Lightning Is the Only Way

"My name is Jeros. What's yours?" Jeros said as he readied his humongous bone blade. He did a couple of small jumps to warm up and swung his sword to the left and right.

Gravis saw how gracefully and quickly Jeros moved his sword and realized that this fight would not be easy. "I'm Gravis," he said.

"Gravis, a good name! Alright, let's start. Be careful!" Jeros shouted as he shot forward and chopped at Gravis.

'Fast!' Gravis shouted in his mind. Jeros was faster than a low-grade demonic beast. Gravis always had to preplan his actions against such opponents, because his own speed could not compare. Yet, this time, he fought a human with such speed and power, not a monster.

Gravis wanted to test his opponent's strength and blocked the humongous sword with his saber.

BOOM!

Gravis' whole body shook, and the power of the strike buried him up to his knees into the ground, the street breaking in the process. His entire body ached, and he felt like his whole body was churning on the inside.

"Oh, that's impressive," Jeros said with surprise. "I didn't use my full strength, but you still managed to block my strike." Jeros jumped back. "Your muscles are definitely not tempered yet, but you could still block a casual strike from me. That's really impressive."

Gravis jumped out of the hole and limbered up his stiff muscles. After some seconds, where Jeros just waited for Gravis to finish, Gravis readied himself again. "Alright, we can continue." Gravis' eyes narrowed. "Now, this fight will become different."

Jeros laughed loudly. "I'm looking forward to it," he shouted as he shot forward again, doing the same chop as before. Gravis was prepared and raised his saber again in a block. Yet, this time, he was not blocking but parrying. A parry was more challenging to pull off than a block. Gravis had to redirect parts of the enemy's strength to change the course of the attack.

all his prior battle experience, he managed the parry pretty easily, and the sword missed him, hitting the ground. Gravis' saber, which was raised slightly

with a hand. Jeros' arms moved very quickly, and even though they were

the flow of the attack. His whole body angled to the side sharply. Just in time, Jeros' other arm swung the sword diagonally upwards.

CLANK!

trajectory slightly. While it continued swinging, Gravis crouched under the sword, and stabbed his saber forward again. A slash would take too long. Only a

time, Jeros

SHINK!

the same block again, so he angled the saber in the last moment. Jeros had

looked at his bleeding hand

heard Gravis

shocked at the exchange. Someone without tempered muscles had injured their boss. This was unreal. They had seen how the fight went down, so they quickly figured out why. Gravis was moving like he already knew what his opponent would

at his hand, then laughed loudly. "Hahaha! I believe you fully now! The way you move is very strange, yet it's incredibly effective. With my experience, I can tell that this is not some martial art. Those moves

the bandits asked themselves in shock. Their boss was already in his thirties and had fought a lot of battles. His fighting experience was extensive. Yet, a young boy, around 16 years

so many things from two simple exchanges. Gravis knew that Jeros probably had a lot of fighting experience. A lot of fighting experience together with tempered muscles. This was

learned martial arts

then, I have only fought. If you asked me how I would train, I wouldn't even be sure how to answer you. I never trained anything regarding my weapon specifically. I only fight." Gravis narrated. He had just noticed how weird that actually was. Weren't cultivators supposed to

"This is astounding. Your fighting style is basically untouched by human guidance. Now that you say it, it also feels more like I

An opponent who didn't want to kill him and had enough fighting experience was rare. Gravis was using

didn't use my full strength before, because I was afraid you would get seriously injured. Now, I'm

before, and without Gravis' extensive fighting experience, he would have been hacked in two. Instead of falling back, Gravis ran into the swing. He