Lightning Is the Only Way

The Empress furrowed her brows in confusion. "You want to reach supreme power without having any offspring?" she asked in confusion.

Gravis nodded. "If I have children, I will love them with all my heart. They would be like another life of mine, and I can't rest and cultivate easily as long as I don't know if they're safe or not. Right now, I don't have the power to protect them from danger."

"Yet, I also don't want my path to end in this world. As soon as I have enough power to protect them, I would be at the peak of the world, which means that I can ascend into the next world. Because of that, I can't have children in this world. I'm sure that I can help you some other way. If you want, I will also just join the Empire as a normal beast," Gravis explained.

The Empress had a very complex look on her face. She wasn't really angry or frustrated about the fact that Gravis just said that he didn't want to do the one thing that his position required of him.

Her face looked more like complex pity.

"Gravis," she said slowly. "Do you know why everyone wants to become my mate?" she asked.

Gravis narrowed his eyes as he heard that question. This question seemingly came out of nowhere. Was the Empress trying to entice him to reconsider?

"Isn't it because of the feeling of power that they might feel after bedding an Emperor and the associated status?" Gravis asked.

The Empress shook her head. "This might motivate some of the Lords, but not so many of them. Additionally, why do you think I give out so many rewards to the Kings for a good mate?"

Gravis also thought about that. "You probably also get something out of this, right?" he asked.

The Empress nodded. "Yes. I am searching for powerful beasts so that I can learn about the Laws of Life," she said.

"Laws of Life?" Gravis asked, taken aback.

of Life is difficult. Yet, by watching the creation of a new life, I receive a lot of insights about the Law of Life. As soon as my children are born, I don't care about them anymore. I am simply using this process to further my understanding of Laws,"

they would be shocked and appalled. Yet, Gravis understood that beasts really didn't care about their offspring. Mortal animals might care about them, but it was completely

to power, and an incredibly vast majority would die on that path. Artificially increasing the offspring's power with the parents' help would make it only more challenging for

in that. If beasts also cared about their offspring like humans, they might not reproduce as crazily as they did now. After all, a child

and Gravis wasn't different in that regard. If

do your mates get out of this process?" Gravis asked. "You

seconds, making Gravis nervous. He had expected her to scoff at him or grow enraged by his disrespect.

Empress sighed again. "You are really unlucky,"

I'm fine with that. Not getting the reward might seem like a loss, but having children might stop my path entirely. I'll accept that trade any day," Gravis

Empress looked to the side. "That's exactly it. If you want to reach supreme power, you must accept the

what? Are you saying that you will kill me if

she said. Then, she sighed again. Right now, she actually felt some

competition Lords and not Kings or

his eyes. "I don't

reason for that is the necessary breeding that Lords are required to partake in to

felt his insides shake.

"A level five Lord can't become a King without having produced a certain amount of offspring," the Empress said, making Gravis' world

enough offspring, they will be forever stuck at the level of a level five Lord. No matter how much they eat or

completely stopped, and he couldn't comprehend what was happening right now.

five Lord needs to produce around 1,000 children to become a King. Producing so many children is incredibly difficult and time-consuming

me is that their offspring will become Divine Beasts. For some reason, as long as your offspring is a Divine Beast, you don't need to have so many children. You only need to bring three Divine Beasts into the world to become a

of control right now. What was the Empress saying? He was required to have children in order to reach the Nascent Nourishing Realm?

knew that she wasn't