Arkiv looked towards the sky with a newfound appreciation.
The smirk on his face is so refreshing from all the torture he has endured in the past few days.
He took a look at the priestess, who just commanded to increase the gravitational pull more, but he is not fazed. He gave that smirk one more time and then rolled over on the floor with much difficulty.
Soon, his face was planted into the stage, while his back is facing the sky.
He used his arms to push the ground and tried to get on his knees with great difficulty.
The attacks didn't stop, even when the attacks are crossing the energy film around him and hitting him, they are unable to destroy his energy flow and as long as the energy flow is uninterrupted, it is all just a matter of how much energy he has.
With great difficulty, he took five minutes to get on his knees.
After he did that, he looked at the sky and started chuckling a bit. This felt so new to him. With the pressure under his feet, every day he couldn't even sit properly, even sprawling on the ground was difficult, but now, he managed to kneel.
Looking at his satisfying expression, the calm feathered who usually stayed calm even when torturing him started looking annoyed.
Every day, Arkiv would throw new kinds of provocations, curses that they never heard before. In fact they suspected that the lone time Arkiv got in the pool every day after the session was being used by him to come up with new swearing methods.
But now that they are seeing him laughing and smiling, it somehow didn't sit well with them.
While they are intensifying the attacks, Arkiv didn't care.
He took out his bow. The bow he got from Sam, which was given to him by Hou Yi.
The bow is normally heavy and with the added gravitational effect, it is even heavier.
Arkiv's arm muscle looked like it wanted to tear apart. But he still held the bow enduring the pressure and pulled the string without an arrow.
He then looked around to see if there is that familiar face and he soon saw it. Grace is sitting on the stone steps afar as she looked at the brutal torture, Arkiv gave a smile and released the string.
Both of his arms shivered a bit, but a wave of energy hit the stage, and the surroundings that the attacks that came at him were easily deflected, but there three attacks that hit him.
He just took the punishment and smiled.
He took out an arrow from the spatial storage and aimed at one of the bald guys.
He pulled the string to about eighty percent of its draw length and made a move.
The arrow didn't reach the other person though. The gravity messed with it and it crashed right before it was about to hit the target.
Arkiv is a bit disappointed and added to that disappointment are the injuries he got from the attacks that are coming from different directions. He took them once again and this time, he spat out a mouthful of blood.
But that confident look didn't go away.
He aimed the bow, but this time, there is no arrow. When everyone thought, he is just defending like he did the first time, his spiritual energy started condensing and turned into the shape of an arrow.
Arkiv released the arrow once again.
The bald guy started fluctuating the gravity, but the arrow didn't budge, this caused them to have a frown on their faces as the arrow is fast enough to reach him in seconds. Before he could defend it, it already impaled itself into his chest and disappeared.
All the bald guys were shocked. They couldn't even fathom someone doing this to them before, but it happened right now, in front of their eyes, so it is hard for them to just dismiss it as if nothing happened. But what they didn't realize is that they lost focus on the main person who did that.
And Arkiv who is still kneeling wants just that.
He aimed his bow and arrow at another person and took a shot, but this time, he went for the head.
The arrow pierced straight through the ear as the guy is still looking at his injured comrade.
He fell off of the stage.
A series of energy arrows were launched at them constantly and another two people were down.
At this moment, the gravity finally weakened a bit, maybe it is because of the loss of members, but Arkiv is ecstatic, he stood up and started shooting rapidly.
His arm couldn't even be seen as he shot in different directions.
The situation reversed drastically. Now not a single attack managed to make its way past Arkiv's arrow. He didn't even bother to dodge or block, every attack was met with an arrow and was countered with another arrow as if it is normal.
He didn't back down once and shot.
Now it is time for the bald guys to block of course that is because they could dodge much.
They can at most sway into different directions, but that's it. They cannot do much in form of physical movement.
Soon another two fell down and this caused Arkiv to let loose, even more, the gravity became almost irrelevant by now and he finally took out a normal metallic arrow.
The arrow's speed and damage increased to a large extent.
After some time, the feathered couldn't keep their stand with pure blocking and they had to dodge. The gravity effect of the stage completely disappeared.
Arkiv who is in the middle of it all changed the course easily. The feathered are flying around as they tried to attack him by the air.
But Arkiv only smirked.
When he told Grace that he liked the feathered race, it is true.
But he didn't say the full truth. He liked the feathered race, because of their ability to fly, which makes them rely on that more which also makes them the exciting targets for shooting arrows.
That is the reason why he liked them, not because he was envious of them or because they are superior inabilities.
He started using multiple arrows at the same time, shooting two different targets at the same time, and then the two became three.
The arrows are shot restlessly while Arkiv is walking down from the stage. Soon, he is the only one standing and the stage is full of fall feathered who have arrows lodged into their wings, limbs, and stomach.
The situation changed drastically in a few moments.
Arkiv stored his bow away and stretched his body. It popped some joints as he enjoyed the feeling of relief.
He took the robe he left before he went on to the stage, placed it on his shoulder, and slowly walked away without heed to the priestess who is looking at him coldly.
From the looks of it, she is definitely holding back. Arkiv walked past Grace and whispered into her ear.
"Told you so."
Grace is looking at the stage full of feathered with tension and fear on her face.
While Arkiv walked back to the healing pool to relax a bit, something else is happening within the city.
Several feathered elders who are late-stage Transcendent stage cultivators are having a meeting now.
Silva, the black feathered elder is standing at the head of the table as the rest of them grilled him with questions.
The whole city is facing trouble now. The traders are being blocked and early-stage transcendent stage cultivators and middle stage transcendent cultivators are not being able to help.
They couldn't do much to the earthen constructions that blocked the routes.
The traders are not daring to come to the city.
But there is another problem that bugged them even more.
The previous night within a research lab of the city, the researchers are trying to rip the metallic balls apart.
These balls are the ones Sam didn't bother to pick up after he kicked them into a group of feathered in the air.
But the feathered cared because the poison their people inhaled is giving them trouble and they have to think of a way to block it.
But when they tried too hard, the balls broke and let out two clouds of purple smoke.
The poison gas spread all over the area and every who inhaled it got paralyzed and fell asleep. Their bodies are failing. The two researchers who inhaled the most of it, are as good as dead by now.
This caused the administrators in the city to feel the pressure and wanted the king, Silva to settle this as fast as possible.
They don't want to face another series of catastrophes.
But before they could even have a proper discussion, the attendant came running over and whispered something Silva's years.
Silva became extremely angry and slammed his fist into the table with a controlled force, but it still made it crack, but then another attendant came and whispered some other news, which caused the table to break apart without even hitting again.
