Lightning Is the Only Way

400 years later, Gravis had managed to comprehend all the relevant Laws of Life.

Heaven's attacks became increasingly faster, making him unable to avoid them. He could only resort to blocking, and his Life Energy was running out faster than he was regenerating it.

Because of this pressure, Gravis managed to learn the level three Law of Energy Healing and the Composition Law for all Life.

Thanks to these two Laws, Gravis managed to stay alive.

After Gravis comprehended these two Laws, Heaven changed its approach again. Now, it was attacking him with one element with increasing power. It wanted to force him into comprehending the level three Laws of the Elements now.

Yet, Gravis didn't just stand there and take the attacks. He had already tried nearly everything to kill Heaven. He had unleashed an uncountable number of Lightning Crescents and Mortalities. Yet, Heaven was always able to block them.

Except for Mortality.

As long as Heaven didn't use the power of a level five Law to block Mortality, it wouldn't be able to block the attack. Because of that, it always evaded Mortality. After all, in its mind, unleashing the power of a level five Law was still too early.

Gravis noticed Heaven's plan of shoehorning him into learning all the level three Laws of the elements.

Yet, Gravis never forgot his repressed emotions. If he had to stay here for thousands of years, he might not be able to deal with the outbreak of his emotions again.

This meant that he may be forced to forever stay his current, emotionless, cold self.

Was this what Gravis wanted?

Gravis still remembered the words of his mother that told him about his father's problems. His father was the most powerful being besides Heaven, but his life was only monotone and grey. Was this the life that Gravis wanted?

Would forever running away from his emotions be true freedom?

Sure, being emotionless might actually help him even more in reaching true power than if he constantly thought about other people.

Heaven knew this, which was why it wanted to forge Gravis into a second Opposer. As long as it granted him freedom, due to Gravis' mindset, it would never need to fear any kind of attack from him.

Gravis was different from his father.

His father might decide to kill the highest Heaven regardless, but Gravis wasn't like this. The highest Heaven had repaid its debt, and Gravis had truly forgiven it. As long as it didn't go against him or his family again, he wouldn't target the highest Heaven anymore, no matter how powerful he got.

But then, what was the point of reaching supreme power?

If he reached supreme power but only felt greyness and apathy towards everything, wouldn't that be even worse than dying now? Such a life was not living but surviving. If one's goal didn't give one happiness, what was the point of even striving for that goal?

Because of that, Gravis made a choice.

BOOOM!

Gravis blocked another attack from Heaven and got injured again. Gravis couldn't remember the last time when he wasn't injured. For the last 700 years, he had always been in perpetual combat against Heaven.

Gravis shot another Lightning Crescent at Heaven, something he had done uncountable times.

BOOOOM!

Heaven destroyed the Lightning Crescent from a distance, but suddenly, the spear of Mortality came out of the explosion of Gravis' Lightning Crescent.

Heaven saw this but wasn't surprised. Gravis hadn't used this combination before, but it had already expected that he would unleash this attack sooner than later. It simply moved its body out of the way.

And that's when everything changed.

WHOOOOOOM!

Suddenly, Gravis' Will-Aura exploded with more power than ever before, even suppressing Heaven.

For the first time, Heaven's Spirit shook.

How had Gravis' Will-Aura become this powerful!?

WHOOOOOM!

Heaven felt suppressed and unleashed its full Will-Aura with all related Laws. Yet, even with that, Heaven's Will-Aura was only able to barely cancel Gravis' Will-Aura out.

How was this possible!? It was an entire level higher than Gravis, and it also had a Will-Aura at the absolute limit for its Realm. Additionally, it knew all Laws that Gravis knew!

What was going on!?

Heaven used several level four Laws to block Mortality.

WHOOOSH!

Yet, the spear dodged the relatively slow-moving Laws. Gravis had infused his attack with a Soul!

WHOOOM!

Heaven summoned its Avatar and created a powerful shield with the strength of a level five Law.

BOOOOOM!

Mortality exploded on the shield but wasn't able to penetrate it. The attack had been stopped.

SHING!

Suddenly, Gravis arrived directly in front of Heaven's Avatar, but Heaven still had everything under control.

Yes, Gravis' sudden increase of his Will-Aura had been surprising, but power was still the supreme truth.

WHOOOOM!

Heaven used its Avatar to create a Space Confinement on the fourth level. It might not be able to suppress Gravis with its Will-Aura, but it had other ways. Gravis wasn't powerful enough to break out of the Space Confinement without a level four Law of his own. Additionally, Gravis had no Avatar yet.

Gravis was stuck as Heaven turned to him. He was just mere meters away from Heaven's Avatar.

"Quite surprising," Heaven said. "You have comprehended a Law that I haven't noticed."

Up in the highest world, the highest Heaven released a sigh of relief. This was what it had noticed back then. Its child had managed to deal with the variable.

The Opposer looked at the middle world with narrowed eyes.

"Tell me, what is this Law?" Heaven asked calmly.

It wasn't afraid of Gravis right now. Gravis would need to condense his Avatar first, and that would take some time. The comprehension of a Law might go over unnoticed by it, but the condensing of an Avatar was impossible to hide.

"You know," Gravis transmitted since he couldn't speak right now. "I have truly forgiven the highest Heaven. That was not a lie."

"But when I handed over my Life Ring, I noticed the truth, and with truth comes power."

"Your ancestor wants to give me freedom, but even giving me freedom is a form of suppression. When I have handed over my Life Ring, I realized this truth. Even when I am being granted freedom, the fact that I have been given this freedom instead of taking it for myself shows that I am still under your ancestor's control."

"That is when I have realized that you are still suppressing me. You want to control my actions by targeting my weakness, which is my personality. As long as you are good to me, nothing will happen to your ancestor, even if I become stronger than it in the future."

"This is suppression via debt."

WHOOOOOM!

Gravis' Will-Aura became even more powerful as it suppressed Heaven's Will-Aura.

"And I comprehended a more powerful form of my level two Law of Suppression. I think I'll call it the Law of Major Suppression, and who could have guessed, it's a level four Law. My very first level four Law is the Law of Suppression. Just like back then, this situation is just as ironic."

Yet, Heaven was still calm.

"So what?" Heaven said. "Even if you learned the level four Law of Major Suppression, you can't suppress space. I know of this Law, and this Law can't help you in escaping Space Confinement."

Heaven slowly flew away with its Avatar.

"You're right," Gravis transmitted. "But do you know what you can learn when you finally break the Suppression?"

Heaven's Spirit shook.

BANG!

Gravis suddenly exploded forward with his full speed, as if there was absolutely nothing suppressing him. Heaven's Will-Aura didn't matter. The Space Confinement didn't matter. It was like it didn't exist.

Heaven couldn't react to this sudden acceleration.

"With the destruction of suppression comes freedom!"

BANG!

And Gravis swallowed the Avatar of Heaven!