Ch. 471..480

Chapter 471

Gravis only looked at the green monkey with cold eyes. Venting had not helped him at all, and he needed to get to the war as soon as possible to become a level five Lord. Right now, he was very impatient as he waited for the green monkey's answer.

Meanwhile, the green monkey was still stunned by Gravis' performance. This fight had been way too one-sided. Additionally, Gravis was growing and mutating while he spoke, and he didn't even seem to care about his growing power. Normally, beasts that reached the next level were always excited and tried to revel in their newfound power.

The monkey shook his head a little bit to regain his bearings. Then, he looked at Gravis with furrowed brows. "You still haven't fulfilled your duty as a breeder. Joining a war is too risky for you right now," he said.

"Then don't count me as a breeder anymore. I want to temper myself, and if my status is in the way of that, it's nothing more than a hindrance to me," Gravis said coldly.

The monkey was taken aback again. Did this beast just throw away one of the most illustrious positions in existence without thinking?

The monkey wanted to argue more, but he quickly got a message from the Grand Elder, who said that Gravis was allowed to take part in the war. The monkey didn't know Gravis' personality, and the white ape knew that, which was why he had interfered.

Allowing Gravis to temper himself wouldn't be an issue. Gravis would fulfill his duties anyway when he realized that he couldn't become a King like this. They just had to wait.

The monkey nodded a bit towards the Mountain of Pride and then turned to Gravis. "Alright. The next group will leave in two weeks. You can join them," the monkey said.

"That's too long," Gravis answered immediately. Was this a joke? Gravis was barely able to contain his anger and frustration already. He couldn't wait for another two weeks. "Point me towards the direction, and I will go by myself."

The monkey didn't like Gravis' tone at all, but he kept himself in check. "That won't be possible. We need to be careful of spies, which is why we always need to send a powerful escort with the group as proof of their identity. Otherwise, some sea beasts might infiltrate our army," he explained.

"And if I go either way?" Gravis asked with narrowed eyes.

The monkey looked back with narrowed eyes. "Then the surrounding Kingdoms will kill you since they don't know who you are. You might be powerful for your level, but you can't fight a Kingdom yet."

Gravis clenched his fists and teeth as he heard that. His frustration grew as he realized that he couldn't even temper himself without someone more powerful allowing it. If he just charged off like this, he would run into several Kings that would kill him. Gravis was angry, but he hadn't lost his rationality.

This was also a form of suppression, though not an aggressive one. Yet, Gravis still hated this feeling.

"Alright," Gravis said with barely contained rage. "Where do I need to wait?" he asked.

The monkey was growing more annoyed with Gravis' tone. This Lord was looking at him like he wanted to kill him, and the monkey didn't like that one bit. Yet, the rules of the Empire didn't allow the monkey to just kill Gravis like this, even if he wanted to.

"Go to the east. After around a day of travel, you will find two high and thin mountains. As long as you stay near them, you will hear the announcement when the time comes. Everything else will be explained then," the monkey explained coldly.

Gravis nodded and immediately flew to the east, leaving the monkey behind without another word.

The monkey quickly tried to forget Gravis and left to deal with Gravis' mess. The monkey would need to send someone to the Blue Scaly Kingdom to let them know that their envoy had died.

An envoy's death was not a small matter. Generally, the envoys from the Kingdoms staying in the Empire were the most talented Lords of that Kingdom. They mainly came here to comprehend some Laws, which was the incentive that the Empire used to keep the Kingdom's loyal to them.

If the Empire didn't offer enough benefits to the Kingdoms, they might decide to join another Empire. One would think that this wouldn't be such a big issue. After all, the Empire had hundreds of affiliated Kingdoms under them. What did one Kingdom matter?

There were two reasons why such Kingdoms mattered.

One reason was a cohesive territory. By having all Kingdoms follow one Empire in one cohesive pile, it would be easier for the Empire and other Kingdoms to transport and transfer weaker beasts and Lords through them.

If one Kingdom in the middle of that pile decided to join another Empire, all neighboring Kingdoms would need to move around the whole thing so that they didn't trespass and enrage the affiliated Empire of that Kingdom. When a time-sensitive situation occurred, this could cost the Empire a lot more.

The second reason was the territories of the Kingdoms themselves. What did that mean exactly, and why was this different from the first reason?

The difference was that those Kingdoms might hold areas that helped in Law Comprehension. In fact, most of the Law Comprehension Areas that belonged to the Empire were located in a territory of one of their Kingdoms. The Empire simply had control over these areas.

The Empire could send their beasts to these areas inside the Kingdoms to learn some Laws. If a Kingdom with such a Law Comprehension Area joined another Empire, the Empire would lose one of its areas.

And it just so happened that the Blue Scaly Kingdom had such an area. It was some kind of underground lake with insanely strong currents. This was also the reason why the crocodile had been able to understand its Law.

Obviously, the crocodile hadn't had as much combat experience as Gravis' usual opponents. A beast like the crocodile wouldn't have been able to comprehend a Law without the help of a Law Comprehension Area.

So, the green monkey had to deal with the Blue Scaly Kingdom delicately and explain to them that one of their most talented beasts had died inside their Empire. Sure, all of this was within the rules, and the crocodile had accepted the challenge, but not all beasts were the same.

The fact that such an inexperienced beast had been chosen as an envoy already showed that the Blue Scaly Kingdom had a kind of different mindset from the usual beasts. Obviously, the crocodile hadn't gone through a lot of genuine life and death tempering but had still been chosen to be an envoy, which was basically a waste of an envoy's position.

This meant that the Blue Scaly Kingdom probably valued the number of powerful beasts over their individual Battle-Strength. The bigger picture of the Kingdom was more important to them than to risk losing some beasts to make them go through tempering.

Of course, if the Blue Scaly Kingdom left, the Empire wouldn't be too sad. After all, the Kingdom just had one Law Comprehension Area of many. Sure, the Empire might help the Kingdoms here and there, but the Empire wouldn't change and ignore its own rules just because some Kingdom threw a hissy fit.

This was one of the crucial differences between humans and beasts.

Humans might have forced Gravis to spare the crocodile to keep up their good relationship with the associated Kingdom. After all, on paper, a whole Kingdom with a Law Comprehension Area was more valuable than one Lord, right?

Meanwhile, the Empire was a bit annoyed that Gravis had killed an envoy, but they wouldn't stop him from doing it again. He was the more powerful beast, and therefore, he was allowed to kill the crocodile as long as Gravis kept following the rules.

That's why the green monkey hated having to explain this situation to the Blue Scaly Kingdom. Gravis was the more powerful beast out of the two, and everything should have ended with that fact. Yet, because of this political mess, the monkey still had to talk to the Kingdom, which felt incredibly unnecessary to him.

Meanwhile, near the Mountain of Pride, the Grand Elder and the Empress talked to each other.

"He has a lot of mysterious abilities," the Grand Elder said to the Empress. They had watched the fight, and they had already talked a lot about Gravis.

The Empress nodded. "He has also said a lot of confusing things in the past week. It was almost like he was talking to someone. Yet, I didn't feel the presence of any being," she answered.

"I have noticed," the white ape said. "As far as I see, he thought he was talking to some kind of being called Heaven. I've never heard of that before."

If Gravis heard that the white ape and the Empress had never heard about Heaven, he would become shocked. Yet, after thinking about this for a while, it actually made sense.

The Heaven in this world kept itself completely out of all affairs. There were no Heavenborn or beasts suddenly getting struck by lightning. The beasts had never seen Heaven do anything, which made them not even think about the possibility that some powerful being controlled the entire world.

Everything they had seen had been natural and made sense. As far as they knew, the whole world was just a construct made out of many different Laws.

One had to remember that the existence of Heaven had only been public knowledge in the lower world because Heaven had actively interfered with nearly everything. It had created Heavenborn and had killed people. In the lower world, it had shown itself as the hegemon that it had been.

In this world, Heaven was so silent and distant that nobody knew that it even existed.

 

Chapter 472

Gravis flew towards the east without halting for anything. The green monkey had said that it was a day's journey, but Gravis was sure that he meant that relative to the general speed, someone of his level would have. Of course, with Gravis' ability to make his body lighter and Spirit stronger, he was faster than any normal level four Lord, even if they were Divine Beasts.

Gravis could fly even faster by transforming into lightning, but he had no interest in attracting the attention of other beasts. Right now, he only wanted to deal with all the rage and frustration he felt while readying himself for any future fight.

While flying, Gravis was fully concentrating on creating new armor, but he walked into an issue. Theoretically, Gravis had the power to manipulate ore one level higher than the peak Unity Realm, but such a level didn't exist. Nascent Nourishing Rank materials were two levels higher than the peak Unity Rank, not one. This made it impossible for him to increase the power of his equipment.

Yet, he still needed to forge new equipment. After all, he was a level four Lord now, and he had grown to a height of around 100 meters. Obviously, his old armor didn't fit him anymore. However, Gravis also knew that it was basically pointless to create a new armor.

He hadn't needed to use his armor ever since he created it. This armor was designed to fight beasts three levels above himself, but he hadn't been able to fight one of them. The whole creation of his armor felt pointless to him. After all, he was already creating his third set of armor while having never used the previous two.

And now, he couldn't even create a proper third set of armor due to there not being any materials with a Rank between the peak Unity Rank and Initial Nascent Nourishing Rank. This created the awkward situation where he wouldn't need his armor to fight a Lord while his armor would be too weak to be of use against a level one King.

A frustrated mindset often brought one bad thought after the other. While Gravis was grumbling about his armor's uselessness, he also realized something else that made him also frustrated.

That was his body.

