Lightning Is the Only Way

The Inquisitor immediately exploded with anger.

"GRAVIS!" he shouted into the horizons with fury.

The Inquisitor had just made a difficult choice. He had decided to break the rules for the first time in his life for the greater good. Yet, just like Commander Rime's initial intervention, his gains had become void. However, he had already committed to his choice, and he couldn't back out now. Gravis must die!

The Inquisitor hadn't intended to fight Gravis directly. Fighting him directly gave Gravis a chance to survive and become even more powerful. The Inquisitor was sure that he was more powerful than Gravis, but he couldn't leave anything up to chance. He had to kill Gravis no matter what! It was for the greater good of the Icy Pride Empire!

Yet, Gravis seemed to have already anticipated that the Inquisitor would attack him. The control of the situation had escaped the Inquisitor's grasp, and now, he either had to find Gravis or wait for him here. Then, they would fight under Gravis' conditions, not his.

"How!?" the Inquisitor said to himself in rage, making the watching squad fearful of the future. They had no idea what they should do. On the one hand, Gravis had been willing to go to the Empress and confess to his actions. This didn't make him a traitor.

On the other hand, the Inquisitor had only wanted to protect the Icy Pride Empire from danger. Gravis' conduct and mindset didn't fit the usual beast and left a lot of room for uncertainty. The beasts weren't able to judge his personality based on their own experiences since Gravis simply didn't act like a beast.

What were they supposed to do? None of the two beasts were in the wrong here. Without a leader among the squad, they couldn't decide on a course of action. Should they help the Inquisitor and inform the defensive line? If they did that and Gravis managed to kill the Inquisitor, they would be next.

Should they help Gravis and report this to an Emperor in one of the close Empires so that they could intervene? If the Inquisitor saw them doing that, he might double-down on his actions and kill them so that no one could stop him from eradicating the danger to the Icy Pride Empire.

It didn't matter what they chose. Both choices could lead to their deaths. So, in the end, they made the only correct choice, which was to not choose at all. They would simply stay here and do absolutely nothing. This was the only way they could guarantee their survival.

The Inquisitor looked with anger at the squad, making them fear for their lives. Yet, the Inquisitor quickly looked away, closed his eyes, and shook his head violently.

'What have I just done?' the Inquisitor thought with shock and pain. 'I have just considered killing these members of our Empire to secure my opportunity to kill the traitor. They have done nothing wrong and have only been pulled into this situation. Killing them wouldn't make me any better than the traitor.'

The Inquisitor thought back to his interactions with Gravis over the past minutes. When had Gravis managed to escape? The Inquisitor had kept a close watch on him, so when had Gravis replaced himself with a copy of himself?

The Inquisitor couldn't be faulted for not noticing how and when Gravis had left. The Inquisitor had seen that Gravis could transform into lightning, but he hadn't known about Gravis' ability to split into multiple versions of his. He couldn't have possibly anticipated something like that.

'The lightning bolts after the explosion!' the Inquisitor realized with widened eyes. 'Back then, I only thought that this was part of his attack, but most of his power must have been gathered into one of the lightning bolts that shot into the distance! I don't have an affinity for lightning, so I can't judge the power of the lightning accurately. So that's how he managed to flee!'

The Inquisitor felt incredible frustration as he realized that he had never been in control of the situation. It didn't matter what he chose. Gravis would have survived anyway. Additionally, they had talked for so long that Gravis had easily escaped the range of his senses. Now, it was all up to Gravis.

'He said that he would return in about four hours. Even though I despise him, I am certain that he wouldn't lie about something like this,' the Inquisitor thought.

Then, the Inquisitor's eyes narrowed as a cold gleam could be seen in them.

'Fine, I'll wait,' he thought with battle intent.

Meanwhile, Gravis was many kilometers away. Had Gravis known that the Inquisitor would attack him?

No.

According to Gravis's guesses about the Inquisitor's personality, he had judged that he probably wouldn't attack him. Yet, Gravis had felt a feeling of danger from the Inquisitor ever since Gravis had said that he would kill Commander Rime.

In the minutes after killing Jessy but before confronting Commander Rime, Gravis had felt no such feeling from the Inquisitor. Yet, as soon as Gravis announced his decision, the Inquisitor started radiating an intense feeling of danger.

Gravis had just understood the Law of Danger, and by understanding it, he also knew what it did. The Law of Danger would inform Gravis of any potential danger to his life, just like its name suggested. In order to judge something as dangerous or not dangerous, the Law of Danger took two criteria into account.

One first one was the power of the being or force. If someone weren't powerful enough to be a threat to Gravis' life, they wouldn't be a danger.

The other one was the intent of the being or force. If someone had no malicious intentions towards Gravis, they also wouldn't be a danger.

Only when the being or force was powerful enough to be a threat to Gravis and had malicious intentions would the Law of Danger inform Gravis. In his fight against Jessy, her copies had not been a danger to him since they were too weak. Because of that, the Law of Danger had only been triggered by her true body.

In terms of combat-usage, the Law of Danger would help Gravis locate his enemies and see through any feints. If an attack looked powerful but was only there to force Gravis to move in a different direction, Gravis would be able to know that now. Additionally, if the enemy appeared helpless but had a powerful trump card, Gravis would also know that.

However, in comparison to the Law of Suppression, Gravis was sure that the Law of Danger wasn't nearly as rare. A Law was the understanding of a concept, and to understand such a concept, one needed to have a lot of experience with it.

Every being at Gravis' level had had a plethora of encounters with danger. Gravis guessed that, besides elemental Laws, the Law of Danger was probably one of the most common ones.

'For some time, this Law will help me immensely in fights, but as my Realm increases, more and more beasts will have knowledge about this Law,' Gravis thought. 'If they know how it works, they can probably also use my own Law of Danger against me. They could unleash an attack just barely powerful enough to injure me to make me evade and then use an even more powerful attack. I need to be careful.'

'Found it!' Gravis suddenly thought as his train of thought had been interrupted by something he noticed with his Spirit Sense.

A large vein of High-Rank Nascent Nourishing ore.

Gravis had already decided that he would fight the Inquisitor. This fight would probably be just as hard or even harder than his fight against Jessy, but it was still winnable, in his opinion. Yet, he needed a powerful set of armor and weapons first. That was why he had left. He wanted to find some powerful ore and upgrade his arsenal.

Additionally, smelting and forging such powerful ore took up a large amount of Energy from him. If he did that during the fight, he would undoubtedly die. To have a chance against the Inquisitor, he needed to forge his armor and weapons before the fight.

After summoning the ore into his Spirit Space, Gravis quickly went to forging his equipment.

There was no reason to waste any time.