The cold tornado of Frost surrounding Samantha raged in the surroundings as her cold eyes shone inside the storm.
She was enraged!
How dare this mere ant strike her face!?
'Finally, she's getting serious,' Gravis thought.
Gravis' new Law of Danger told him that the enemy was extremely dangerous and that one mistake could end his life. Had Gravis gambled with his life when he decided not to kill Samantha when he had the chance?
Of course!
If Gravis didn't gamble with his life, he wouldn't be able to receive tempering. When one's goal was to kill an enemy, doing something like this would be stupid beyond reason. However, when it came to tempering, it was necessary to be that stupid.
Many Cultivators only tempered themselves against enemies that wanted to kill them. They traveled the world, comprehended Laws, and searched for resources, simply waiting for greedy or malicious people to appear.
However, this put the choice of opponent into the enemy's hands. Cultivators often chose an opponent that they felt would pose a bit of danger, but not too much. Therefore, the enemies of the passive Cultivators were always incredibly formidable since those enemies judged the passive Cultivator to not pose a significant danger.
In Gravis' mind, the people who didn't search for powerful opponents were actually the ones playing with their lives. They put themselves out there, being forced to accept nearly every opponent that came their way. Not having control over which opponent one fought was relying on luck.
This was also one of the essential reasons why it was necessary to have a powerful Battle-Strength. Someone one level above someone else might decide to kill the other person for their wealth. However, these were not the main opponents one encountered. After all, it was possible that the Cultivator could fight a level above them. Cultivators one level more powerful than oneself were the rarest enemies that initiated the fight.
More common were Cultivators at the same level since they wanted to temper themselves too, and just as common were Cultivators one level above oneself that could also jump a level since they wouldn't even see the other Cultivator as a danger.
So, in short, Cultivators mainly initiated combat against opponents that were either definitely weaker than them or just as powerful as them. Opponents that were one level more powerful rarely initiated combat. After all, the opponent was neither weak nor powerful. It was not easy to kill them, but it also wouldn't count as tempering. It was neither one nor the other.
In Gravis' case, if he were to be the passive one, one piece of cannon fodder after the other would come. No Late Major Circulation Immortal would initiate a fight since Gravis appeared so much weaker than them. Such a weak Cultivator wouldn't even have any kind of significant wealth. It wasn't worth the risk to offend any kind of power because of this little wealth.
Gravis' Battle-Strength meant that he was allowed to choose his dangerous opponents every time.
This was why his Battle-Strength was so important.
And this was also why Gravis had such a huge variety of enemies to choose from.
'Let's get this show on the road,' Gravis thought with a smirk. However, after he thought that, his smirk transformed into narrowed eyes. It was time to take this situation seriously now.
"DIE!" Samantha shouted as the storm was absorbed into her rapier.
SSSSSHHHH!
She struck once, and a white slash shot at Gravis with incredible speed. At the same time, Gravis felt the space crack, making it impossible for him to teleport.
BANG!
Gravis' feet exploded with lightning as he shot to the side, barely evading the attack.
As Samantha saw this, her rage only intensified.
What a humiliation!
A mere Minor Circulation Immortal had evaded her attack not once, not twice, but thrice!
Gravis shot at Samantha, but before he could make any significant headway, the situation changed again.
CRRRRR!
The ice surrounding Samantha changed color. From a cold whitish blue, it transformed into pure red. The ice and snow began to crackle violently like it was rubbing against itself and grinding itself down.
Samantha's surroundings shook like there was a volcano that was about to erupt.
The color of Samantha's white rapier also changed to red.
Then, she slashed again.
"RAH!" she shouted aggressively.
BANG!
A red wave of ice and snow shot at Gravis, but this one was even faster and more powerful than the last one.
Gravis' eyes widened since he had not expected that Samantha could increase her attacking power even more. She had already slashed with all her power previously. How could the same attack be even faster?
BANG!
Lightning exploded beneath Gravis' feet again, but the speed wasn't enough to evade. Gravis also activated the Law of Time to accelerate his personal time, giving him enough speed to evade this attack.
SSSSHHHH!
The slash passed Gravis, and it violently shook. The attack was destroying itself as icy dust was left behind by the slash. After some hundred kilometers or so, the slash ground itself into nothingness and vanished.
'What a violent attack,' Gravis thought. 'This attack was seemingly created by pure power without any finesse. Usually, a higher amount of control was necessary to boost the power of an attack, but her control had decreased instead. Yet, the attack is still more powerful than before.'
'Honestly, I hadn't seen that before,' Gravis thought. 'The lacking finesse and control make it basically impossible for the attack to be a technique. It's more like an attack that was performed with around 150% of her power. However, that makes no sense.'
