Lightning Is the Only Way

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.