Gravis' body changed and began to grow violently. After around a minute, his body had reached a height of 400 meters, which was colossal for human standards, but small for beast standards. Gravis closed his eyes and felt the power of his new body, Spirit, and lightning.
'Most of my absorbed power has been used to kill the moray eel, but his death gave me even more Energy. My Lightning has already reached a power of 250% relative to my level, which should be the halfway mark to the next Realm. Another half and I will know my answer,' Gravis thought with narrowed eyes.
Gravis had absorbed a lot of corpses from level four Lords and level five Lords. He had basically cleaned up the whole battlefield. This was an incredible amount of Energy, even for him. If he hadn't used the Energy to kill the King, he would have been able to become a King. Of course, without using that Energy, he wouldn't have been able to kill the King in the first place. It was a necessary sacrifice.
By now, the fighting had calmed down, and the land beasts all looked at Gravis with stunned eyes. The mighty Lightning Crescent had blinded them, but a minute was more than enough to heal their eyes. Temporary blindness wasn't difficult for them to heal quickly.
Meanwhile, Gravis looked upward with furrowed brows. 'My Will-Aura has also increased, though not as much as I would have liked. As soon as I managed to absorb the corpses, my survival had been guaranteed. But hey, at least it increased, right?' Gravis thought as he tried to remain positive.
Gravis sighed, creating some bubbles. 'My Will-Aura has not increased faster than the progression of my Realm. This little growth only allows me to keep the relative strength of my Will-Aura equal to my new Realm.'
Then, Gravis turned to the beasts and looked at them. All the sea beasts had died, and some more corpses littered the seafloor. When Gravis had absorbed the corpses, the war hadn't ended yet.
"Sorry for absorbing your spoils, but without them, I wouldn't have been able to kill the moray eel," Gravis transmitted to the beasts.
The beasts were a bit taken aback.
"Hey!" an elephant transmitted to everyone as he swam forward. This was the same elephant that had told Gravis to move, back on the two mountains. "What are you talking about?" he asked. "Without you, we all would be dead!"
All the beasts nodded with victorious smiles. "Yeah! So what if we lose some corpses? That's still better than dying!" another beast shouted.
A lot of beasts agreed and transmitted similar thoughts to everyone else.
Gravis was taken aback when he heard them. Their thoughts all appeared genuine, and Gravis saw no falsehood in them. This meant that they really didn't mind that he ate nearly all the corpses.
Some seconds later, Gravis chuckled a bit. 'I forgot, these are beasts, not humans. Humans would have made a huge deal about this to gain more resources for themselves, but beasts don't think like that. They see that I have saved their lives, and they don't care about what I have taken from them. I really prefer the attitude of beasts over humans.'
Gravis turned to the beasts with a smirk. "Then, let's gather the corpses and see who gets what. Even though I had to use up a lot of the corpses, there is still a lot to go around. We will just check who fought-"
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Gravis' Spirit Sense picked up an unreal amount of power, moving towards him at absolutely insane speeds. His new Spirit Sense already managed to keep watch over the surrounding 160 kilometers, but the power was still so fast that Gravis could barely react.
Gravis just barely managed to see what was approaching. What he saw shocked and terrorized him to the core!
Four gigantic dragons made out of ice were shooting towards him from a distance. All the water around them froze as they left behind a vast tunnel made out of ice. Gravis felt their power, and he knew that he wouldn't be able to resist such an attack. Hell, he couldn't even react!
These four dragons were not beasts but elemental attacks that had been created with the help of Laws. A powerful King had launched an attack at Gravis from a distance!
Gravis just barely realized the approaching danger before it already arrived. In no time at all, the dragons were only 40 kilometers away from him. There was nothing he could do.
BOOOM! BOOM!
Suddenly, a gigantic wall of earth, many kilometers tall and wide, appeared between the ice dragons and Gravis. Two ice dragons crashed into the wall, nearly destroying it in the process while the two remaining dragons moved around the wall. Then, they continued shooting at Gravis.
"Attack!" a powerful voice thundered throughout the world as the bodies of all beasts trembled.
