vicinity. Power Walker hadn't kept his Aura hidden while being in Opposer City. He had only kept it hidden before he entered. If he had left Opposer City for a couple years and directly teleported into the Information Pavilion while keeping his Aura hidden, they wouldn't have known that it was him.

It wasn't difficult to discern that this was Power Walker.

One result returned, and the clerk looked at it.

Title: Black Sentry

True Name: Unknown

Age: Unknown

Cultivation: Peak Immortal Emperor

Battle-Strength: 4+

Occupation: The Heaven Company Judge Red Four to Six and Black Four to Six

Background: Ascender. Has been in the highest world for 200 years.

Family: Stella, Ascender…

The information listed all of Gravis' friends, but since the request wasn't for them, their information was only very basic.

When the clerk read through the information, he frowned.

That was way too little!

It was like this guy came out of nowhere and never left his home except for his job!

The clerk skipped nearly everything after concluding that something was strange with this set of information and focused on the bottom.

Verified: Yes

Background check: No

Oh, so that's it! No one had commissioned a background check for this Black Sentry yet, which meant that no one had asked for his information until now.

However, the clerk was still a bit confused. Sure, the guy had only been here for 200 years, but no one had commissioned a background check yet? That was rare!

The Information Pavilion had some truly powerful clients in the form of Peak Sects. They usually asked for the information of every Ascender and asked for background checks.

That was why it was so rare for an Ascender to have so little information known about them.

'Wonder why no one commissioned a background check on him yet,' the clerk thought.

What was the reason?

The big clients had already looked at Gravis' information. Back then, Gravis had only been in the highest world for a couple of weeks. Yet, when the big clients saw that Gravis had such an incredible Battle-Strength and had already joined The Heaven Company, they knew that something was wrong.

That was too fast!

It was already strange enough that an Ascender directly appeared in Opposer City, but it was even stranger that someone joined The Heaven Company this quickly.

Because of that, they asked their superiors what they should do.

The superiors looked into the information of Black Sentry and said that they should ignore him.

The superiors didn't say why.

The clerk looked at Power Walker. "We have his information, but no background checks have been made yet. The information is very limited, and it will only cost you 1,000 God Stones to purchase it."

"Only 1,000 God Stones?" Power Walker repeated with a frown. "That's truly not much information. How much for a background check?"

"150,000 God Stones, but you will get all the information we dig up, even if it's worth far more," the clerk said.

This was one of their business strategies.

Background checks were nearly always cheaper than buying all the information, which encouraged people to run background checks. This would result in the Information Pavilion getting far more information that they could sell later, making the lower price worth it.

"Fine!" Power Walker said as he took out 150,000 God Stones.

He didn't have many God Stones left.

The clerk took the God Stones. "It will take around ten minutes. Please be patient," he said.

Power Walker nodded and waited.

The request for a background check arrived in front of a young man shrouded in darkness. He was in one of the most secure locations of the Information Pavilion.

In fact, he was the leader of this branch, a Divine God.

The Divine God's Spirit Sense stretched over the entire city, nearly penetrating all the Formation Arrays. Only the big companies had Formation Arrays that could block his Spirit Sense.

Gravis had already left The Heaven Company and had come back to his residence.

The Divine God looked at Gravis' Emotional Laws.

But then, he stopped.

What was going on?

Why did these Emotional Laws make no sense!?

It was like the Emotional Laws were written in an unknown language, and the Divine God couldn't see any pattern in them.

He had never seen anything like this!

However, that didn't stop him.

He simply turned his gaze to the woman inside Gravis' apartment, Stella.

He read her Emotional Laws and inferred an incredible amount of information from them.

The Divine God jutted down a book worth of sentences in Gravis' information.

Yet, the Divine God suddenly froze.

What did he just read!?

Fuck!

The Divine God immediately deleted all the information he had gathered, including the incomplete record in the Formation Array. He only left behind Gravis' title and the word "Top Secret".

He even went through all the records of Gravis' close ones and replaced their information with "Top Secret".

After that, the clerk that had read Gravis' incomplete record exploded in front of Power Walker.

Just before the Divine God deleted his own memories of this event, he had one last frustrated thought.

"Why the fuck are you not wearing your Obsidian Ring when you're the son of the Opposer!?"