He had created this body to be as effective as possible in a fight, but his current opponents never allowed him to make use of his body's advantages. Gravis could only use his body's physical power when fighting against beasts that were one or two levels higher than himself.

That was okay in and of itself, but his body became nearly useless when fighting against someone three levels above himself. After all, one hit from such a powerful opponent would kill him immediately, and just his body wouldn't be fast enough to evade such an attack. This meant that in such a fight, he had to fully rely on his Lightning Transformation, Lightning Crescent, and Spirit to win.

He had put so much work into designing and planning this body, but all these weapons on his body became useless as soon as an actual threat appeared. What was the point of having it if it only helped against enemies that weren't a major threat to him, to begin with?

Of course, Gravis knew that the design of his body would become more useful in the future. Right now, he could only fight beasts that were simply too gigantic. Evading with his flexible waist was useless since the weapon of his enemies were many times bigger than his whole body.

Also, what was the use of his powerful scales if he couldn't allow himself to get hit anyway?

Yet, that would be different in the future. Right now, Gravis could only fight beasts, which had incredibly powerful bodies. In the future, when he would fight against humans again, all of this would be worth it. The body of a human wouldn't be able to compare to Gravis' body. Additionally, the humans wouldn't be as huge and gigantic as his current opponents.

Gravis knew all this, but it was still frustrating. His armor hadn't been useful up to now, and his body won't be useful until he became an Immortal. It was like he was sitting on a giant pile of wealth that he couldn't access.

Of course, Gravis readied his new armor anyway. If there were actually a King that wanted to kill him, the armor might be the difference between his death and survival.

Gravis flew for around 16 hours while creating his equipment inside his Spirit Space. He hadn't left all of his ore beside the Mountain of Pride since this Unity Rank ore wouldn't have been a help in the fights anyway. That meant that he still had a lot of Unity Rank ore remaining inside his Spirit Space.

After these 16 hours, Gravis finally arrived at the place that the green monkey had described. He saw two absolutely enormous but thin mountains piercing into the sky. By Gravis' estimate, they were probably just a little bit smaller than the Mountain of Pride.

Of course, the Mountain of Pride was way broader and made out of harder materials. These two mountains looked imposing, but they couldn't be compared to the Mountain of Pride.

Gravis looked around and noticed some other beasts sitting here and there. All of them were Lords between the third and fifth level. Gravis guessed that these beasts were probably also waiting for this announcement that the green monkey had described.

Gravis simply ignored all the other beasts and sat down some kilometers away from the two mountains. Right now, he couldn't care less about other beasts. He just wanted the time to pass as quickly as possible.

He tried to distract himself by thinking more about Laws, but he just couldn't focus on them. As soon as he started concentrating on the CMO, his mind wandered and showed more signs of his potential future.

Scenes of his kids being born and innocently talking to him appeared in his mind. Yet, whenever he saw these kids in his imagination, he felt a deep, dark pain inside his chest. These children would only exist for his own benefit, and he hated that! He wasn't some kind of selfish psychopath that used others to further his own agenda!

Some beasts had already noticed Gravis, but they felt some kind of unease when looking at him. To them, Gravis felt like some disturbance inside the calm and serene surroundings. Nearly nobody fought in these surroundings, and only a light wind rustled the leaves on the trees. Even the sun was shining down from the blue sky.

Yet, when the beasts looked at Gravis, it was almost like his surroundings were trembling slightly. It felt like his surroundings were not filled with warmth but with aggressive heat. The wind around him wasn't calm but violent and chaotic.

Of course, all of this didn't actually happen. This was just how Gravis' aura felt to the beasts in the surroundings. They were simply waiting, comprehending, and sleeping to wait for the war. Because of that, they were rather calm and lazy.

Yet, Gravis felt like an unstable, chaotic funnel of nervousness, frustration, and rage.

Because of that, the beasts kept themselves away from him.

Maybe that was for the better.

 

Chapter 473

Gravis remained completely silent and motionless for two weeks. More beasts gathered around the mountains as time passed, but none of them had any interest in getting to know such an unstable beast. Gravis' aura made it very unpleasant for the other beasts to be around.

In these two weeks, Gravis hadn't been able to focus on anything other than his current situation. He tried to calm himself down and forget the whole issue, but that also didn't work. Right now, he felt like he was wasting his entire time since he wasn't able to comprehend Laws at all in his state. Of course, this made Gravis even more frustrated.

"All members of the Empire willing to go to war, gather on the right mountain!" a voice echoed throughout the surroundings.

Gravis' opened his eyes and immediately charged to the right mountain. He had waited arduously for two entire weeks for this announcement, and he didn't want to waste another second. The feeling of not being able to do anything was driving him insane!

BANG!

Gravis violently landed on the right mountain, right in front of a small cheetah. Yet, like every other King, this wasn't the real size of the cheetah. Surprisingly, the cheetah was only a level one King. Gravis had expected a more powerful beast to lead the charge.

The cheetah looked at the 100-meter-tall Gravis. This beast seemed to be quite eager to go to war.

After some more seconds, the other beasts also gathered on the mountain. Only a select few fit on the mountain due to the mountain being so thin and the beasts being so massive. Due to that, a kind of unspoken agreement formed.

Only level five Lords were allowed to set foot upon the mountain while the other Lords kept hovering around it. The only exception to this rule was Gravis.

Most of the level five Lords didn't bother Gravis since they had no interest in coming into contact with such an obviously unstable beast. If they said the wrong thing, he might go crazy and attack them. Of course, that was only how most of the beast thought. There were some exceptions.

"Hey, leave!" an elephant said from beside Gravis with disdain.

Gravis turned his head and looked the elephant in the eyes, and when the elephant saw Gravis' eyes, it felt a cold shudder go across its body. Beasts had very honed instincts, and the elephant felt like it had made a mistake.

"Sorry," the elephant said as it took a step to the side, away from Gravis.

Gravis had already realized that beating up some beasts wouldn't help with his frustration and rage. Therefore, he ignored the elephant after it stepped away and turned back to the cheetah.

The cheetah looked around at the gathered beasts. There were around 70 Lords present, with around ten of them being level five Lords. The majority were level four Lords, and only a small minority were level three beasts.

The cheetah hummed for a bit as she looked at the present beasts. "We need a couple more level five Lords," she said.

The gathered beasts understood why the cheetah said that. Before nearly every invasion, a powerful King would scout out the forces of their target. Due to that, they knew exactly how powerful their opponents were. Obviously, the cheetah judged that they needed some more level five Lords to stand a chance.

"No, we don't," Gravis said as he looked at the cheetah with cold eyes.

The gathered beasts were surprised that Gravis dared to talk back to their future commander. Was Gravis tired of living?

The Cheetah looked with furrowed brows at Gravis. "You have nothing to say here, soldier," the cheetah said.

"Yes, I do," Gravis answered immediately.

The cheetah narrowed her eyes.

WHOOOOOM!

Suddenly, a powerful, suppressive aura appeared around all the beasts. The level five Lords nearly couldn't move anymore while even the cheetah felt a small bit of suppression. Gravis had activated his Will-Aura.

"I can suppress level five Lords," Gravis said coldly.

BZZZZZZZ!

An unreal amount of lightning gathered around Gravis, and the beasts felt the power of the lightning. This lightning was no joke! If it hit them, they might die.

One had to remember that there were no Divine Beasts among these soldiers. Gravis had met one Divine Beast after the other in the last couple of weeks, but that was only because he was in a place where they all gathered.

Divine Beasts were still considered very rare. A Divine Beast might have some resistance to the lightning due to its powerful body, but these beasts didn't have such a resistance.

"I can annihilate level five Lords," Gravis said after that as the lightning returned to his body.

"We don't need more level five Lords," Gravis stated with his cold and aggressive voice.

The cheetah was surprised by Gravis' display, but Gravis still wasn't a danger to her. Yet, she acknowledged Gravis' power and thought about his words for a bit.

"Okay," the cheetah said after some seconds with a casual tone. "If you're fine with dealing with about ten level five Lords, I see no problem in going."

The cheetah sounded surprisingly calm. It was almost like she didn't care about Gravis' disrespectful attitude. Of course, the main reason for that was that she was a King of the Icy Pride Empire.

The members of the Icy Pride Empire often came into contact with the Law of Pride, and some beasts had even comprehended parts of the Law. Due to that, experienced members of the Icy Pride Empire didn't mind when someone showed arrogance, disdain, or pride. After all, if the beast was powerful enough to back-up their boast, they were allowed to boast. Due to that, the cheetah didn't mind Gravis' attitude.

Gravis nodded. "No problem. I need a lot of food anyway," Gravis said. Right now, there was a huge open space between Gravis and the other beasts. They had felt the lightning and retreated to the side to not get hit accidentally.

The cheetah nodded again with a smile. "Good," she commented. Then, she turned to the other beasts. "We will move out soon. As per the usual procedures during invasions, if you manage to kill a beast, you get to keep and eat the entire corpse. If another beast made a major contribution to the fight, you need to share with that beast."

The beasts looked back at the cheetah and nodded with fighting spirit. These were the usual rules.

"We have a little more level three Lords than the enemy," the cheetah said. "Level three Lords, search for your targets and kill them as quickly as possible. Then, fall back for further orders. Of course, if you want, you can try to band together to kill a level four Lord, but you don't have to. It's up to you."

The level three Lords nodded in excitement. Less level three Lords meant that they could quickly take out their targets and retreat. In this war, they would be surrounded by many more powerful beasts than them, and every second spent in this war would endanger their lives.

"Our count regarding level four Lords is around the same as the enemy's," the cheetah said. "Remember that this is not some casual tempering or a one-on-one duel. You must use everything in your power to kill as many enemies as possible. The fact that we don't use any tactics and that our power is about equal to the enemy is tempering enough."