BOOOOM! BANG! BANG!
The earth before Gravis exploded violently as something gigantic rose from the ground. Two powerful and gigantic arms, nearly five-kilometers-long caught the ice dragon and crushed them in their grip. Gravis could barely comprehend what was happening right now.
Someone much more powerful than him had just tried to kill him. Then, another powerful beast suddenly appeared in front of him to block the attack. 'I'm not dead?' Gravis thought in shock.
The gigantic beast was a pangolin, around 50-kilometers-long. Yet, it had incredibly long and muscular arms with fingers on them. The pangolin had an amazing body made for combat.
BOOM!
The pangolin shot forward with astonishing speed. Gravis had barely been able to feel the power of the pangolin. 'Level four King,' Gravis realized.
WHOOOOOM!
Something humongous passed over the water's surface, just barely within Gravis' Spirit Sense. This thing had also charged violently into the same direction as the pangolin.
WHOOM! WHOOM! WHOOM! WHOOM!
More gigantic and powerful beasts shot past Gravis with insane speeds. All of them charged into the direction where the ice dragons had come from.
"Lords, retreat to the defensive line!" the powerful voice from earlier echoed throughout the Abyss.
The beasts were shocked for a second but quickly got back their bearings. Then, they shot some unwilling looks towards the corpses in the Abyss.
Whoooop!
All the corpses vanished suddenly, surprising all the beasts.
"I have stored the corpses in a separate space! We will distribute them later!" Gravis shouted at the beasts. "Retreat!"
The beasts were shocked about Gravis' peculiar ability, but they couldn't hesitate now. In just one second, all beasts started swimming crazily back to their territory, including Gravis.
What had happened?
Gravis already knew what happened based on context clues. A powerful King from the enemy's defensive line had probably seen Gravis' talent and wanted to kill him. A level four Lord able to defeat a King would become a devastating enemy in the future. The enemy had to kill Gravis!
Yet, the powerful land beasts had kept watch over the battle. Gravis guessed that as soon as the pangolin realized that Gravis had a high chance of victory, he started gathering nearly the entire defensive line.
Such powerful beasts were very smart, and the pangolin probably realized that the enemy would try to kill Gravis. This was a perfect opportunity for a counterattack! One of the enemy's powerful Kings would be isolated and out of position.
Based on how the pangolin blocked the attacks, Gravis guessed that the attacking King had also been a level four King. Only two of the ice dragons were enough to nearly destroy the earth wall. A level four King was the peak power of the defensive line.
When Gravis had passed the defensive line on his way to the war, he had seen the power of the Kings. There had been two level four Kings, ten level three Kings while the rest were level two Kings. If the two level four Kings from his side managed to kill the enemy's level four King, they might be able to annihilate the sea beasts' entire defensive line.
This was not a fight that Gravis could participate in. If he had some Nascent Nourishing Rank ore on hand, he might be able to quickly create a set of armor and fight a level two King, but he left all the powerful ore back in the Empire. A level two King would tear apart his current armor like paper.
All the Lords swam as fast as they could and fled back to their territories. They could already feel the shockwaves of the battle happening behind them. Those shockwaves were powerful but not powerful enough to injure the Lords. Yet, these shockwaves demonstrated the violence of the battle.
After fleeing for 30 seconds, the Lords left the water and reached land, but they didn't stop. They were still too close to the battle.
SHINGSHINGSHINGSHING!
A storm of metallic spikes suddenly shot out from below them, right at Gravis.
'Ambush!' Gravis thought.
Whooom! Whoop!
Luckily, Gravis could use his Will-Aura and Spirit instantly. The spikes moved so fast that Gravis wouldn't be able to evade with his body, but he didn't need to. Like an instinct, his Will-Aura destroyed the will on the ore. Then, his Spirit absorbed all the spikes into his Spirit Space.
The assaulter was shocked, but they immediately charged at Gravis. It was a ten-kilometer-long manta ray made out of metal. Additionally, it spouted several long and sword-like appendages all over its body.
Gravis narrowed his eyes and summoned his saber.
'Level two King!' he thought with seriousness.