Lightning Is the Only Way

Gravis charged forward with a saber that has been loaded with a Lightning Crescent. The power of his saber seemingly broke the world around it, but that was only an illusion. A mere Immortal couldn't hope to break the space of this world.

The enemy also charged forward with his spear, and Gravis narrowed his eyes. Gravis had no idea what kind of Laws his enemy knew. His opponent had to know at least one level four Law, or he wouldn't have been able to become an Immortal King. However, there were no reverberations of any elements present.

Gravis activated and deactivated his Will-Aura with different magnitudes of power. Even if he used his full power, he wouldn't be able to slow down his opponent at all. Because of that, it was more effective to change Gravis' resistance. With his Law of Freedom, he was not suppressed by the enemy's Will-Aura, no matter how powerful it was.

BANG!

The opponent unleashed a spear strike, and Gravis blocked it with his saber.

CRACK!

And the saber immediately broke apart, making Gravis panic. He had seen the materials his opponent's weapon was made of, and his saber should have been able to block the attack of such a weapon, even if they had a powerful Avatar inside their weapon.

Yet, his saber still broke!?

SHING!

The spear of Gravis' opponent buried itself in Gravis' gut, its power destroying the lower half of his body.

BOOOOOOOOOOOM!

However, at the same time Gravis' saber was destroyed, the Lightning Crescent had activated. The explosion decimated the surroundings and engulfed both of them.

Gravis absorbed back a part of his power and quickly regenerated his body.

WHOOOOOM!

However, something suddenly entered Gravis' Spirit. He hadn't noticed it, but something had entered Gravis' body from the earlier attack and had directly entered his Spirit. A kind of dark green aura that gave off a similar feeling to a toxic swamp engulfed his Spirit.

"AAAAAAHHHHH!" Gravis shouted loudly, his voice shaking the air around him.

"Haven't I told you that I will infuse you with a Spirit Poison?" Gravis' enemy said with a smirk as he came out of the explosion, unharmed. "Do you think everyone only fights with Laws? Wouldn't that be a waste of our potential as humans?"

By now, Gravis had stopped shouting, but he violently gritted his teeth as his eyes became bloodshot. "What… did you… do!?" he grunted through gritted teeth.

"As I've said, Spirit Poison," Gravis' enemy said with a smile. "I only needed to hit you once to unleash it, and your decision to test out my abilities was just the perfect opportunity."

Whoop!

A bottle appeared in the hands of Gravis' opponent. It was filled with dark green liquid and was half empty. "It's quite expensive, actually," he said with a smirk. "This is a poison made for people that have Will-Auras in the Immortal King Realm. I've heard that you have a powerful Will-Aura, which is why I bought this one, just in case."

"The pain will severely inhibit your concentration and your Will-Aura. Even better, it uses the Will-Aura itself as a medium to cause pain, meaning that even if you manage to deal with it, your Will-Aura won't increase even a little bit," the opponent laughed. "Basically, the more powerful your Will-Aura, the more pain you will receive."

The opponent bowed a little. "And as for why I am uninjured…"

SHING!

The opponent summoned a jade token. "One time use defensive Formation Array. Works against any attack inside the Minor Circulation Immortal King Realm."

Gravis gritted his teeth violently, blood coming out of his mouth. His eyes glared with hate at his opponent as they became bloodshot.

"Now, will you come peacefully, or do you need me to increase the dosage?" he said with a smile.

"Where's the antidote?" Gravis asked with a raspy voice.

"Pfft," the enemy laughed with disdain. "Do you honestly think I would take the antidote with me? Boy, we are here on a mission, not for tempering. You don't know the name of the poison, and I don't have any labels on the bottle. Even if you knew the name, you would need to travel to the Core Regions to find an antidote, and oh boy, the antidotes are so much more expensive than the poisons."

By now, Gravis had an inkling of what his enemy had used to destroy his saber.

The enemy didn't use any kind of Elemental Law. He also didn't use a temperature Law. Emotional and Situational Laws also hadn't been used. His weapon had been created with the High-Tier Hard Pure Law, but basically all weapons have been created with that Law.

His opponent had used an attack-specific Law. When their weapons had clashed, Gravis saw the image of a spear appear in front of him, but it didn't look like a human-made spear. It looked more like a natural spear.

Gravis had fought a beast in the middle world that had used a similar Law, the Inquisitor. He had unleashed powerful earth spires. However, there were more kinds of spires and spears. There were also lightning spears, fire spears, ice spears, wind spears, metal spears, and other spears.

All of these spears represented a Law each, which was about manipulating the shape and attacking power of something. Gravis' opponent obviously had studied spears thoroughly and had created a Law that combined all the different kinds of spears into one.

