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.

and the sword missed him, hitting the ground. Gravis' saber, which was raised slightly due

quickly, and even though they were further away from his face than the saber at the beginning, they

body angled to the side sharply. Just in time, Jeros' other arm swung the sword diagonally upwards. Even though Gravis' body was already angled very strongly, the sword would still take his arm

CLANK!

side of the rising sword, changing its trajectory slightly. While it continued swinging, Gravis crouched under the

last time, Jeros

SHINK!

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

looked at his bleeding

the same moves twice," Jeros heard Gravis shout, who had jumped back

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

I can tell that this is not

had fought a lot of battles. His

surprised that Jeros could glean so many things from two simple exchanges. Gravis knew that Jeros probably had a lot of fighting

martial

Ever since then, I have only fought. If you asked me how I would train, I wouldn't even be

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

if he fought more with Jeros, he would learn more things about himself. An opponent who didn't want to kill him and had enough

would get seriously injured. Now, I'm going to use my full power,"

into the swing. He blocked it with his saber and jumped a little. The swing of the sword pushed the saber along, as well as