The level four Lords also nodded to show that they've understood the command.

"As for level five Lords, we are outnumbered two-to-one. Level five Lords, try to distract as many level five Lords as possible to give our black lizard some time to deal with them," the cheetah said as she motioned to Gravis with her head.

The level five Lords nodded. Then, the cheetah turned to Gravis. "Black lizard, if you manage to decimate the enemy's level five Lords to a number which is equal to or lower than our level five Lords, I would ask you to leave the remaining enemies for your comrades."

Gravis nodded. Ten level five Lords would already be enough for Gravis to become a level five Lord himself. With that, he would have achieved his goal.

The cheetah nodded back. "The enemy has one level one King, and I will be dealing with that one. In the event that I die, act according to circumstance. If the level one King is majorly injured, try to overwhelm them with numbers. If you see no way to win, retreat back to our lands. Help will arrive quickly."

"Any questions?" the cheetah asked as she looked at the gathered beasts.

The beasts remained silent for a couple of seconds.

Then, the cheetah nodded again. "Alright. Then we will set off now. Follow me!"

The cheetah turned around and flew to the east. The other beasts also took to the sky and followed her.

Unknowingly, the beasts all remained behind Gravis during the flight. They had already accepted him as their superior.

 

Chapter 474

The group flew for many days. By Gravis' estimate, they had already traveled for three weeks, which irked him to no end. He hadn't expected that they would travel for such a long time.

One reason why this took so long was that they had to adjust their speed to the slowest level three Lord in their group, but another reason was the sheer distance. The world was gigantic, and the front lines were quite far away.

Yet, Gravis was lucky. The Empires nearly all resided near the core of the continent. If he had to travel around the outer rims of the continent, it would take many times longer.

Along their journey, they had felt the sense of some powerful beasts enveloping them for a short time. These were probably the local guards and commanders of all the Kingdoms they were passing through. Without the cheetah leading them, they would have been stopped a long time ago.

After these three weeks of travel, the cheetah changed directions and flew towards the south-east. When Gravis saw that, he realized why she had changed directions.

Gravis remembered the map that his father had shown him of the world. To the east of the content was a huge ocean that stretched far into the continent. It even touched the center of the continent.

Gravis was pretty sure that they had arrived near the ocean and now needed to fly further along the coast to get to the actual territory. Judging by the continent's shape, if they attacked here, they would walk into mighty Kingdoms or even Empires. One had to remember that the closer a territory was to the continent's core, the more powerful the beasts became.

Obviously, their force was only powerful enough to contend with a level one Kingdom, which was led by a level one King. If they directly invaded the ocean from here, they wouldn't even know how they died.

Gravis didn't see the coast or ocean yet, but the fact that the cheetah had changed direction showed that they were close to the coast. Not all beasts knew the outline of the world, but they didn't care. They trusted that their commander would lead them to the appropriate area.

Then, they traveled for another two weeks. By now, Gravis was incredibly angry and frustrated. Every additional second it took to reach their destination was another second in which he couldn't comprehend Laws or become more powerful.

Normally, he would be able to distract himself by looking at the CMO, but this proved to be impossible with his current mindset. Gravis hated this situation so much!

Many of the beasts talked to each other during the travel, and some of them were even interested in Gravis. Yet, as soon as they tried to strike up a conversation with him, he just ignored them. He had no interest in talking to anyone else right now. He was too busy stopping himself from venting his frustration.

When the beasts saw that talking to Gravis proved impossible, they stopped trying. It didn't really matter if he talked to them or not. He was here because of his power and not because of his social skills. So, the beasts didn't really mind.

After these two weeks, the cheetah finally stopped. Right now, the whole group was hovering over a forest. Surprisingly, no weaker beasts were inside this forest. The only beasts they could spot were level three Lords or stronger, which was weird.

Normally, territories overflowed with weaker beasts and animals. They were absolutely everywhere. Yet, since they weren't relevant to the Tribes, Kingdoms, and Empires, no one paid attention to them. However, as soon as there were no beasts at all, it became apparent that something was missing.

The gathered beasts were all from the Empire, and only a select few had taken part in the war before. Due to that, only some beasts knew why this place was devoid of weaker beasts. Gravis overheard

some conversations and got to know the reason why there were no weaker beasts present.

This was contested territory.

This meant that this territory was very close to the ocean. The borders of the ocean and the land constantly moved, with many battles being won and lost for both sides. Since this was a war between land beasts and sea beasts, the winning party wouldn't even let the weak beasts survive.

As soon as one side won, they would either submerge the whole territory in seawater or push all water into the ocean by raising the land, depending on which side won. Beasts weaker than Spirit Beasts would die from that while the Spirit Beasts would be eradicated by the winner.

Because of this, no weaker beasts managed to inhabit these lands. It took a long time to populate such a vast territory, and just when some Spirit Beasts appeared, the territory would fall to the other side again, ruining the efforts of the past years.

The Lords that were already present were border guards that acted as a powerful defensive line. There were also some Kings. This defensive line was obviously powerful enough to take the targeted territory for themselves, but they didn't.

Gravis already had a pretty solid guess of why that was. If they had such a defensive line, the enemy probably also had one. If the two defensive lines clashed, it would become a bloodbath.

Usually, such a thing wouldn't be bad. After all, this would be good tempering, right? Theoretically, yes, but tempering was only valuable if your side was the one coming out victorious. If your side got eradicated, all this tempering would be for nothing, and the enemy would have become even more powerful.

Both sides were unsure if they could win a fight against the enemy's defensive line. It would be a huge risk to blindly attack an unknown amount of enemies.

This was where the conquered territories came into play. By conquering a territory between the two defensive lines, the winner would gain a foothold for reconnaissance. With that territory, the winning side would be able to keep watch over the enemy's defensive line without unveiling their own power.

Additionally, such an outpost would also give the defensive line a lot of time and information to formulate an appropriate strategy to deal with the enemy.

In short, this meant that the invasion that Gravis was part of would not give their camp a permanent expansion but would just give their camp a nearly minuscule edge for a potential battle in the future.

This seemed like a small and unimportant contribution, but one shouldn't forget that a great victory was built on many such small contributions. This was all just a small part of the grand strategy of the land beasts.

Gravis felt some senses of some Kings pass over him, and he was quite surprised about the sheer number of them. By Gravis' estimate, there were over 30 Kings paying attention to them right now. The defensive line was truly powerful.

"The defensive line has taken note of all of you and will remember your auras and looks," the cheetah said. "If I die, and you retreat to the defensive line, they won't attack you. If I die, act as discussed, and if you flee to the defensive line, you need to ask for an escort that will bring you back to the Empire."

The beasts remained silent as they listened to the cheetah.

"We will attack at sunset, and we will arrive at our destination in the middle of the night. When we arrive, you will simply charge forward and kill as many opponents as possible," the cheetah explained.

The beasts nodded again.

Then, everyone simply waited and readied themselves for the battle. Gravis' frustration lessened a bit since he was one step closer to his goal. This night, he would become a level five Lord.

After that, he would only need to fight some level one Kings to get his answer. He needed to know if Heaven accepted his bargain or not.

Time passed quickly, and before they knew it, dusk had arrived.

"Let's go," the cheetah commanded.

The beasts nodded again in silence.

Then, everyone flew to the east, and after some more hours of travel, they finally saw water.

From now on, they would enter enemy territory. It was time to go to war!

"Charge!" the cheetah shouted, her voice resonating throughout the surroundings.

"RAAAAAAH!" the beasts echoed with war cries of their own.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

And all the beasts charged, creating powerful explosions of water as they violently entered the ocean.

 

Chapter 475

The beasts all charged into the water violently. As soon as they had arrived, stealth was already thrown out of the window. The enemy would notice them anyway since they were land beasts and couldn't simply act like sea beasts. Therefore, there was no sense in trying to sneak in.

Every human would think that such a frontal assault would be reckless and stupid, but that was only true for human standards. Beasts didn't have things like Formation Arrays and walls. All they had was some advantageous natural terrain and their bodies. All in all, it didn't make much difference to beasts if they were the ones attacking or defending.

Gravis was in the middle of the group while the level five Lords were at the front. The first thing they would do is find their opponents and fight, while Gravis would take out one level five Lord after the next.

After some minutes of charging, they already saw several enemies. These sea beasts had different levels, but most of them were only level one or level two Lords. One had to remember that this territory also had some weaker beasts living here.

These weak Lords were annihilated by the level five Lords even before they could react properly. The level five Lords simply threw some casual elemental attacks at these weak beasts, which was more than enough to completely decimate them. They didn't even care about leaving the corpses intact. After all, no beast in their army would care about such weak food.

In no time at all, the army approached the Abyss. Just like the Abyss that the River Tribe had had, this one was a deep hole in the ocean that worked as a kind of defensive barrier and headquarters for the sea beasts.

Gravis hadn't seen a single level three Lord or stronger on his way here, but that was to be expected. This was contested territory. A chokepoint like the Abyss served as the best defensive line for sea beasts.

Sure enough, as soon as Gravis saw the Abyss, he noticed an incredible number of Lords. Luckily for them, the enemy's numbers and power were identical to the intelligence they had received from the cheetah.

The enemy had noticed them, and they built a wall of beasts a little behind the entrance of the Abyss. Without killing these beasts, they couldn't proceed. Surprisingly, the whole wall was only made out of level four Lords. Gravis couldn't see any stronger or weaker Lords present.

Gravis' eyes narrowed as he realized the reason for that. 'With enough level four Lords, even a level five Lord might die. The fight between the Kings is what will decide which side will win the battle, but the fight between the level five Lords will decide which army will survive.'