'If she knew some kind of Body Law that increased her power, her control wouldn't suffer.'
'Red color, less control over an attack, having no affinity for the Law of Pride but feeling constantly prideful. All of these things paint a clear picture. Everything is unworthy in her eyes, but she can't comprehend pride. This creates frustration, and as far as I see, she is probably not a person that swallows frustration. She probably releases her frustration upon others as soon as they cross her path.'
'Her frustration transforms into rage. Now, everything makes sense. Due to her predicament and experiences, she has no affinity with the Law of Pride, but she has plenty of affinity for the Law of Rage.'
'Interesting. So, the Law of Rage allows one to exchange control for pure power. It's like the polar opposite of the Law of Control.'
All of these thoughts shot through Gravis' mind in the blink of an eye. Samantha had shown one of her more powerful Laws, and now Gravis was prepared for that Law.
"RAAAAH!" Samantha shouted with absolute fury. This ant had evaded again!
BANG!
She unleashed another attack.
WHOOOOOM!
She had never been so humiliated! She even needed to use her Will-Aura against such an unworthy being!
Gravis looked at Samantha as the attack shot towards him.
'She's stupid,' Gravis thought. 'She only slowly increases the power of her attacks instead of unleashing all her power at once. Where's her level four Law? Where are her level three Laws? If I weren't here for tempering, I would use my Avatar to break free of her Will-Aura, come close to her, stun her with my own Will-Aura, and kill her.'
'It's actually idiotic that I have to play this game of slowly allowing her to increase her own attack if I want to have an actual fight. Her mindset regarding battle makes her even weaker than an average Cultivator at her level. Has she never been under a chaotic threat to her life? Has she always only battled chosen opponents that had just the right power?'
'Yes, you have a great talent for frustration and rage,' Gravis thought. 'You are so talented that you even frustrate me!'
WHOOOOOM!
Gravis activated his own Will-Aura, as well as his Law of Apathy, Law of Major Suppression, and Law of Minor Death. All of these Laws hit Samantha's Will-Aura, breaking it for a second. For a second, her mind stopped working. She had simply unleashed her Will-Aura but hadn't braced herself against a significant impact from the opponent's Will-Aura.
As a comparison, if Samantha were a mortal adult, she acted like she was expecting a punch from a small child instead of an actual punch from another adult. If she did her best, she could have defended against an adult's punch, but she didn't even properly defend herself.
That was why Gravis' Will-Aura destroyed her Will-Aura for a second. She had been taken off-guard.
This was the second time in which Gravis could have already killed her.
BANG!
Gravis evaded the attack the same way he evaded the last attack.
Gravis narrowed his eyes further as he gnashed his teeth. 'It's ridiculous that I actually have to help you to increase your own power. You are an enemy! You are my opponent! You are supposed to be a danger to me!'
'Instead, I have to support you and fix your fucking mindset so that you can actually become an opponent.'
'What a disappointment,' Gravis thought with frustration. 'How come that the most powerful Late Major Circulation Immortal is actually the weakest Late Major Circulation Immortal?'
Meanwhile, the onlookers, a great distance away, frowned at this spectacle. Most of the Immortal Kings had climbed to their current position with their own power.
Was it humiliating when being slapped by an opponent?
Inherently, no. After all, the opponent should be powerful.
However, Samantha's power should be so much greater than that.
The really humiliating part was HOW Gravis managed to slap Samantha.
He had teleported to her and simply slapped her with supremely average speed. There was nothing fast about this. He just arrived and slapped.
Being hit by such an obvious, slow, and telegraphed attack was the truly humiliating part.
The Immortal Kings had rarely seen Samantha fight. She had only fought once in the resource point conflict, and that was when she took over this resource point. She had unleashed her level four Law and immediately decimated her opponent.
Due to that dominating performance, the following five resource points she claimed had immediately conceded.
Ever since then, no Late Major Circulation Immortal had dared to challenge her.
They had expected a similarly dominating performance, but instead, they were subjected to such an abysmal, pitiful, and humiliating performance.
Her opponent could have killed her at least once already, and he hadn't even demonstrated anything impressive except for his Will-Aura. He had teleported once and simply evaded some attacks. He hadn't even unleashed an actual attack!
To an outsider, it seemed like Gravis was playing with his opponent. It was like an expert was humiliating some helpless girl.
Some, but not many, Immortal Kings even felt pity for Samantha.
Even though Gravis was an entire Circulation below Samantha, they still felt like this fight was unfair for Samantha, the previously publicly acknowledged strongest Major Circulation Immortal of the Sect Alliance.
"I'm glad Ryan isn't here to see his daughter like this," one of them said.