Lightning Is the Only Way

Gravis gritted his teeth. 'Fuck, I only have a single option left!' Gravis thought as he retrieved his Lightning Board and shot away.

"I also know about your Lightning Board. The arena is perfectly sized to counter your Lightning Board," the priest said evenly. The priest stopped charging forward and kept watch over Gravis. He wouldn't be able to follow him at that speed, so he quickly charged to one wall to wait for him.

When Gravis saw that, he immediately jumped off the Lightning Board again. He had used the Lightning Board as a feint to get to the other side of the arena. Sadly, that still cost him around 3% of his lightning.

"Interesting. A feint. That will only work once. I will just continue charging at you, and you have to accelerate every time. I know that acceleration takes up the most lightning. As long as I follow this pattern, you will waste your lightning away," the priest said as he charged at Gravis with his shield again.

Gravis' eyes became bloodshot. 'This is the only chance! If this doesn't work, I will die!' he shouted inside his mind.

Whoop!

A torso appeared before Gravis, and he kicked it forward at the charging priest, who, by now, was around 200 meters away from Gravis.

CRRR!

The sound of feet digging into the ground resounded as the priest immediately stopped. He knew that Gravis could hide the Lightning Bomb inside a torso. The agents have told him of that. The torso would deteriorate before the Lightning Bomb exploded, so he had enough time to check if a Lightning Bomb was inside the torso or if that was also a feint.

BZZZ!

Sure enough, a colossal Lightning Bomb came out of the torso. The priest had studied Gravis' fighting thoroughly. Even the High Priest himself helped the priest with the calculations. According to math, this Lightning Bomb had around 80% of Gravis' Spirit and lightning. The power and fluctuations of the lightning were in sync with the calculations. Math was never wrong.

The priest always kept watching Gravis, even in this situation. He knew that Gravis could reabsorb lightning, and if that Lightning Bomb were used as a feint, he would need to come close to reabsorb it. When the Lightning Bomb was only two meters away from the priest, he crushed his Jade Token. Just to be sure, the priest even shoved his shield at the Lightning Bomb. If it suddenly turned around, he would have wasted a Jade Token. He couldn't allow that!

Yet, the priest's eyes widened as he saw what Gravis was doing. Gravis had slashed forward with his saber, and the preloaded Lightning Crescent inside his saber flew out. 'He is layering the attack, and I can only keep one barrier active at a time. I have to time the activation of the second barrier perfectly!' the priest shouted in his mind.

Yes, Gravis was layering his attack. The Lightning Crescent would hit the Lightning Bomb. Like this, he would be able to increase the power of his strongest attack by about 80%! Gravis was betting everything on the fact that the priest could only use one token at a time and that this combined attack would be powerful enough to overpower the Jade Token! If this attack failed, he would be utterly empty of Destruction Lightning, Spirit, and Life Lightning.

After crushing the first token, the priest immediately readied the second token. He had to activate the second token at the exact moment when the first one broke. Everything hinged on this moment!

BOOOOOOOOOM!

The Lightning Crescent hit the Lightning Bomb, and both exploded at the same time. The lightning filled the whole arena and even managed to destroy around one meter of wall. The walls were incredibly powerful, but even those received some damage. Luckily, the walls were multiple meters thick.

The first barrier broke nearly immediately, and the priest crush-

WHOOOM!

Gravis activated his Will-Aura for the first time in the fight and used all his will to suppress the priest. The priest had been too careful not to waste his limited Heavenly Pressure. No person was perfect, and the priest had been too preoccupied with activating the second Jade Token that he had forgotten to activate his Heavenly Pressure.

A split second passed until the priest activated his Heavenly Pressure and crushed the second Jade Token. Yet, this split second was enough to let some of the explosion through. The Jade Token was made to resist attacks from outside. It wasn't meant to resist attacks from the inside! The explosion that went through the first barrier destroyed the second barrier in no time.

Yet, the second barrier did its job and blocked a lot of power. The whole explosion only had around a quarter of its power remaining as it crashed into the priest's shield.

"AAAAAAAHHHH!" The priest shouted with fury as he filled his whole body with the earth element. The brunt of the explosion came from the front, but due to the arena's small size, the explosion had nowhere else to go. The circular walls kept the explosion inside, making the explosion hit the priest's body from the side, behind, and top. The priest had already realized this and cradled his head with both of his arms as he leaned against his shield.

BANG!

The shield broke apart, and its fragments dug into the priest's body. The priest's body also started vanishing in the lightning, but he held on! He had to hold on!

Whooosh!

The explosion vanished, and the priest had survived but only barely! He stood on the ground, which had been lowered by about five meters. One of his arms had vanished entirely while the other one was missing one half. The exposed parts of his head were gone, showing a clean skull as all blood and muscle had been burned away. His organs were burned and exposed to the outside.

To put the priest's current health into perspective, he lost around 30% of his body mass. A mortal would have immediately died. Luckily, cultivators had more Life Energy. He could survive such damage and even make a full recovery in the future.

His Energy was also fully used up. If he hadn't used all his Energy to protect his body, he would have died.

Yet, even in this condition, the priest didn't lose his focus. He had closed his eyes and had also shielded them while he had cradled his head in his arms. With this, he had evaded blindness. After the explosion, he had immediately opened them and looked at the front. Due to the explosion, the surroundings were unstable, and his Spirit didn't work. He had to rely on his eyes!

CLANK!

His vigilance had saved his life! The priest had seen the approaching saber and summoned his weapon to block it. It was a two-meter-long spear. He held it in front of him, in one hand, and blocked the slash. It took all his strength to keep the spear stable.

Gravis gritted his teeth so hard that blood flowed out of his mouth. 'Fuck! That was my best chance!' he thought.

'Now, this fight will become really dirty!'

The priest used his power to push Gravis' saber to the side and pierced forward with his spear.

Whoop!

Gravis sidestepped, but the Heavenly Pressure slowed him just too much. Usually, he would have been able to use this as an opening, but due to the suppression, the priest was faster and shoved the butt of the spear at Gravis. Gravis managed to block the butt of the spear with an arm, but the physical power of the priest was a Realm higher than Gravis'. Therefore, Gravis still got shot into the distance.

Luckily, the spear wasn't as heavy as the shield, and the priest also didn't have any more Energy to increase the weapon's weight. Due to that, Gravis only flew for around 100 meters and then stopped. His arm was cracked but still usable.

BANG!

The spear vanished as another humongous shield appeared. The priest only had one arm left, so he couldn't use both weapons simultaneously. Luckily, he could just swap between the two weapons at a moment's notice. He hadn't used the shield to block Gravis' attack earlier because the counterattack with the shield wouldn't be fast enough to hit Gravis.

Without a word, the priest charged at Gravis with his shield again, but with considerably less speed. His body was incredibly injured, and he couldn't use all his power. If he did, his organs might slip out and leave his body.

Gravis watched the approaching shield with narrowed eyes.

'I have a chance now!'