Gravis looked at his own army for some seconds. 'The survival of our level four and level three Lords lays on the shoulders of our level five Lords and me. I would hate to be in their shoes right now, unable to have the power to decide my own destiny.'

Gravis sighed and shook his head a little. 'What am I saying? Isn't the fact that I need to rely on Heaven's generosity the entire reason why I'm even here?' Gravis thought with frustration.

"Level four Lords, attack!" the cheetah transmitted to everyone. She could send in the level five Lords to kill a huge amount of level four Lords, but that might exhaust the level five Lords. If the enemy level five Lords appeared, they might lose because of such a decision.

"RAAAAH!" the beasts shouted in unison and charged forward. The level five Lords and level three Lords kept themselves back to intervene when necessary. According to what Gravis had seen with his Spirit Sense, the level three Lords of the enemy kept themselves completely hidden behind the defensive line.

'Guess our level three Lords are lucky,' Gravis thought. If the enemy's level three Lords attacked, the land beasts' level three Lords would need to counterattack. During that time, they would be fighting

inside a massive battle between more powerful beasts. Their survival chances would sink dramatically.

Since the enemy's level three Lords kept themselves back, their own level three Lords could wait until the main battle was over. This would allow them to fight without any outsider interfering.

The two walls clashed, and Gravis felt like a small apocalypse had arrived. Whenever the beasts clashed, the water around them would become vaporized in an instant. The Energy output that such powerful beasts could produce could make incredible amounts of water boil in a split-second.

Soon after, elements of all kinds kept being shot around. Space shook as Gravis' Spirit Sense, and the Beasts' senses stopped working. When so much power clashed, it became nearly impossible to discern anything. As soon as the battle erupted, everyone could only rely on their feeling, instinct, and sight.

Gravis stood behind the battle together with the cheetah and the level five Lords. Right now, in front of them, everyone could see a violent steam-tornado, which made it nearly impossible to discern anything.

The steam tornado had a width of over 100 kilometers. This massive size made the steam tornado appear like a wall instead of a storm. It was simply too wide to comprehend its true form with their eyes alone.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Shockwaves parted the tornado at many places, revealing some openings in the steam tornado. Water beams split the tornado apart as they flew into the distance. Icicles shot out of the tornado and flew into random directions. Sometimes, one could even see a ball of steam leaving the tornado. These were fireballs that were obscured by the steam, which continually surrounded them.

Any level four Lord or weaker would be terrified of this violent storm since any of these attacks could prove deadly to them. It was obvious that this battle had no tactic or order. The beasts inside the steam-tornado had already lost their rationality and simply attacked anything that looked like an enemy.

Gravis scratched his chin as he looked at the tornado. 'If they were human, such a violent battle would do wonders for their Will-Auras,' Gravis thought. 'Everyone participating in the battle obviously feels terrified. After all, any random attack from the side might kill them.'

As the violent battle continued at the front, Gravis turned to the cheetah. "How will you know when the level five Lords get involved?" he asked with a voice transmission.

The cheetah continued watching the battle intently. "The senses of a King are superior to the senses of a Lord. You might not be able to keep watch over the battle, but I can. As soon as the level five Lords make a move, I will inform you," she transmitted to him.

"Want me to get involved?" Gravis asked.

"No," the cheetah answered immediately. "You need to be in top condition for your fight against the level five Lords."

"As long as I can kill my enemies, I have unlimited stamina," Gravis answered, making the cheetah open her eyes wide. "If I kill a level four Lord, I regain 20% of my total power, and I don't need more than 10% to kill a level four Lord. I can kill thousands without a break."

The cheetah was shocked when she heard that and remained silent for some seconds.

"If the battle were not in our favor, I would accept that offer," the cheetah answered, "but, right now, we are slightly ahead. If you interfere, you might be able to save the lives of many beasts, but instead, you will take away their tempering. Let them temper themselves for now."

Gravis shrugged. If the cheetah knew that the battle was currently going in their favor, the enemy's King probably also knew that. This probably meant that the level five Lords would get involved soon anyway. To Gravis, it made no big difference since he would get his fair share of food sooner or later.

Gravis continued watching for a couple more minutes until he noticed that the cheetah started smiling.

"Why are you smiling?" Gravis asked.

Normally, the commander wouldn't talk with their soldiers while a battle was ongoing, but Gravis' power won the cheetah's respect. "One of our soldiers has just comprehended a Law."

"Oh? That's nice," Gravis said. "What Law is it?"

The cheetah laughed a bit. "Fittingly, it's a Law related to steam. It seems like she is able to control the steam around her somewhat. There is too much power in the steam right now, which makes it impossible for her to control all of it. Yet, that Law is still incredibly useful in this battle."

"Could you elaborate?" Gravis asked.

The cheetah didn't mind. "She can use the steam as a medium for her sense. Like this, she is basically the only beast inside the battle that can keep watch over their surroundings. Additionally, she can control the steam to restrict some movements of the enemies and to blind them."

"This is not a Law about attack. This Law is all about defense, utility, and evasion. I would say that such a mixed Law is pretty weak when compared to other Laws, but in this circumstance, it's the best one she could have comprehended," the cheetah explained.

Gravis nodded.

"Attack immediately!" the cheetah suddenly shouted at every beast as she herself charged forward with her full speed. "The King has gotten involved. I will deal with him! Level five Lords, go through the steam tornado and kill the enemy's level five Lords below it!"

"RAAAAH!" the level five Lords shouted. Then, they all charged violently into the Steam Tornado.

Gravis narrowed his eyes.

'Finally!'

Then, he also charged into the steam tornado, right behind the other level five Lords.

 

Chapter 476

Suddenly, the steam parted below Gravis and the others. The reason for that was apparent. The cheetah had revealed her true size, which was an impressive ten kilometers. The rapid expansion of her body had pushed all the steam to the side for a while.

BOOOM!

Below the cheetah, more steam parted as the enemy King also revealed their size. It was a moray eel, nearly 30-kilometers-long. Gravis was a bit surprised that this moray eel had no additions to its body.

Kings had another opportunity to evolve, and they had enough battle experience to see the imperfections in their bodies. Normally, a King should have a more combat-oriented body than that. Eels were not really designed for combat. That was why Gravis was surprised by the enemy King's appearance.

Meanwhile, Gravis also noticed that the cheetah looked a bit different. Her tail was incredibly long and thin, nearly double as long as her whole body. Gravis realized the utility that such a long and flexible tail brought. She could use this tail as another weapon or defense.

Gravis turned away from the battle as he looked down into the Abyss. For a short moment, when the steam had parted, he had been able to see the level five Lords behind it. Surprisingly, they didn't charge into the battle. They probably hoped for the enemy's level five Lords to get injured in the chaotic battle.

Such a decision had advantages and disadvantages. The advantage quickly showed itself as some of the level five Lords, currently charging through the chaotic battle, received some minor injuries from some stray attacks.

Yet, the disadvantage also showed itself. Around ten level four Lords died as the level five Lords casually attacked them in their charge. Such a devastating strike had already decided the victor for the battle of the level four Lords. The land beasts had a numerical advantage now.

After some seconds, the level five Lords of the land beasts and Gravis exited the steam tornado above them. Now, the enemy could finally see their forces, and with that came surprise.

The enemy only saw ten level five Lords while they had 20. Usually, the forces of both sides were equally powerful to allow the armies to receive some tempering. Yet, the land beasts had only arrived with half the level five Lords. What was going on?

The level five Lords of the sea beasts looked at each other and then charged violently forward. They had to take advantage of such an opportunity!

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Several beasts immediately clashed as an insane amount of steam also appeared here now. As soon as Gravis counted that a little more than half of their level five Lords had already found their opponents, Gravis decided to become active.

BZZZZZZ!

Gravis immediately transformed into lightning, which made his speed climb to ridiculous degrees. None of the enemies saw his transformation since he was surrounded by steam right now. This was the perfect opportunity for him.

He charged forward violently as he passed the currently fighting beasts. Then, he immediately moved from side to side in an effort to find some enemies. The beasts had issues seeing their surroundings due to the chaos, and the same thing was true for Gravis.

After around a second, Gravis found a level five Lord charging forward, and Gravis shot right at him. The Lord noticed a lightning bolt coming towards him and felt the power of the lightning. Immediately, the level five Lord dodged to the side to evade.

BANG!

Yet, Gravis immediately changed his trajectory and charged at the new position of the Lord. In no time at all, Gravis charged right through the head of the level five Lord, still inside his Lightning Transformation.

The head of the Lord exploded as Gravis felt his Realm become weaker. Yet, not even a second later, the whole body of his enemy had been consumed by lightning. Due to that, Gravis felt his Realm increase even further than it had fallen just now.

'As I expected,' Gravis thought. 'This is a bit of a waste. I should have gotten four units of power equivalent to level four Lords, but I've only gotten two. If I kill level five Lords like this, my Realm will only increase half as quickly.'

Gravis immediately searched for his next opponent and quickly found another one. Gravis charged at him violently, and just like the last Lord, this one tried to evade. Yet, Gravis simply transformed back into his body when he arrived beside the beast.

WHOOOOM!

An unreal pressure pressed into the Lord, making it nearly impossible for him to move. Gravis retrieved his saber and slashed downward. As soon as he performed this action, he moved all his power into his body.

SHING!

Gravis' timing had been perfect. By moving all his power into his body, his body was 75% as powerful as the enemy's body. Together with his powerful weapon, it was enough to behead the enemy without needing to waste any lightning.

BZZZ!

