Lightning Is the Only Way

Gravis immediately realized why these Striders existed. With his knowledge, this wasn't difficult to discern. Obviously, such a high number of congregating level five Emperors that didn't fight each other wasn't the result of some normal beasts procreating. There was a deeper reason for their existence.

Normally, every beast strived for power, and this should include the Striders as well. Under normal circumstances, they should have long since battled each other or other level five Emperors to the death until one of them managed to ascend. Yet, they didn't.

So, why were they just here like that?

Obviously, they had been created by Heaven for a specific purpose. This reason was rather simple. These beasts acted as some kind of final exam for level five Emperors for their ascension.

Heaven created these Striders for two reasons. First of all, their above-average Battle-Strength would force every ascender to be powerful. If the ascending beasts were too weak, they would not even serve as tempering for humans as soon as they reached the highest world. Additionally, the chances were high that the average Emperor wouldn't even manage to get through the higher world.

Due to these Striders, only the Emperors that managed to become outstanding would reach the next world. Additionally, every Emperor that failed would get reabsorbed by this world. A level five Emperor had a terrifying amount of Energy inside them, and if their quality weren't high enough, it would be better to just directly recycle them.

The other reason was the terrifying amount that level five Emperors needed to reach the Immortal Realm. As far as Gravis knew, the required amount of eaten corpses didn't decrease with an increase of a Realm. Based on that, every level five Emperor would need to eat eight other level five Emperors.

How many beasts did someone have to eat to become a level five Emperor? How many beasts have the beasts that got eaten have eaten? By all intents and purposes, a level five Emperor needed eight times the amount of food as a level four Emperor.

was big, but Gravis wasn't sure enough if it was big enough to continually create level five Emperors one after the other. Maybe there weren't even eight level five Emperors

the Striders to ascend. Then, they would absorb the Energy and take it to the higher world, and the higher Heaven would send the same

lose any kind of Energy during this process since it would

could be likened to the management of money. Pure Energy was a liquid asset for Heaven, and by creating these Striders, it converted these liquid assets into hard assets. The total amount of Energy for Heaven wasn't lowered. Most of it simply existed in

cycle appeared. Heaven transforms Energy into Striders. The Striders get eaten, and their Energy enters a different beast. The beast ascends. The higher Heaven gives Energy

Heaven to increase the number of ascenders manifold. Gravis found

to increase the number of ascenders without wasting a ridiculous amount of food," Gravis said to the Empress

"That's what I thought," she confirmed. "A level five Emperor needs a terrifying amount of food to reach the next world. Everyone in the world thinks that these Striders are some sort of mighty overlords that want to live in peace and are afraid of the upper world, but

"Has anyone ever managed to talk

if someone attacks one of them, the others don't get involved at all. The common consensus is that these Striders are too proud to intervene in fights or talk to

this middle world belonged to the top 10% of middle worlds

middle worlds. His father had also said that this world was over three times as big as the average middle world. A bigger world allowed for more beasts to appear inside it. Yet, even such a

smaller natural middle worlds use to create

world, obviously. So, in order to create some

stronger beast killed a weaker beast and didn't eat the corpse, or that both combatants died, leaving both corpses