Lightning Is the Only Way

Gravis jumped out of the arena and looked at the group evenly. The group was actually quite shocked at how quickly the fight had ended.

"Gravis! Are you alright? Are you hurt?" Joyce asked with worry as she ran up to him and looked at him closely.

Gravis could only sigh at that. "No, obviously, I'm not. I can heal myself by converting the inherent Energy in my body into Life Lightning," he explained simply. Then, he turned to the remainder. "Since I am supposed to be your guide, I'll start explaining the backgrounds of the fight now."

Joyce was a little annoyed that Gravis just brushed her worry off and immediately went to teaching, but there was nothing she could do.

"Gravis, why didn't you unleash your preloaded weapon into the puppet's head as soon as you struck it?" Manuel asked. "This seemed like a way better way to win the fight."

The rest of the group also had this question. Why didn't Gravis unload his saber?

Gravis laughed a bit. "You're right. That would have been a cleaner and better way to win the fight. I would have done that if I could."

Whoop!

Gravis summoned his saber. "This saber has been forged specifically for me, and it has different Formation Arrays. The Formation Arrays allow me to store my most powerful attack, the Lightning Crescent. Sadly, the good comes with the bad, and the addition of the new Formation Arrays makes it impossible for me to store a normal loaded attack."

A light of recognition appeared in the group's eyes. "But you could have unloaded it anyway. After all, such an attack would probably not have broken the rules," Manuel said again. "Simply unloading your weapon should be okay, even if it had a Lightning Crescent inside."

Gravis smirked a little. "Yeah, you're probably right, but that's not the reason why I didn't unload it," Gravis explained. "I am pretty sure that the restriction on my Lightning Crescent wasn't there to make it hard on me but to protect you guys."

Joyce frowned. "But the arena is protected with a powerful Formation Array. Nothing is able to leave the arena."

Gravis shook his head. "The Formation Array can probably block an attack at the Self Stage, but my Lightning Crescent is actually more powerful than just an attack in the Self Stage. The Formation Array would break, and you all would die."

The group was taken aback but still skeptical. "That sounds unrealistic," The darkness disciple said. "We know that you're powerful, but it should be impossible to unleash an attack above the Self Stage."

Bang!

Gravis jumped back into the arena and then used 1% of his Spirit to summon a will-sphere. Instead of explaining, it would be easier to show them. He infused his lightning into the will-sphere, and it exploded.

BOOOM!

Before anyone could process what was happening, a huge lightning explosion happened. Gravis' will had become many times more powerful, as well as his Spirit. This 1% of his Spirit ate up about 5% of his lightning before it exploded.

The Formation Array immediately activated again, and nearly the whole arena was filled with lightning. Together with his more compressed lightning and his stronger will, this one percent of his Spirit created a force that would have been equal to around 30% of his Spirit in the Seed Stage.

Yet, the Formation Array was easily able to block this little bit. After the explosion, Gravis jumped back to the group. "That was 1% of my Spirit. My preloaded Lightning Crescent is filled with 100%. You can imagine the rest," he said.

The group took a deep breath. They wouldn't even have been able to withstand this explosion. That was only 1%? That's insane!

"Anyways, back to explaining the fight," Gravis said, claiming the attention of everyone. "As soon as I saw the weapon and fighting position of the puppet, I knew immediately that it had the fire element. The puppet fought rather smartly by keeping one of its hands free. With that free hand, it could summon a fireball if something went wrong."

The group now listened to him.

"By knowing the plan of the enemy, you can plan around it. The puppet didn't expect that I would take the initiative to trigger its backup plan. That surprise also stopped its main plan. Remember that the enemies try to anticipate everything you do, but they often don't pay attention to what they are doing. After all, why should someone get attacked by their own attack?" Gravis said.

"I understand that, Gravis, but why did you force yourself through the explosion, even though you knew that it was coming? This seemed like a waste since you got heavily injured by the explosion," Joyce asked.

Gravis looked at her evenly. "I could have retreated after exploding the fireball, but then what? Yes, I would not have been injured, and the hand of my enemy would be damaged, but that wouldn't end the fight, would it?"

