The red hawk looked at Gravis with hatred and flew to the middle of the arena.
BANG!
It landed in the middle of the arena, its weight creating the sound of a loud explosion.
"Stop," the Empress said, making the red hawk's feathers stand up due to fear. Had it done something wrong? Was it about to die?
Gravis looked at the Empress with his standard, even look.
"The mountain is too small for your fight," the Empress said. "Use the arena beside the mountain to fight. The Lords can go to the edge of the mountain and watch. The Kings can watch from where they currently stand."
Whoooom!
The clouds beside the Mountain of Pride parted and revealed a seemingly shining crater. Gravis flew over and looked at the crater with surprise. This was the arena?
It was a round crater, which had a diameter of around 50 kilometers. It was absolutely gigantic. Gravis had never seen such a huge arena before. Additionally, Gravis noticed that the arena was made out of ore at the beginning Ranks of Law Comprehension. Even level five Kings wouldn't be able to damage it.
'That's truly an expensive arena,' Gravis thought with surprise. 'Creating such a huge arena out of Law Comprehension materials is something that probably only a natural world could produce. No human would waste so many powerful pieces of ore to build a mere arena.'
Beasts had nearly no use for ore, which was why they could build such wasteful buildings.
Whoom!
The red hawk flew towards the arena without waiting for another second, while Gravis looked at the ore with a complex expression.
The Empress and the white ape noticed Gravis' peculiar gaze. Only beasts with a metal affinity looked at the arena like this. Yet, Gravis had clearly shown that he had a lightning affinity. So, why did he look at the arena like that?
After some seconds, Gravis shook his head and sighed. Then, he also flew towards the arena. After Gravis left the mountain, the other Lords walked over to the edge of the mountain. Their senses weren't developed enough to see everything in detail. That's why they still needed to watch with their eyes if they wanted to keep track of the fight.
Meanwhile, the Kings simply remained at their positions. The fluctuations coming from the fight would be enough for them to know exactly what was going on. They didn't need to watch with their eyes.
Luckily, the Lords all had different sizes and didn't need to form a single line. The bigger Lords simply looked over the heads of the smaller ones.
Gravis landed in the middle of the arena, directly in front of the red hawk. They looked into each other's eyes with battle-intent.
"Hey," Gravis said, "wanna see a trick?" he asked.
The eyes of the red hawk narrowed. "Is it the same trick as before?" he asked.
"No, it's a different one," Gravis answered.
"Then go ahead," the red hawk said.
Then, Gravis pointed grandly to the sky. "Suit up!" he shouted.
Whooom!
Suddenly, Gravis' body was completely hidden behind an earthen-yellow suit of armor. Only his eyes could be seen behind the layer of yellow.
The red hawk blinked a couple of times out of surprise. How and why has his opponent changed color? Beasts could change their color when evolving, but the hawk hadn't seen someone change their color just like that.
Only after a couple of seconds did the red hawk notice that Gravis' shape had also changed. There were new spikes growing out of his tail, and his body showed a kind of metallic gloss. Then, the red hawk finally noticed that some kind of ore enveloped Gravis.
The other beasts nearly felt their eyes fall out of their head. Multiple things shocked them. First of all, the manipulation of ore and metal was only possible if a beast had a metal affinity. Additionally, they needed to understand a Law in regards to metal to do something like that.
On top of that, the ore-layer had appeared instantly. Where had it come from? None of the beasts knew how this was possible, including the white ape and the Empress. Something like this just didn't seem possible.
Lastly, the color of a beast represented their affinity. Right now, Gravis looked like a beast with an earth or metal affinity. Had he changed his affinity somehow?
One couldn't fault the beasts for misunderstanding something so obvious. The concept of armor didn't exist inside a natural world, which made every beast associate the color of other beasts with the elements. The fact that Gravis had a layer of yellow ore around him confused them to no end.
"Has he comprehended a Law regarding metal?" the Empress asked the white ape out of confusion.
The white ape remained silent for a bit. "Honestly, I don't know. Beasts rarely comprehend an Elemental Law different from their affinity. On top of that, he is only a Lord. Additionally, he shouldn't be able to control ore like this, even if he comprehended a Law regarding metal. He lacks the metal affinity, which makes the manipulation of metal impossible," the white ape guessed.
"Yet," the Empress transmitted to the white ape, "he has achieved just that. How else would he have been able to fit the ore so perfectly around his body? This would be impossible without an affinity for metal."
The eyes of the white ape narrowed as he watched Gravis more closely. "Is he one of the legendary beasts with two elemental affinities?" he transmitted to the Empress.
The Empress took a deep breath. "I don't know, but he gives me one surprise after the other. It might actually be possible if it's him," she transmitted back.
"I think we should wait until the fight's over before we jump to conclusions," the white ape transmitted back.
The Empress nodded inconspicuously to the white ape.
Meanwhile, in the arena, the red hawk started taking Gravis very seriously. Gravis had just unveiled another one of his powers. Apparently, this meant that he didn't even need to use his full power to kill the lion. Gravis might actually have a chance to win this fight.
Yet, Gravis had said that this was tempering. This meant that he believed that his victory wasn't assured. Otherwise, this couldn't be considered tempering at all.
"Impressed?" Gravis asked, his helmet opening together with his mouth.
"How are you able to manipulate ore?" the red hawk asked with narrowed eyes.
"I'm not telling," Gravis answered with a grin.
"Do you also have a metal affinity on top of your lightning affinity?" the red hawk asked.
"Are you stupid?" Gravis asked back. "I just said that I'm not telling."
These words ruffled the red hawk's feathers as its anger rose. It had tried to gauge the truth of Gravis' powers by looking at his reaction, but he had shot back with a provocation.
BANG!
The red hawk took to the sky and started circling the arena. Gravis remained standing inside the arena as he waited for the red hawk to attack. The circling continued for a couple of seconds until the Empress finally signaled the start of the fight.
"Start," she transmitted to all beasts simultaneously.