Gravis transformed back into lightning and moved through the corpse, absorbing it instantly. His Realm increased by the expected four power units, and he continued on his search for more enemies.

He found three at once and closed in on them. They tried to evade, but Gravis materialized in the middle of the three.

WHOOOM!

He activated his Will-Aura, suppressing all three of them. Then, he summoned a small Lightning Bomb and let it explode between them.

BOOOOM!

The three Lords couldn't even react as they were consumed by lightning. All the lightning gathered and shot back into Gravis, increasing his lightning's power by a lot.

Gravis killed another three Lords after this, bringing his kill-count to eight. After searching for some more seconds, Gravis found no more enemies in the backlines. This meant that all level five Lords were currently fighting.

BZZZ!

Gravis immediately turned around and shot into the chaotic battle. He searched for some shockwaves and charged in the direction they came from. After a second, he found a one-on-one duel between two Lords.

WHOOM! SHING!

Gravis immediately killed the Lord, surprising the land beast that had just fought the now-dead sea beast.

"I can't search for the two-on-one battles," Gravis transmitted to the level five Lord. "It's easier this way. Sorry for your food. Try to find a two-on-one battle and grab one of the opponents."

The level five Lord wasn't really happy about that. He had already used quite some resources to fight his current opponent, and if he searched for a new one, he might have a disadvantage. Yet, there was nothing he could do. Without saying anything to Gravis, the level five Lord left.

Gravis also searched some more and luckily found a two-on-one battle. He also noticed that his comrade was already quite a bit injured.

WHOOM! SHING! SHING!

Gravis activated his Will-Aura, killed one of them, and created a gigantic gash in the second opponent's body. "This should make it fair," Gravis transmitted to both of them. Then, he left again.

The second level five Lord sea beast was in fear as it hadn't been able to defend against such an attack. Additionally, a huge gash had opened at the side of its body, making it feel incredible pain.

BANG!

The land beast managed to land a powerful hit on the sea beast. The land beasts had already seen Gravis' strength, which was why this land beast wasn't surprised. When it had noticed that its opponent had let their guard down, it had taken advantage of this opportunity.

Meanwhile, Gravis swam upwards and left the steam tornado. His work was done, and the number of the level five Lords should be equal now. Everything else depended on them.

Gravis was close to reaching the next level, but he was just short. He probably only needed one more level five Lord to become a level five Lord himself.

After leaving the steam tornado, Gravis paid special attention to the fight between the Kings. They were fighting outside the steam tornado, and since they didn't use as many attacks as the level four Lords, their surroundings were still visible. Additionally, their bodies were rather big.

The cheetah moved around with incredible speed, and Gravis also noticed that she had the wind affinity. 'A cheetah with wind affinity? No wonder she's so fast,' Gravis thought.

Gravis also noticed that she used her tail and claws to create wind blades, which shot at her opponent. Gravis had a lot of experience with cultivators and beasts with the wind affinity, and he was sure that the cheetah had comprehended a Law, which allowed her to fight like that.

Normally, wind cultivators needed to gather a lot of Energy and then shoot such a wind blade out. These wind blades would, therefore, also be made out of Energy. Yet, the wind blades that the cheetah used didn't use any Energy whatsoever.

Her wind blades acted like extensions for her attack. They simply transformed her physical attacks into a shockwave that traveled forwards without losing any of the power. This allowed her to attack from range without needing to consume any Energy, quite a powerful weapon.

Meanwhile, the moray eel blocked these wind blades with mud. Apparently, it had comprehended a Law that allowed it to summon the mud and control it. This was very similar to the Law that the Golden Dragon had comprehended.

The mud concentrated on different spots and became dense enough to block the wind blades. Yet, the cheetah obviously had the speed advantage, and Gravis noticed that the moray eel found it harder and harder to block the wind blades in time.

The fight continued for half a minute, and Gravis saw that the end of the fight was approaching. By now, the mud shields lacked behind the wind blades, and the moray eel only barely managed to block them.

BANG!

Suddenly, the cheetah's speed exploded to a ridiculous degree as wind Energy gathered around her. 'Such an insane acceleration probably ate up around 50% of her entire reserves,' Gravis thought with narrowed eyes.

The moray eel couldn't even react as the cheetah arrived directly in front of it. Then, the cheetah performed a somersault as her tail accumulated a ridiculous amount of Energy.

SHING!

And the head of the moray eel got severed by the tail.

CRUNCH!

Yet, in an instant, a second head grew out of the moray eel. The cheetah was wide open, and the second head bit into the cheetah's neck as she passed it. The bite crushed her entire neck and half her head.

CRSH!

Then, the moray eel pulled its head away and tore the head off the cheetah.

Gravis watched this with narrowed eyes. 'The Law of Disguise, same as Orthar. It kept its second head hidden with that, making us believe that it only had one,' Gravis thought.

'This King knows two Laws!'

The moray eel didn't waste any time and turned to the steam tornado, but not before noticing the lone Gravis standing outside it.

Then, the moray eel looked at Gravis with cold eyes.

 

Chapter 477

The moray eel unleashed a powerful mudball, which shot directly at Gravis. In the mind of the King, Gravis was only some level four Lord. Such a casual attack would be more than enough to kill him.

BZZZ!

Gravis transformed into lightning and dodged the mudball, surprising the King. Then, Gravis immediately charged forward at the moray eel. Even though his Lightning Transformation increased his speed by a lot, he was still quite a bit slower than the moray eel.

Yet, the moray eel was not taking him seriously right now. Gravis had an opportunity to end it!

BZZZZZ!

Gravis transformed back in front of the surprised moray eel and summoned a powerful Lightning Bomb with 75% of his power. Then, Gravis slashed through it with his saber, absorbing it in the process. After that, he released a powerful Lightning Crescent, which shot directly at the moray eel.

The moray eel saw the approaching Lightning Crescent and was shocked due to its immense power. This was not an attack from a level four Lord! This attack had the power to even injure a King!

Whooop!

The moray eel transformed into a worm instantly with his disguise ability, dodging the Lightning Crescent due to its new body shape. The Lightning Crescent passed it and continued on into the distance.

Whoop!

The moray eel transformed back into its usual form and looked at Gravis with narrowed eyes. "Impressive," it said, a deep male voice thundering through Gravis' Spirit. "You're not a Divine Beast, but you managed to release an attack that's even a threat to me. I've never seen anything like you."

Gravis grimaced as he looked at the moray eel with narrowed eyes. 'Plan A has failed. Time for Plan B,' Gravis thought.

"You're fine with wasting time by talking to me?" Gravis asked.

The eel harrumphed. "The battle between the level four Lords has already been decided while the battle between the level five Lords is even right now. I won't take away their tempering since none of you will be able to escape today anyway," he said calmly.

Then, the eel smirked a bit. "I've also seen your performance. You've killed ten of my level five Lords, and you can even transform into lightning. You have many special powers, but you chose the wrong side. Though, I have to say that your speed, while you're lightning, is remarkable."

CRRRR!

A brown armor appeared around Gravis' body as he carried his saber in his right hand. Then, Gravis gestured with his other hand for the moray eel to come to him. "I'll show you something even more remarkable," Gravis said with a smirk, which was hidden behind his helmet.

The King was surprised by the appearance of Gravis' armor again. This beast just had so many weird and remarkable abilities. After some seconds, the King simply smirked again and chuckled a bit. "Good! Show me!" he shouted.

BANG!

The King shot forward with all his speed. His powerful tailfin created a mighty explosion that transformed kilometers of water into steam. Even though speed wasn't the eel's specialty, one still had to remember that this was a King. His body was many, many times stronger than Gravis' body.

Gravis almost couldn't react to the King's ridiculous speed. He only managed to barely take out his shield and grab it with both of his hands due to the initial distance between them.

BOOOM!

The shield exploded as it couldn't resist the power. Several bones in Gravis' arms cracked as he got shot into the distance. Thankfully, due to all the different Formation Arrays in his armor, he was able to keep his torso and legs safe.

The King looked at Gravis' body in surprise. He wasn't dead? Also, he flew away with more force than the King had used. Gravis shouldn't have been thrown that violently into the distance!

Gravis flew so far away due to the Formation Arrays inside his broken shield, which increased the attack's physical power. Like this, it would become difficult for the enemy to directly use another attack since he quickly left their perimeter. Surviving one attack and stopping the enemy from following up was the goal of this setup.

The King looked at Gravis for about two seconds and then decided to chase. If Gravis survived this attack, the King just had to perform an even more powerful attack. At some point, Gravis would die.

Of course, Gravis also knew this, which was why it became challenging for him to find ways to survive. He had a plan, and he needed time for his plan to come into effect. If he didn't manage to distract the King until his preparations were complete, he would die.

The moray eel shot at Gravis again with ridiculous speeds, but thanks to the distance between them, Gravis was able to react appropriately.

Whoop!

Gravis summoned another shield and charged back at the King. The King was surprised by the appearance of another shield. Also, the fact that Gravis shot towards him instead of defending was confusing to him. Yet, he had already launched his attack and couldn't cancel it anymore.

BANG!

The tail hit the shield that Gravis was carrying, but he had managed to get closer to the eel, which weakened the attack. Yet, the power was still immense, and it shot Gravis diagonally to the back. Thanks to the angle in which Gravis had received the attack, he didn't get injured.

Surprisingly, since Gravis didn't block the attack at the end of the tail, the tail extended behind Gravis until it was nearly around him. Due to that, Gravis didn't shoot into the distance but directly at the moray eel's tailfin. Immediately, Gravis retrieved the shield and summoned a saber, crackling with lightning.

BOOOOOOM!

