And like this, the fight immediately began. There was no talking or posturing. It was just a direct battle to the death.
The shark shot directly at Gravis. He wasn't taking Gravis seriously, but he still remained a bit careful. After all, his son had died inside this Tribe, and something had to be powerful enough to kill him. Maybe it was one of those other level two Lords, but it could have also been Gravis. After all, Gravis was the Leader of this Tribe.
Gravis started falling as he pushed all of his power into his body. Now, his body was about three times as powerful as an average level one Lord. The shark was surprised when he felt the difference. Earlier, Gravis had the weakest body of any level one Lord, but now, he had the most powerful body of any level one Lord.
The shark rose from below as Gravis fell from above. Just as the distance was just fifty meters, Gravis immediately transformed into lightning and shot at the shark with over double his speed. The shark was shocked by the sudden speed.
In no time at all, Gravis arrived at his teeth.
BANG!
With an absolutely unreal speed, the shark closed his mouth. Gravis hadn't expected his mouth to be so fast, and the teeth destroyed part of his lightning since he wasn't fast enough to retreat fully. Gravis immediately transformed back, but 10% of all his power had been lost due to that sudden attack.
BANG!
The bite had been stopped, but the shark was still charging. The closed teeth hit Gravis' body, and he was thrown into the distance. The bite was the shark's most powerful attack, but his charge was also impressive. His full weight, fueled by his incredible speed, hit Gravis like a hammer.
Gravis got shot into the distance, and the shark followed up. Three concentrated beams of water appeared and shot at Gravis.
BZZZZ!
Gravis transformed into lightning again and split apart to evade the beams. Then, the lightning congregated again and recreated his body. Gravis had already lost 10% of his total power, but, luckily, his scales were powerful enough to withstand the shark's charge. Like this, it wouldn't be a waste to change into lightning again.
An injury to the body also counted as wasting power. If Gravis transformed into lightning while being injured, he would be able to recreate a fully healed but weaker body. Additionally, Gravis couldn't afford to get injured in a fight.
Why?
Because his whole body was made up of lightning. This meant that he didn't have any inherent Energy inside his body anymore, which meant that he couldn't create Life Lightning anymore.
Now, when Gravis was injured, he had no way to immediately heal himself effectively again. Transforming his body into pure lightning destroyed any possibility of creating Life Lightning again.
This was also the reason why Gravis was so adamant about watching the CMO all the time. If he managed to learn Laws about life, he might find a way to heal himself again. Yet, luckily, his scales had been powerful enough so that he hadn't gotten injured by the shark's charge.
One shouldn't forget that these scales were incredibly powerful. If Gravis used all of his power on his body, the scales would be about as hard as some average scales of a level three Lord. They managed to protect him from the charge, but the water beams would have injured him.
Gravis looked at his opponent with burning eyes. 'Yes! This is what I longed for, the feeling of losing my life at any moment! The fight is already difficult with my full power, but my Realm has now decreased by 10%. I feel anxiety and fear for my life, but that is exactly what I want! I love this feeling!' Gravis thought crazily.
Gravis immediately transformed into lightning again and split himself in two. Then, he started controlling the lightning bolts separately to move around the shark.
WHOOOM!
A mighty tail-swipe nearly hit one of the bolts, but Gravis split that bolt in two again to evade. The shark immediately summoned two additional water beams that shot at the lightning bolts.
BZZ! BZZ!
But they split again. Yet, controlling all these individual lightning bolts was incredibly stressful for Gravis' concentration. He couldn't keep this up for long, but he had no other choice. Then, the individual lightning bolts gathered again until there were two left.
BZZ! SHING!
The other lightning bolt transformed into a Gravis. The shark hadn't paid much attention to the second lightning bolt, which had been a big mistake. Gravis' body appeared directly at one of the shark's eyes. On top of that, this Gravis wasn't barehanded.
He carried a powerful, big, black saber in his claws. It was nearly two meters long and wide like a meat cleaver. Sabers were basically huge knives, and this specimen showed the resemblance even better. This was one of Gravis' newly-forged weapons.
The saber stabbed into the eye but didn't manage to go far due to the power difference. Yet…
BOOOOOM!
"AAARRGGHHH!" the shark shouted in pain as a considerable part of his head exploded. Gravis had preloaded a Lightning Crescent into the saber. The humongous explosion destroyed a huge chunk of the shark's head and then returned to Gravis.
The Lightning Crescent wasn't able to absorb much Energy from the still-living shark, but it also wasn't fully used up. The gathered lightning from the Lightning Crescent and the other lightning bolt all gathered together again. Then, Gravis recreated his body.
Since he had put some of his Lightning into the saber, its Energy didn't count towards his normal Realm. After all, it was backup Energy that remained outside his body. By reabsorbing this Energy, Gravis' Realm increased again until he was at his old peak. Yet, he had used up one of his trump cards.
Gravis looked with narrowed eyes at the injured shark. 'His body is really hard. Even with such a point-blank explosion into his eye, he still managed to survive. On top of that, his Battle-Strength didn't get reduced.'
