581 Sia [1]: A Beautiful Red

Sia held her waist and bent slightly.

A bead of sweat rolled down her forehead and reached the ground.

But before it could touch the soil, the temperature of the air spiked.

Szz!

The droplet of sweat evaporated.

The one responsible for it made an entrance.

Zaap!

A long whip with adamantium spikes emitting a golden light shot towards her feet.

"Tsk."

Sia's gravity sense locked the whip and—

Swish!

The whip suddenly bent backward and shot towards its owner.

"Bitch!"

A tall man cursed as he hurriedly withdrew the lightning mana from the whip. The golden whip turned back to its original grey color and its adamantium spikes withdrew.

Even then, if the whip was fast enough to injure him.

So, he created a lightning barrier.

Bam!

When the whip was about to touch the barrier, it suddenly pulled back and then slapped from the right, where there was no barrier.

"Crazy gravity bitch!" The tall man cursed again and did what he didn't want to.

Zaap!

A complete lightning barrier.

It was expensive on his mana since—

"Get off that fruit! It's mine!"

"Fuck off!"

Zaap! Rumble!

Roar!

Amid the curses of a male and a female, lightning rumbled and the roars of dragons filled the air.

Sia's brows knit together as she looked sideways.

Currently, they were on the top of a large green hill.

At the peak of the hill, there was a giant golden tree, almost five hundred meters tall.

The trees' golden leaves sparkled with lightning arcs from time to time as lightning mana coursed through every vein of the giant tree.

The roots of the tree were out in the air, pulsing every few seconds as they sucked in aura from the surroundings.

The leaves twitched lightly every few seconds as they let out everything else apart from the lightning mana.

From time to time, the branches would shake lightly and emit lightning bolts. Each of these lightning bolts was strong enough to obliterate a low-level 8 and kill level 7s dozens of times over.

These lightning bolts were erratic, unpredictable, and naturally, dangerous.

But the tree offered something worth all the danger.

On one of the topmost branches, there was a single fruit growing at the edge.

It looked like an orange but was light gold.

Golden Bolt Fruit from the Golden Bolt Tree.

"Roar!"

Rumble!

Just a few hundred meters away from the tree, a lightning dragon clashed with a lightning spear.

Boom!

They both exploded into a splinter of lightning arcs.

Zap! Zap! Zap!

The lightning arcs spread out like a shockwave and reached the owners of the dragon and spear.

"Bitch!"

"Bastard!"

The man and woman cursed at each other while they took a step backward and shielded themselves from the shockwaves.

As they were about to continue their attacks, a shockwave hit them and they were forced to put up their barriers.

Boom! Boom! Kacha!

"Grah!"

"What the—" The man and woman both opened their mouth in shock.

In truth, the three of them were fighting for the golden bolt fruit when a strange woman suddenly appeared.

So, the tall man said he'd take care of her and join them in a minute.

Thirty seconds passed and he—

Thud!

The tall man collapsed to the ground as he clutched his chest. There was a deep cavity in his chest as if a hammer crushed his bones inward.

His eyes were unfocused as a pool of blood started to form under him. The tall man raised his hand to point at the woman in front of him.

But the best he could do was to point at her feet before his hand collapsed down and he fainted.

"Hiss!"

The man and woman sucked in a breath of cold air and turned towards their common enemy.

The two of them were, more or less, acquaintances. They weren't friends, but they would rather have the thunderbolt fruit go to one of them than some stranger.

That's why the two decided to fight together.

But the sight they were presented with caused them to pause.

Tap! Tap! Tap!

With every step Sia took towards the tree, the burn on her shoulder shook. It was an injury she received from the fainted man's desperate attack.

The flesh around her left shoulder was burnt with a heavy lightning attack.

As a result, her entire left arm was numb and she had a hard time using it properly.

Tap! Tap! Tap!

Drip! Drip! Drip!

And as the injury shook with every step she took, blood spilled out of her shoulder, slid down from her shoulder socket to her elbow, then down her forearm before flowing on her palm and reaching her fingertips.

Drip!

With each step she took, a droplet of drop dripped from her fingertips.

Sia didn't say a single word until she reached the duo.

"Fight." She said in a low, but overbearing tone. At the same time, a tremendous killing intent exploded out of her body.

Like dark clouds covering the sky, the killing intent covered any courage the man and woman had.

Flinch!

The man and woman flinched before the former mustered the courage to say.

"Y-You aren't even a lightning awakener! What do you want the fruit for?" His voice was overly loud, as a way to compensate for his inner fear.

After feeling the killing intent from Sia, neither the man nor the woman had any thoughts of winning her.

Strength was one thing, but this…absolutely brutal killing intent was something else.

How many thousands, no, tens of thousands did she kill?

They also understood why she hid her identity through a common disguised face that didn't suit her temperament at all.

Her real identity must be terrifying.

That's why their only thoughts were persuading her to give up.

"Y-Yes! Besides, this fruit isn't very useful to strong among level 8s. W-We only want it because we are too weak in our age group." The woman said with a flushed face.

She wasn't as young as she looked. In fact, she was over seventy. Some of her peers had already left her behind and reached level 9.

Only she was stuck in high level 8.

Even though the thunderbolt fruit didn't guarantee anything, she hoped it could send her to peak level 8.

"R-Right! You are a gravity awakener! You have no use for this!" The man said again.

Sia raised her hand and the air turned chaotic.

The gravity started to distort and the duo expected a crazy pressure on their bodies.

Zap! Zap!

They quickly elementalized and turned their bodies into lightning form, reducing the damage.

The man and woman looked at each other and nodded.

Using their full power, they created a lightning dragon and a lightning spear.

Rumble! Roar!

The two attacks reached Sia in the blink of an eye. But.

Boom!

As if there was an invisible barrier surrounding her, the attacks couldn't touch her. Moreover, the closer the dragon and spear got to Sia, the smaller they appeared as if they were crushed by gravity.

Then it suddenly happened.

The lightning dragon and spear were forcibly shifted and faced each other.

"No!"

"Stop!"

It was too sudden to react.

Boom!

Following a huge explosion, a heavy pressure descended on the man and woman, knocking them out.

The dust settled and an even more bloodied Sia came into view.

It wasn't as easy as she made it seem. Facing both their attacks put her under severe strain.

When the attacks blew up each other, her gravity barrier finally broke. Sia jumped back to avoid the aftermath, but a few bolts of lightning struck her feet.

Tap! Tap! Tap!

Sia walked to the golden bolt tree.

With each step she took, blood flowed out of her feet.

The bloodied footsteps formed a stark contrast on the golden soil.

Finally, those footsteps stopped before the tree.

Sia raised her hand and a force emanated out of her fingertips.

Whoosh!

The branch holding the fruit twisted slightly and the fruit shook before it was plucked by an invisible force.

Then, Sia used her hand as the gravity target for the fruit.

So, instead of falling to the ground, the fruit fell into her palm.

As a weak lightning arc entered her hand and tingled her, Sia remarked. "I'm not a lightning awakener."

"But," She softly caressed the fruit and muttered.