The pre-loaded Lightning Crescent engulfed the whole tail, but even such a powerful Lightning Crescent wasn't strong enough to decimate the whole thing. Instead, only the fin and the scales were destroyed, while the majority of the muscles and bones remained uninjured.

"RAAAAAAAH!" the King released a mighty shout of pain. He had lost the entire outer layer of his tail, which inflicted incredible pain on him. He immediately retracted his tail and looked at it with burning and enraged eyes.

Whooooom!

Suddenly, the moray eel's body became slightly smaller as a new outer layer appeared around his tail. Additionally, the fin was also restored, though smaller than before.

Gravis saw this and narrowed his eyes. 'So he can also use the Law of Disguise to transform parts of his body into replacement parts. Yet, I'm pretty sure that this slightly decreases his physical power.'

Of course, such a trade was still better than leaving the tail in such a vulnerable and unusable state. They were not fighting in the air but in the water. Due to the water's resistance, the inherent ability of flight of beasts wouldn't be nearly as fast as using a powerful tailfin.

If he hadn't healed his tailfin, his speed would have suffered even more.

The King looked with hatred at Gravis. "I will enjoy killing you!" he shouted with rage as an unreal amount of mud appeared around the moray eel. He had enough of Gravis, and he would no longer only use his tail to attack!

Gravis looked at the eel with narrowed eyes. 'I might have lost my saved-up Lightning Crescent, but you have become slower. Now, I can react to your attacks!' he thought.

BOOOOM!

Suddenly, the mud around the moray eel exploded into the surroundings and clouded everything.

CRRRRRRRRR!

The mud violently engulfed Gravis and stormed around him, grinding on his armor. Such an attack would grind an enemy into dust, especially if they had weak spots that the mud could hit. Of course, Gravis' armor had no such weak spots.

CRRRRRR!

The mud continued grinding, but such a wide-area attack wasn't powerful enough to destroy his armor. As long as Gravis kept his face safe with his shield, his armor could hold out. Yet, the disturbance in space made it impossible for Gravis to discern his surroundings with his Spirit. Additionally, the mud completely clouded his eyes, making it impossible for him to see the King.

Some more seconds passed as the mud continued grinding on Gravis. 'He will soon realize that he can't kill me with this and will attack. This time, it won't be something as weak as a tail swipe.'

More seconds passed with nothing happening until…

BZZZZ! BOOOM!

Gravis transformed into lightning and shot through the mud, leaving his mud prison. The mud ate up some of his lightning, but it was bearable. Directly after that, the sound of an explosion thundered behind him.

The moray eel had violently bitten down at Gravis' previous location, destroying everything. He quickly realized that he hadn't hit Gravis with his bite, which shocked him to no end. It should have been impossible for Gravis to see anything past the mud barrier! How could he have seen him coming!?

It was true. Gravis hadn't been able to see or feel anything behind the mud barrier. Yet, he had another preparation that allowed him to keep track of the eel.

PACK!

Gravis used this opportunity to charge at the moray eel from the side. Then, he gripped one of the King's backfins and penetrated it with his saber. His Realm had fallen, but his concentrated physical power was still enough to penetrate the soft skin of a fin.

CRRRRR!

Gravis ran across the King's back, destroying nearly the whole fin in the process. Yet, the King quickly regained his bearings.

Whoooop!

Suddenly, Gravis only stood on a thin body, which was even thinner than himself.

BZZZZ! BOOM!

Gravis transformed into lightning again as he shot away. The eel had transformed into a thin and long worm, which allowed him to crane and angle his body so that he could attack Gravis. His mouth extended until it was many kilometers tall and tried to bite Gravis. Luckily, Gravis had not hesitated to flee. If he had, he would have been crushed.

Whoooop!

The King transformed back and used more of his body to restore his backfin, weakening his body more. Then, he looked at Gravis with even more hatred.

CRRRRRRR!

An incredible amount of mud gathered before the moray eel and transformed into gigantic sabers. He had seen the effectiveness of Gravis' sabers and had copied their design with his mud.

Now, he had sabers of his own!

 

Chapter 478

A total of four sabers floated before the King. Gravis felt their power and knew that they were powerful enough to destroy his shield. He couldn't underestimate them at all.

Whooosh!

The sabers shot forward and slashed at Gravis. Thankfully, Gravis had a ridiculous amount of experience in evasion and managed to dodge them barely. Their speed was still many times faster than Gravis, and he needed to pre-dodge them.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

The sabers continued circling Gravis and attacking while he just dodged. Yet, he was slowly making his way to the moray eel. When the moray eel saw that, he retreated to keep his distance. Gravis wasn't fast enough to reach him like this.

Some more seconds passed, and the King became more experienced in using the sabers. By now, it became harder and harder for Gravis to dodge.

BZZZZ!

Gravis transformed into lightning to increase his speed. If he continued dodging like this, he would be hit sooner than later. He needed the additional speed of his Lightning Transformation.

BOOOM!

When the King saw Gravis transforming into lightning, he exploded forward with all his speed. Then, he swiped his gigantic tail at him. Gravis realized what he was doing and grew nervous. 'He's trying to extinguish my lightning with his body!'

BOOM!

Gravis transformed back and summoned another shield to block the tail. His shield exploded, and he flew back, right into an incoming saber. If he didn't do anything, he would be sliced in two!

Whoooom!

Gravis activated his Will-Aura and destroyed the will on the saber. He had kept this ability secret until such an opportunity revealed itself. The saber wasn't able to change its trajectory anymore, and Gravis used his right hand to hit the saber on the side of its edge. With this, he managed to push himself out of the way.

CRASH!

The saber hit the tail of the moray eel, burying itself deep into the King's flesh. Sadly, the bone was hard enough to block the saber.

"RAAAH!" the King shouted as he used more of his power to heal his tail. Then, he immediately destroyed the sabers and made them return to mud, which circled him.

BOOOOOM!

The mud exploded and shot at Gravis in a wave. The King immediately realized that Gravis could destroy his control over the mud, so he simply shot it at Gravis as a wave. Like this, Gravis needed to deal with it directly.

Gravis summoned his shield and destroyed the will on the mud wave.

CRRRRR!

He blocked the mud wave with his shield.

BOOOM!

Yet, some thin but powerful thing hit his shield, destroying it instantly. The eel had transformed his body to be as thin as possible and rammed the shield with his head. All his power was concentrated on the attack, and the shield wouldn't stop him! His head would penetrate the shield and then destroy Gravis behind it!

Yet, due to the Formation Arrays on the shield, Gravis shot away faster than the eel moved. Sadly, this attack had all of the King's power behind it, and Gravis' arms exploded into a mist of blood. Additionally, the impact injured his organs severely, making blood flow out of Gravis' mouth and nose.

BANG!

Gravis used one of his legs and kicked to the side, hitting another thin appendage of the eel. The eel had morphed his body into a thin amalgamation with lots of tentacles. Lightning exploded out of Gravis' foot as he used up his last reserves. His leg got destroyed in the process, but he managed to shoot himself out of the way of a second tentacle charging at him.

BZZZZ!

Gravis had no other choice and had to transform into lightning again. Yet, he had used up so much of his power that he would barely be able to remain in the fourth level. All his powers were already nearly three times weaker than when he had reached the fourth level initially. This was the bare minimum to remain a level four Lord.

Yet, Gravis managed to evade the follow-up attacks and flew into the distance. Then, he transformed back and felt incredibly weak. Right now, their power difference could basically be counted as four levels instead of three.

The King transformed back into his normal body and looked at Gravis with narrowed eyes. Yet, Gravis could see exhaustion inside his eyes. Gravis had forced the eel to consume a lot of his power.

Every time the King was forced to use his Law of disguise or control his mud, he lost more of his Energy. The King had transformed many times and had used an incredible amount of mud in the fight, which severely sapped his stamina.

Yet, even though the moray eel's Energy storages were nearly empty, he still had a lot of stamina for his body. His speed had fallen, but Gravis' Realm had also fallen immensely. Right now, the speed difference between them was about the same as it had been at the beginning of the fight.

"You're powerful," the King said slowly. "You've forced me to go all out. I would have never thought that I would need to go all out against a level four Lord. To be frank, I admire and respect your incredible power. You have the most powerful Battle-Strength I have ever seen."

Gravis only laughed bitterly. "Yet, I still couldn't kill you with my current power," he said.

The moray eel shook his head calmly. "You were simply unlucky. If I had only comprehended one Law, you might have had a chance of victory. It was just your bad luck to run into me."

Gravis only revealed a bitter smile. "Bad luck, huh?" he commented. "Was it really bad luck?"

The moray eel nodded. "What else? Instead of fighting one of the many level one Kings with only one Law, you've found me. I would consider this bad luck."

The moray eel sighed. "Anyway. Even though I respect your power, I can't just let you live. It's time to end this."

Gravis narrowed his eyes again as he looked at the moray eel.

BOOOOM!

The moray eel used his full power to accelerate. Even though Gravis was completely exhausted, he didn't take Gravis lightly. The King would use his full power, even to the bitter end. The moray eel

opened his mouth widely to bite Gravis. With their speed difference, Gravis wouldn't be able to evade anymore.

Yet, Gravis didn't need to evade.

Suddenly, Gravis' face transformed into an absolutely insane grin. 'I would have lost against you in a one-on-one duel, but this is not a one-on-one duel!' Gravis thought crazily with burning eyes.

A saber appeared inside Gravis' hands. Then, an absolutely insane amount of lightning gathered inside the saber. It was so much lightning that the crackling lightning destroyed all water in a thousand-meter- radius. The saber shook as it was breaking apart due to all the power gathered inside it.

Then, Gravis slashed forward, right into the opened mouth of the moray eel. All the lightning left the saber and formed the most powerful Lightning Crescent Gravis had ever performed, far exceeding his peak power.