Joyce understood where Gravis was coming from, but she still wasn't wholly convinced. Wasn't the point in winning a fight not to die or not get injured? Why do that on purpose?

Gravis saw that she was still a little confused, so he sighed. "Think of it like this. The fight starts, and I have a 50% chance of dying and a 50% chance of winning. By injuring the hand of the enemy, the chances of winning would rise to 60%. Yet, doesn't that still leave a 40% chance of dying? Why take that risk?"

Gravis looked at the arena. "The puppet fought safely without taking any risks, and that was why it died."

The darkness disciple was confused now. "But fighting safely is, as its name says, the safest."

Gravis smirked a little. "Except that it isn't. By fighting safely, you don't put all of your strength forward, but if your opponent does, you will get overpowered. Think of the puppet. It was superior to me in every single way. It was faster, had more stamina, had a more powerful body, more powerful Energy, a more powerful Spirit, yet it hadn't managed to hit me even once. Why is that?"

The group remained silent. Seeing that no one was answering, Manuel stepped forward. "Because you never gave it any chance to make use of its strengths," he said with a slight laugh. "Just like back when we have fought."

Gravis smiled and nodded. "Exactly! The strength of the opponent is unimportant if they can't use it. If I had retreated after destroying its hand, its fighting style might change. Maybe it would unload one powerful ranged attack after another. By that point, it would become nearly impossible for me to close in on it, and I would run out of Energy first."

Gravis looked at the darkness disciple. "My hesitation in going for the kill would have brought me into a disadvantageous position. The safest way to win was to go all-in. The moment when the puppet didn't immediately unload its loaded weapon was the moment when it had lost."

Now it was Claude's time to speak up. "That all makes sense, but why did you injure yourself to that degree? Your leg was completely destroyed, and your body was full of burns. Couldn't you have won without injuring yourself?"

Gravis rubbed his chin. "Maybe, but that's exactly the issue. The fact that I just said maybe and not yes shows the issue. Isn't it more logical to take the sure path instead of the unsure one? The best way to win was to exchange injury for my opponent's death. An injury can be recovered, but you can't revive someone."

The group, except for Manuel, felt a little uncomfortable. Wasn't this fighting method too masochistic?

Gravis shook his head in helplessness. "What's the point of having a powerful will if you don't take advantage of it? Pain is nothing to us, so why hesitate? This bit of physical pain is nothing to us."

Some of them were still a little unsure, but Manuel laughed a little. He had the most fighting experience out of everyone here.

Manuel turned to the group. "Don't look at your body as if it is you," he said, confusing everyone. "You are the brain, mind, and Spirit. Your body is just another weapon. So what if it gets damaged? You can just repair it."

"Know what happened when I fought Gravis back then?" Manuel asked. "Gravis' leg had been injured by us. It had been severed at the knee. Know what this madman did with that? He used his saber to cut off more of his own leg."

The group was shocked when they heard that. "Why?" Joyce asked in confusion and shock. Why would someone injure themselves on purpose?

Manuel snickered. "He cut the stump of his leg diagonally. With that, his femur poked out of the stump, and with the diagonal cut, it had been sharpened into a blade. His next attack had been a faint from his weapon and an actual strike with his sharpened femur."

The eyes of the group opened wide. Who could even think up such a thing? Yet, as they thought about it, it actually made a lot of sense. If one ignored the feeling of abnormality that such a thing came with, one would be able to see the advantage that a sharpened femur would bring. It was an incredible ultra-short ranged weapon.

The group learned a lot of things from Gravis' teaching. Many of the things sounded very logical, but they would also have not seen these possibilities themselves. Gravis fought with such icy and neutral logic that it already transformed into creativity. No normal human would fight like that, even if it made a lot of sense.

Gravis smirked while rubbing his chin in thought. "Know what's really interesting?" Gravis asked.

The group looked at him again.

"The preconceived notion of what element is made for fighting and which one is made for support can be turned on its head," Gravis said as he looked at Joyce. "From all of you present, due to her element, Joyce actually has the necessary element to become the strongest fighter."