Lightning Is the Only Way

"You won?" Gravis asked the Black Magnate.

"Of course I won!" the Black Magnate answered with a snort. "You think Sinister Sally can fight me? She always only uses tricks. She always weakens her enemies slowly before their fight to give her a higher chance of victory."

Gravis looked with an awkward expression at the Black Magnate. "Why did you attack the Undying Doctor?" he asked.

The Black Magnate snorted. "Undying, eh? Not so undying anymore, right?" he said with a laugh.

Gravis wasn't in the mood to laugh since something was weighing on his mind.

Why did the Black Magnate attack the Undying Doctor right now?

If it were because of him, Gravis wouldn't feel comfortable. It felt like too big of a favor.

"Tch," the Black Magnate spat when he saw Gravis' expression. "It's not because of you," he said.

"Then, why?" Gravis asked.

"I was supposed to be her opponent anyway. Her longevity would have run out in around three million years, and I was the closest one in power to her. I would have been her opponent regardless. The only difference would have been the time," the Black Magnate explained.

"As I've said, Sinister Sally loves weakening her opponents. I've already seen how her sinister claws had started to extend towards me. She made my life harder through several means. Old friends suddenly didn't want to talk to me as much. Other Heaven's Magnates suddenly started talking in an even more depressing manner."

"She was trying to sap me of my motivation to continue living. In her mind, I would have spent the remainder of my life resisting these influences, which would have slowly weakened me by a bit. However, a bit could already make the difference between life and death."

"So, instead of waiting, I decided to fight her right now. I'm not fighting her on her terms but on my terms. Also, I've always hated these false, hypocritical assholes," the Black Magnate ranted.

Gravis was relieved when he heard the Black Magnate's words, but he also knew that he had been somewhat involved in today's fight. "Thank you regardless," Gravis said.

"You better thank me," the Black Magnate said with another snort. "Sinister Sally's fan club would have hounded you for the next three million years."

Suddenly, the Black Magnate looked at Eve.

Eve was still hanging from Orpheus' spear, and she looked at the Black Magnate with shock in her eyes.

"Look at all these Law fragments around you," the Black Magnate commented with a laugh. "You're mostly shocked, but deep inside, you're unwilling. You think that I'm some monster that killed your teacher out of selfish reasons."

"It's actually ironic. The person that should hate Sinister Sally the most actually defends her."

Eve's eyes widened in shock and confusion.

"Oh, don't believe me?" the Black Magnate asked with a laugh. "What destiny? What rebirth? What growing stronger?"

"You think you're so talented that Sinister Sally wanted you to become a Heaven's Magnate by dying again and again? That's not how it works, idiot!"

"There's a reason why we generally don't resurrect people. If you can't do it on your first try, you won't ever be able to do it. Resurrecting you doesn't make you stronger, but weaker," the Black Magnate explained with a laugh.

Horror and shock were written on Eve's face.

"You think you're Sinister Sally's first disciple? No, she's done that plenty of times. Sinister Sally is bored like every other Heaven's Magnate. So, she tries to find a way to amuse herself."

"What was her method of amusing herself? Well, it was to grab someone with an outstanding mindset for Cultivation and slowly morph their mindset into the opposite."

Eve couldn't think right now. The Black Magnate's words only confused her.

It was like he was telling Eve that everything she had ever known was a lie.

"Look at you! You're so entitled that you actually break the rules of your dream job because of a personal vendetta. Even worse, you didn't even realize you were making a mistake. You're an Ancestral God, for fuck's sake! You should know that you can't just speak for The Heaven Company."

"Then, when you inevitably commit your mistake and get thrown out, you get angry with the very victim you wanted to doom. You didn't even think for a moment that you might have been in the wrong. Such a mindset is understandable for a Unity Realm Cultivator, but not for an Ancestral God."

"After that, in your blind rage fueled by stupidity, you actively try to kill the two most outstanding, special, and extraordinary Star Gods in existence. A retarded monkey would have realized that the origin of those two couldn't be simple."

"Even more, you spent several years just waiting for them in front of a level five Ancestral God inside the Sect closest to those two."

"If you had simply looked at that guy over there for a bit." The Black Magnate pointed at Orpheus. "You would have realized that he isn't weak. Yet, he didn't even enter your mind."

"Also, even if he were super weak, he could have informed their background. What then?"

"It's like you wanted to die. Everything you did was a perfect example of the phrase seeking death."

"And then, the best part, you get all sad and hurt because you're about to die. Like what? How? You were searching for death with all your power, and you are unhappy when you achieve your goal?"

"Honestly, Sinister Sally did a tremendous job on you," the Black Magnate finished.

Eve's world was breaking down.

The Black Magnate's words made Eve feel like an absolute idiot. If the Black Magnate had talked about someone else, she wouldn't even have believed him. The actions of that person were just that inexplicable.

Someone like that couldn't possibly reach the Ancestral God Realm!

Yet, Eve realized that she had been the one acting this way.

Eve's mind fell into chaos. She sounded like the stupidest Ancestral God alive when the Black Magnate narrated her story, but in her mind, she still thought that she had only made a couple of mistakes.

The main mistake in Eve's mind had been that she should have made sure that Mortis and Gravis had died the first time.

"Complete inability of introspection," the Black Magnate added. "It's like Sinister Sally crippled your brain or something. You can't even grow anymore."

Eve felt like something inside her had shattered.

She wasn't even sure what she should think anymore.

Meanwhile, Gravis looked at Eve with a raised eyebrow, his expression showing a slight bit of pity.

It wasn't even funny anymore.

Eve's decisions had been so bad that it was almost sad.

It was like she was missing something integral that made it unfair to compare her to normal Cultivators.

Orpheus looked at Gravis.

Gravis looked at Orpheus and gestured to Eve with his head.

Orpheus nodded.

BANG!

Eve of Order died.

Orpheus had made her head explode.

So what if Gravis felt pity?

She was an Ancestral God.

Sure, she was to some degree a victim, but as an Ancestral God, she had the power to analyze herself and change. She was an adult, not a child.

She was responsible for her own actions.

Also, even if she weren't, Eve had tried to kill Gravis and Mortis, and for that, he wouldn't let her live.

Her reasons didn't matter.

And with that, Eve died.

She had been nothing more than the Undying Doctor's plaything.