The eyes of the moray eel widened in shock and terror, but it couldn't evade anymore.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The Lightning Crescent entered the moray eel's mouth and exploded! It destroyed everything in a radius of twenty kilometers. The earth was destroyed! The water was destroyed! Even some King ore was destroyed!

And of course, even the moray eel was destroyed. The lightning consumed everything but Gravis and then swiftly entered his body. Gravis released a deep sigh as he felt his Realm soar to incredible heights.

"If this had been a one-on-one duel, I would have lost. Yet, this is a war, not a one-on-one duel!" Gravis said with narrowed eyes.

What had happened? Where did all this insane power come from?

The reason for that was the war. When Gravis had unleashed his first Lightning Crescent at the beginning of the battle, he had used 75% of his whole power. If it hit the moray eel's head, the King would have become severely injured. Yet, if it missed, it would trigger Gravis' backup plan!

What was his backup plan?

As the Lightning Crescent continued on, it transformed back into normal lightning and shot towards the war in the Abyss. Yet, it had to wait until the moray eel was sufficiently distracted.

At the beginning of the battle, the moray eel still didn't feel pressured enough to ignore the ongoing war. Gravis first had to pressure the King into only looking at him. Additionally, he needed to move the fighting stage away from the war. The further away they were, the less the King would pay attention to what was going on there.

When Gravis had destroyed the moray eel's tailfin, the lightning bolt charged into the war and ate up as many corpses as possible. Of course, this lightning bolt was a second Gravis, which he had created with his Lightning Fork.

When this second Gravis ate enough corpses to become as powerful as the peak state of the main Gravis, he created a third Gravis, who also continued consuming corpses. After consuming nearly all the corpses, the two Gravises charged back to the main Gravis, leaving behind an army of shocked land beasts.

As long as they didn't transform back into their bodies, the moray eel wouldn't pay attention to them. After all, there had been a lot of Energy attacks shooting around.

By now, the fighting stage had moved many kilometers away, which was farther than Gravis' Spirit Sense could reach. As soon as they came close enough to the main Gravis, they got summoned into

his Spirit Space.

Gravis had found out that, as long as one body remained outside, his other bodies could enter his Spirit Space, but only while they were still in their Lightning Transformation. Five seconds before the moray eel had unleashed his last attack, all Gravises had gathered inside his Spirit Space.

By now, Gravis was no longer in danger of dying. After all, as long as another Gravis survived, he wouldn't die. Yet, if his main body died, the moray eel might notice these Gravises and flee. Then, he wouldn't be able to get his food!

Then, Gravis infused his saber with all of the Gravises and unleashed a Lightning Crescent, which was about as powerful as the ultimate attack of a level five Lord Divine Beast. Such an attack would definitely kill a King.

If the King hadn't started talking towards the end, Gravis maybe wouldn't have had enough time to gather his other selves. The King had thought that he had won, and that mindset had become his undoing.

"Never think you've won until the very end," Gravis commented coldly as his body started transforming into a level five Lord.

 

Chapter 479

Gravis' body changed and began to grow violently. After around a minute, his body had reached a height of 400 meters, which

was colossal for human standards, but small for beast standards. Gravis closed his eyes and felt the power of his new body,

Spirit, and lightning.

'Most of my absorbed power has been used to kill the moray eel, but his death gave me even more Energy. My Lightning has

already reached a power of 250% relative to my level, which should be the halfway mark to the next Realm. Another half and I

will know my answer,' Gravis thought with narrowed eyes.

Gravis had absorbed a lot of corpses from level four Lords and level five Lords. He had basically cleaned up the whole battlefield.

This was an incredible amount of Energy, even for him. If he hadn't used the Energy to kill the King, he would have been able to

become a King. Of course, without using that Energy, he wouldn't have been able to kill the King in the first place. It was a

necessary sacrifice.

By now, the fighting had calmed down, and the land beasts all looked at Gravis with stunned eyes. The mighty Lightning

Crescent had blinded them, but a minute was more than enough to heal their eyes. Temporary blindness wasn't difficult for them

to heal quickly.

Meanwhile, Gravis looked upward with furrowed brows. 'My Will-Aura has also increased, though not as much as I would have

liked. As soon as I managed to absorb the corpses, my survival had been guaranteed. But hey, at least it increased, right?'

Gravis thought as he tried to remain positive.

Gravis sighed, creating some bubbles. 'My Will-Aura has not increased faster than the progression of my Realm. This little

growth only allows me to keep the relative strength of my Will-Aura equal to my new Realm.'

Then, Gravis turned to the beasts and looked at them. All the sea beasts had died, and some more corpses littered the seafloor.

When Gravis had absorbed the corpses, the war hadn't ended yet.

"Sorry for absorbing your spoils, but without them, I wouldn't have been able to kill the moray eel," Gravis transmitted to the

beasts.

The beasts were a bit taken aback.

"Hey!" an elephant transmitted to everyone as he swam forward. This was the same elephant that had told Gravis to move, back

on the two mountains. "What are you talking about?" he asked. "Without you, we all would be dead!"

All the beasts nodded with victorious smiles. "Yeah! So what if we lose some corpses? That's still better than dying!" another

beast shouted.

A lot of beasts agreed and transmitted similar thoughts to everyone else.

Gravis was taken aback when he heard them. Their thoughts all appeared genuine, and Gravis saw no falsehood in them. This

meant that they really didn't mind that he ate nearly all the corpses.

Some seconds later, Gravis chuckled a bit. 'I forgot, these are beasts, not humans. Humans would have made a huge deal about

this to gain more resources for themselves, but beasts don't think like that. They see that I have saved their lives, and they don't

care about what I have taken from them. I really prefer the attitude of beasts over humans.'

Gravis turned to the beasts with a smirk. "Then, let's gather the corpses and see who gets what. Even though I had to use up a lot of the corpses, there is still a lot to go around. We will just check who fought-"

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Gravis' Spirit Sense picked up an unreal amount of power, moving towards him at absolutely insane speeds. His new Spirit Sense already managed to keep watch over the surrounding 160 kilometers, but the power was still so fast that Gravis could barely react.

Gravis just barely managed to see what was approaching. What he saw shocked and terrorized him to the core!

Four gigantic dragons made out of ice were shooting towards him from a distance. All the water around them froze as they left behind a vast tunnel made out of ice. Gravis felt their power, and he knew that he wouldn't be able to resist such an attack. Hell, he couldn't even react!

These four dragons were not beasts but elemental attacks that had been created with the help of Laws. A powerful King had launched an attack at Gravis from a distance!

Gravis just barely realized the approaching danger before it already arrived. In no time at all, the dragons were only 40 kilometers away from him. There was nothing he could do.

BOOOM! BOOM!

Suddenly, a gigantic wall of earth, many kilometers tall and wide, appeared between the ice dragons and Gravis. Two ice dragons crashed into the wall, nearly destroying it in the process while the two remaining dragons moved around the wall. Then, they continued shooting at Gravis.

"Attack!" a powerful voice thundered throughout the world as the bodies of all beasts trembled.

BOOOOM! BANG! BANG!

The earth before Gravis exploded violently as something gigantic rose from the ground. Two powerful and gigantic arms, nearly five-kilometers-long caught the ice dragon and crushed them in their grip. Gravis could barely comprehend what was happening right now.

Someone much more powerful than him had just tried to kill him. Then, another powerful beast suddenly appeared in front of him to block the attack. 'I'm not dead?' Gravis thought in shock.

The gigantic beast was a pangolin, around 50-kilometers-long. Yet, it had incredibly long and muscular arms with fingers on them. The pangolin had an amazing body made for combat.

BOOM!

The pangolin shot forward with astonishing speed. Gravis had barely been able to feel the power of the pangolin. 'Level four King,' Gravis realized.

WHOOOOOM!

Something humongous passed over the water's surface, just barely within Gravis' Spirit Sense. This thing had also charged violently into the same direction as the pangolin.

WHOOM! WHOOM! WHOOM! WHOOM!

More gigantic and powerful beasts shot past Gravis with insane speeds. All of them charged into the direction where the ice dragons had come from.

"Lords, retreat to the defensive line!" the powerful voice from earlier echoed throughout the Abyss.

The beasts were shocked for a second but quickly got back their bearings. Then, they shot some unwilling looks towards the corpses in the Abyss.

Whoooop!

All the corpses vanished suddenly, surprising all the beasts.

"I have stored the corpses in a separate space! We will distribute them later!" Gravis shouted at the beasts. "Retreat!"

The beasts were shocked about Gravis' peculiar ability, but they couldn't hesitate now. In just one second, all beasts started swimming crazily back to their territory, including Gravis.

What had happened?

Gravis already knew what happened based on context clues. A powerful King from the enemy's defensive line had probably seen

Gravis' talent and wanted to kill him. A level four Lord able to defeat a King would become a devastating enemy in the future. The

enemy had to kill Gravis!

Yet, the powerful land beasts had kept watch over the battle. Gravis guessed that as soon as the pangolin realized that Gravis

had a high chance of victory, he started gathering nearly the entire defensive line.

Such powerful beasts were very smart, and the pangolin probably realized that the enemy would try to kill Gravis. This was a

perfect opportunity for a counterattack! One of the enemy's powerful Kings would be isolated and out of position.

Based on how the pangolin blocked the attacks, Gravis guessed that the attacking King had also been a level four King. Only two

of the ice dragons were enough to nearly destroy the earth wall. A level four King was the peak power of the defensive line.