The shark grew angry and looked at Gravis in rage. "You! Die!" he shouted and shot at Gravis with his full speed. Additionally, over ten beams of water appeared around his body. As long as he kept them there, he could shoot them whenever he felt like it.
WHOOM! WHOOM! WHOOM!
The water beams shot at Gravis, and Gravis couldn't evade them like this, forcing him to finally activate his Will-Aura. He wanted to keep it for a surprise moment, but he had to use it early to survive now. The water bolts slowed down a bit, but they were still incredibly fast.
Thanks to his evasion training, Gravis managed to bend his upper body in such a way that he was barely evading the blasts. This was only made possible by Gravis' constant Dodge Ball training in the lower world.
Yet, the shark wasn't stupid. As soon as he noticed that Gravis could evade his beams, he fired all of them in a spread to keep him from evading. After all, he was already very close to Gravis. If Gravis decided to evade the shots, he would get eaten.
Gravis gnashed his teeth and transformed into lightning to evade the shots. Yet, the mouth came closer and chomped down on him with incredible force. The lightning currently inside the shark's mouth detached from the central lightning bolt and transformed into another Gravis, who took out a saber.
BANG!
This Gravis was immediately destroyed under the bite. Yet, due to this, Gravis lost 33% of his foundation. As long as one of his lightning bolts didn't have enough power to qualify for the Unity Realm, he wouldn't be able to condense it into a body. Yet, he needed a body if he wanted to access his Spirit Space.
BOOOOOM!
Teeth and blood shot out of the shark's mouth as it seemingly exploded. The earlier Lightning Crescent had only had half of Gravis' power. The other half of his power had been saved in a second saber.
Gravis had a lot of sabers by now, thanks to his smithing practice, but he noticed that he couldn't store more than 100% of his power in weapons. As soon as he did that, he would lose control over his stored power. Like this, Gravis had decided to save 50% of his power each inside his two sabers.
The shark's bite was mighty, and destroying such a weak body of Gravis was not an issue. Due to that, the bite also had enough force to completely break the saber. Yet, as soon as the saber broke, all its saved power exploded out of the saber.
The explosion created a vast hole inside the shark's mouth, and he lost around 20% of his teeth. Yet, such an attack wasn't enough to kill him. The shark quickly regained his control and noticed that the biggest lightning bolt was charging into his mouth. When he saw that, he immediately bit down with all his force.
BOOOOM!
More teeth broke away from the shark's mouth as his powerful bite was now condensed onto a smaller area of teeth. Yet, even with such a reckless bite, he hadn't been able to hit Gravis. In all his panic and rage, the shark forgot that he had lost a lot of teeth. Obviously, Gravis charged right through one of these gaps.
As Gravis entered the shark's mouth, the remaining lightning from the second Lightning Crescent returned into him, bringing him up to 80% of his foundation. Then, Gravis condensed his body again and moved all of his power into his Spirit and Lightning.
BZZZZZ!
A powerful Lightning Bomb was created as Gravis used 90% of his power to create it. Then, he resummoned his first saber and moved it through the Lightning Bomb to absorb it. After that, he shot towards the ceiling of the shark's mouth.
SHING!
The saber stabbed into the soft flesh until only its hilt could be seen. Then, the Lightning Crescent was released from its tip, right towards the shark's brain.
BOOOOOOM!
A gigantic explosion appeared as Gravis' mad grin got illuminated by the white lightning. From the outside, it looked like the head of the shark was swelling to nearly twice its size. His remaining eye was pushed out of its socket as it hung loosely from the inflated head. Then, the shark stopped moving and started falling to the ground.
BOOOOOM!
Another explosion of lightning appeared as the will of the shark left this world, and with that, The lightning had full reign over the body now, as it completely absorbed it. In only ten seconds, all traces of the shark were gone from this world. Digesting such a powerful prey took longer than digesting a level two Lord. Yet, that difference only meant a couple more seconds with Gravis' peculiar method of eating.
After that, all the lightning gathered together into a new Gravis. "Finally!" he shouted with all his power, making the earth tremble. "Finally, I can temper my will again!" he shouted.
The fight couldn't be counted as one of his most difficult fights, but it was undoubtedly an actual danger to his life. He had used up all his saved-up power and nearly all of his own power as well. If that attack hadn't killed the shark, he would only die helplessly.
As soon as Gravis recondensed his body, he noticed multiple things. First of all, his Realm hadn't increased, which didn't conform to his earlier calculations. Normal beasts required eight beasts of their level to become more powerful, and Gravis needed double of that due to his scales.
Yet, every level also increased the power by four times. So, Gravis needed 16 beasts on his level. Yet, a level three Lord was 16 times more powerful than a level one Lord. Like this, Gravis should have been able to level up with this corpse. On top of that, Gravis had also eaten a level two Lord previously, which would put his level one Lord power-count to 20.
Yet, Gravis hadn't leveled up. In the beginning, he was confused, but as soon as he noticed another thing, his question was answered.
"My lightning has increased tremendously," he said as he scratched his chin in thought.