Just like the Law of the Dead World, this combined Law of the Spear was a level four Law comprised of all Spear Laws in the middle world. This was basically a Law from the middle world that managed to reach the power of Laws from the higher world.

As soon as this person managed to learn Spear Laws from the higher world, he would be able to incorporate them into his overarching Spear Law, making it even more powerful. This person was not following the main cultivation path but a secondary path. His Avatar had incredible attacking power, but it wouldn't reach the peak.

However, that was something for the future. Right now, this Spear Law was a danger to Gravis.

'I can't even block or parry a single attack from his,' Gravis thought. 'This will be like fighting a beast again. I can't directly confront him.'

"Are you done thinking?" the opponent shouted, his smirk barely visible through his black cowl. "So, will you come peacefully, or do I first need to cut off all your limbs, drain your Life Energy, and increase the dosage of the poison?"

Gravis didn't answer and shot at his opponent again.

The man laughed. "The hard way it is, then," he shouted as he readied his spear again.

Gravis summoned another saber and attacked the opponent again, who answered with a strike of his spear.

CRACK!

This saber was also destroyed, and Gravis was penetrated again as the dosage of the poison increased.

The man only smirked. Did this guy think that he would be able to trade attacks? By doubling the dosage of the poison, this guy wouldn't even be able to move anymore as his entire Spirit and body would seize and cramp with pain.

Sure enough, a spear had appeared in another one of Gravis' hands. For a moment, it shot forward, but it stopped as his entire body cramped.

The man only laughed at Gravis. "I've expected more of you. How disappointing," he said with a smirk.

"Yeah, same," Gravis said, his voice filled with disappointment.

Suddenly, everything seemingly broke apart in the enemy's eyes.

It was like reality had been replaced with a different reality.

The violent convulsions and reverberations of Gravis' body, Spirit, and Will-Aura had vanished. Something like that couldn't be faked, which was why the enemy had been sure that the poison had invaded Gravis' Spirit.

No convulsions were there anymore.

Gravis' pained expression and reddened eyes had also vanished like they had never existed.

By all intents and purposes, Gravis appeared healthy and normal, except for the fact that his lower body was missing again.

Gravis' spear, which had been halted previously, began moving quickly as some lightning exploded behind it. The time of the spear was also accelerated, making it strike forward with incredible speed.

The enemy couldn't possibly block this attack.

What had happened?

A Will-Aura resided in the Spirit, which meant that it was attuned to Energy. The poison changed the Energy in the Spirit to infect the Will-Aura to create pain. This was how the poison worked.

However, there was no Energy inside Gravis' Spirit.

There was only lightning.

So, as soon as the poison entered Gravis' Spirit, it was smashed into pieces like it had been an annoying fly. Gravis hadn't even felt a little bit of pain.

However, he had still noticed the poison and was able to guess its usage based on its composition. His enemy had thought that they had won, and Gravis played along. His enemy believed that Gravis was afflicted with the poison, so Gravis created a perceived reality that fit their beliefs.

Gravis only had to play along a little bit and act like he was growing desperate. He summoned some weak, spare saber made out of unimportant materials and had let it get destroyed to fool the enemy.

However, as soon as Gravis unleashed his spear strike, actual physical reality returned. It wasn't that Gravis was playing with his enemy by revealing the truth, but the truth couldn't be hidden anymore.

Why?

Well…

Gravis' spear shot forward, and the enemy activated another Formation Array. Just like the last one, this would protect him against a powerful attack. However…

SHING!

Gravis' spear ignored the Formation Array like it didn't exist and punched a hole through the enemy.

"Wh-What?"

BANG!

And the opponent exploded.

Sure, the Formation Array would stop a powerful attack, but Gravis had a nice counter to that.

His Law of Freedom.

His Law of Freedom only worked on his body and his self, not on his weapons, however. Yet, hadn't Gravis learned a "useless" attack previously in the Life Ring?

Well, turns out it wasn't that useless. It had some uses.

One of these uses was to infuse his weapon with the Laws of Perceived Reality at the cost of sacrificing their subtle effects.

However, by infusing his weapons with these Laws, his weapons would also be infused with the Law of Freedom, making them ignore any kind of suppression, including Formation Arrays.

Because of that, his spear simply moved through the Formation Array of the enemy like it didn't even exist.

This was why the perceived reality had been broken. It was because Gravis had pulled his Laws of Perceived Reality to physical reality to counter any kind of Formation Array that would block his attack.

"Well, that's that," Gravis said as he gathered all the wealth that had exploded out of the enemy's corpse.

"What a disappointment."