When Gravis had passed the defensive line on his way to the war, he had seen the power of the Kings. There had been two level

four Kings, ten level three Kings while the rest were level two Kings. If the two level four Kings from his side managed to kill the

enemy's level four King, they might be able to annihilate the sea beasts' entire defensive line.

This was not a fight that Gravis could participate in. If he had some Nascent Nourishing Rank ore on hand, he might be able to

quickly create a set of armor and fight a level two King, but he left all the powerful ore back in the Empire. A level two King would

tear apart his current armor like paper.

All the Lords swam as fast as they could and fled back to their territories. They could already feel the shockwaves of the battle

happening behind them. Those shockwaves were powerful but not powerful enough to injure the Lords. Yet, these shockwaves

demonstrated the violence of the battle.

After fleeing for 30 seconds, the Lords left the water and reached land, but they didn't stop. They were still too close to the battle.

SHINGSHINGSHINGSHING!

A storm of metallic spikes suddenly shot out from below them, right at Gravis.

'Ambush!' Gravis thought.

Whooom! Whoop!

Luckily, Gravis could use his Will-Aura and Spirit instantly. The spikes moved so fast that Gravis wouldn't be able to evade with

his body, but he didn't need to. Like an instinct, his Will-Aura destroyed the will on the ore. Then, his Spirit absorbed all the spikes

into his Spirit Space.

The assaulter was shocked, but they immediately charged at Gravis. It was a ten-kilometer-long manta ray made out of metal.

Additionally, it spouted several long and sword-like appendages all over its body.

Gravis narrowed his eyes and summoned his saber.

'Level two King!' he thought with seriousness.

 

Chapter 480

Gravis' mind went into overdrive. The ambusher was a metal-attribute beast, and the manta ray had already transformed fully into metal. Even a fully powered Lightning Crescent wouldn't be able to injure it. The defense of such a beast was just too powerful. One had to remember that the Golden Dragon had only been two levels higher than Gravis. This attacker was three levels higher than him!

"I need your help!" Gravis transmitted to the gathered beasts. Then, Gravis summoned a huge saber. As soon as the ice dragons had arrived, Gravis had already begun forging a new weapon. After all, there was a big possibility that he would get ambushed again, which had proven true.

BZZZZZZ!

The saber crackled with an incredible amount of lightning. The saber began breaking down as the power nearly overwhelmed it. Gravis had just converted all the corpses inside his Spirit Space into lightning and had infused a Lightning Crescent into the saber. This Lightning Crescent was more powerful than what Gravis could produce with only himself right now.

Then, Gravis slashed at the approaching enemy. The powerful Lightning Crescent left the saber as the saber broke apart. The enemy felt the power of the attack, and their eyes widened.

BOOOOOOOOOM!

A gigantic explosion, just as powerful as the one that had killed the moray eel, appeared and destroyed the surroundings. Yet, Gravis controlled the lightning to not attack his comrades.

The explosion vanished just as quickly, and the attacker appeared again. Right now, the attacker was blinded and couldn't see anything. Additionally, a lot of the ore inside his metallic body had melted down, including some of his sword-like appendages. Yet, the enemy wasn't fatally injured.

BZZZZZZ!

Gravis summoned the molten ore and forged it into a gigantic nail. As long as he managed to produce enough power to melt the ore, he would be able to forge it. With the added power of the corpses, he had achieved just that.

BANG!

Gravis used his whole power and threw the nail at the manta ray's head.

BOOOOOOOOM!

Suddenly, another mighty explosion made out of lightning appeared behind the nail. Gravis had gathered all his power after throwing the nail and had unleashed a Lightning Crescent with all his power, which hit the back of the nail.

The Lightning Crescent wasn't powerful enough to melt the nail again, but that was not Gravis' goal. Instead, the power of the Lightning Crescent made the nail shoot forward with incredible speed and power.

CRK!

The nail buried itself into the head of the stunned manta ray. It was still blinded and couldn't look at its surroundings due to the disturbances in space. Therefore, the nail managed to hit it before it could react. Yet, the nail didn't manage to reach its brain. It just dug into the skull of the manta ray.

BANG!

Gravis shot forward and kicked the back of the nail with all his power. Sadly, he only managed to make the nail move slightly. It still wasn't enough to kill the manta ray.

"Now!" Gravis shouted at the other beasts.

The other beasts had already gathered their powers and were ready to fire. When Gravis had told them that he needed their help, he had also told them to ready their most powerful attacks. Because of that, everyone had been prepared.

WHOOOOOOM!

A powerful storm of attacks rained down, and the surroundings exploded again as the elemental storm hit the back of the nail. Gravis, who already knew what was going to happen, had fled behind the body of the manta ray.

The manta ray had also been unable to react to this attack. The stabbing pain of a nail piercing its head had made it unable to react. Because of that, the gathered power of all beasts exploded onto the back of the nail, forcing it further into the manta ray's head.

The nail reached the manta ray's brain and stabbed into it. Normally, such an injury wouldn't be enough to kill a king. After all, they had an incredible amount of Life Energy. Yet, Gravis had angled the nail to hit the manta ray's beast core.

The nail cracked the beast core, and all the power of the manta ray left it. It lost control over its Laws and element and transformed back into flesh.

BOOOOM!

Gravis returned and kicked the nail again, burying it even deeper into the enemy's head. This completely destroyed the Beast Core, and the manta ray died.

Gravis breathed heavily. He had just unloaded all of his power instantly, exhausting him to no end.

"I had to absorb the remaining corpses, but I will leave this corpse to you. If you share it among yourselves, you will gain even more than you would have by eating the corpses," Gravis said.

"Later!" a beast shouted as it started flying into the distance. They were still too close to the battle and needed to retreat further. All the other beasts followed the fleeing beast.

Gravis gathered the corpse and nail and shot after them.

"Split apart!" the mighty voice from earlier suddenly resounded throughout Gravis' head.

Gravis trusted the voice and immediately dodged to the side. He couldn't transform into lightning right now. If he did, all his gains from consuming the moray eel would be lost!

WHOOOOM!

Gravis' Spirit Sense saw another ice dragon shooting at him from a distance. Yet, this time, Gravis was prepared. Earlier, the attack had come out of nowhere, but not this time!

Whoom!

Gravis destroyed the will on the ice dragon, but he couldn't absorb it into his Spirit Space. Gravis could only absorb elemental attacks that hadn't been created by the user themselves. The manta ray had used some ore that was close by to use its attack, which allowed Gravis to absorb the spikes. Yet, this ice dragon was completely created by the attacker.

Gravis changed directions and barely managed to flee from the ice dragon.

BOOOOM!

The ice dragon hit the ground and split apart into a wave of icicles. If the ice dragon still had the will of its owner on it, it wouldn't have split apart. Yet, Gravis had destroyed that will. These icicles weren't as powerful as the ice dragon, but they still shot at Gravis with incredible force.

Whooom! SHING! SHING! SHING!

Gravis summoned the corpse of the manta ray between himself and the icicles. The icicles dug deep into the manta ray, but they stopped after going through half the corpse. Even one of them would have been able to create a massive hole in Gravis' body. Luckily, the corpse had been enough to block the attack.

WHOOOM!

A huge body shot at Gravis from the side. Gravis' mind was in full battle-mode, and he managed to react appropriately. He immediately retrieved the nail in the manta ray's corpse into his Spirit Space and then summoned it in front of him.

BANG!

Many of Gravis' bones broke from the powerful impact. A humongous shear from a crab had hit the front of the nail with its full power. 'Level one King!' Gravis thought.

Pack!

Even though half of Gravis' bones had broken, he still used everything in his power to hold onto the nail. The nail had just broken the hard carapace of the crab, and this was a perfect opportunity!

"RAAAAH!" The crab shouted with pain as its shear was destroyed.

Pack!

Gravis put his right hand on the back of the nail, his eyes filled with madness.

"DIE!"

BOOOOOOOOM!

Gravis absorbed part of the corpse of the manta ray, just enough to refill all his reserves. Then, he infused the nail with all his lightning. The lightning passed easily through the nail and exploded from inside the broken shear. The whole shear got reduced into dust while the carapace of the crab broke apart over its whole body, pieces of it flying into the distance.

The crab felt like it was submerged in an insanely hot fire as the lightning burned all over its body.

"FUCKING DIE!" Gravis shouted again as he retrieved the nail and kicked it with his full power.

BANG!

The nail perfectly hit one of the broken spots of the crab's carapace and buried itself deep in the crab's head. This crab wasn't as humongous as the manta ray. Thanks to that, the nail was wide enough to kill the crab.

BZZZZ!

Gravis absorbed the whole crab and returned to his peak condition. Additionally, his lightning became far stronger. Now, he was only missing 10% to reach the Nascent Nourishing Realm.

"Run!" Gravis shouted at the shocked beasts, who immediately continued running. Of course, Gravis followed them.

They fled for some more seconds.

BRRRRRRRRR!

Suddenly, a powerful fire beam shot at Gravis. Luckily, he stood apart from the other beasts. If he hadn't, those beasts would have been burned into nothingness. Gravis immediately realized the power of the fire beam and summoned the nail in front of him.

BRRRRRRRRR!

Gravis continually used his Will-Aura to destroy the will on the fire while hiding behind the nail. The fire beam pushed Gravis into the distance while the nail became hotter and hotter. Gravis' back was to the nail, and his scales started fusing with the nail due to the heat.

BOOOOOM!

A mighty explosion came from the direction where the beam came from. Then, several more explosions appeared as the beam vanished. A King of their side had gotten involved and had attacked the ambusher.

CRRRR!

Gravis tore his body away from the nail. Any mortal would scream in pain, but Gravis had gone through worse.

He was away from his group and was in a territory that he didn't recognize.

'I have to flee!'