Lightning Is the Only Way

Gravis and Azure talked some more, and after a while of talking, they decided to return to the Icy Pride Empire. While they had been talking, Gravis had also told her about his decision to leave the camp of the land beasts.

Azure thought it was a good idea since he was powerful enough to protect himself and wouldn't be bound by any obligations. Additionally, being a neutral party also gave him more freedom to choose his way of tempering.

Of course, the bad aspect of that decision was that one needed to be powerful enough. If one were too weak, any beast could just kill them without any repercussions. There were a ton of beasts just waiting for a tempering opportunity. If a solitary King went into an Empire, they would be attacked by several other Kings that would all want to fight them.

Even if one was powerful for their Realm, choosing neutrality would still be dangerous. If one of the most powerful Kings decided to go solo, they might not be attacked by Kings but by an Emperor first. Of course, these Emperors wouldn't be interested in the corpse of the King, but they would be interested in using this King to temper their soldiers.

Maybe the Emperor would send five other Kings at him. Maybe the Emperor would halt the fight if one of their beasts would die. In the end, it didn't matter what this King would do. Eventually, they would be ground into nothingness.

Because of these reasons, one first needed to be a powerful Emperor to consider going solo. Yet, one also had to remember that it wasn't mandatory to attack a neutral beast. They could also just trade or talk. The only difference was that one party wouldn't have any backing. They could only rely on their own power.

Of course, Gravis was already powerful enough to go solo. If he had still been a level four King, it would have been risky since he would have had the power of a level one Emperor, which wasn't that safe. After all, there were plenty of level two Emperors.

Yet, with the power to immediately decimate a level two Emperor and with a slight chance of winning against a level three Emperor, Gravis should be safe. Therefore, with all things considered, it was a good idea for him to leave the camp of the land beasts.

After some time, the two of them returned to the Mountain of Pride in the Icy Pride Empire. Right now, instead of Azure, the Grand Elder was sitting on the throne. However, he couldn't be called the Grand Elder anymore since he had taken up the position of the actual Emperor.

Styr, the Emperor, saw Azure and Gravis return and greeted them with a polite smile. "Welcome back. How were your gains?" he asked.

Gravis noticed that Styr acted differently than usual. It wasn't that he had changed but that he was exhibiting an aura of royalty. The way he sat and talked gave others the feeling of justice, friendliness, and fairness.

The contrast between when Azure had been the Empress and the current Styr was stark. Azure had always appeared taciturn, cold, prideful, and reserved. It was like she had been an ice queen.

Yet, in human terms, Styr appeared like a king that would often visit the farmers to check if they had any issues. He appeared like someone that valued the prosperity of his kingdom above his own.

a proper ruler should act, but as soon as he would see his chance to become more powerful, he would

was more suited to be a ruler

could push his Will-Aura to the maximum once again. With that, he would be able to suppress a level three Emperor by 30% instead of 10%. That

changed," Azure said

put his fingers together and leaned back on

for the violent changes the world would

and paced around

soldiers might need to be redistributed. Yet, these four defensive lines are under

"We might actually need to station level four Emperors there, but the level four Emperors are all leaders of their own Empire. I'm uncertain if they would

continued pacing. "But if they aren't ready to station themselves at the frontlines, a random level four Emperor could take out all four of the core defensive lines. If that happens, we will lose half of our Elders, which would result in the

raised eyebrow. "As long as you and Azure are still here, the Empire won't fall. Do the

with a teaching tone. "An Empire is not only there to serve as a springboard for the Emperor. We are all in this together, and if the Empire grows more

Empire would result in a short-term power gain, but it would cut off the long-term power gain. We require powerful beasts to keep the Kingdoms in check and to resolve problems that they can't

for safety reasons, some Kingdoms might

Empire, obviously, won't fall since Azure and I are still here, but that doesn't matter. The Kingdoms believe what they want to believe and will act

lose access to valuable Law Comprehension Areas. Among these Law Comprehension Areas will be areas that several Elders are very interested in. When they see that they no longer have access to such a fitting area, they might also defect to other Empires. In the end, we will only have

Styr said. "When you cultivate, the image others have towards you is unimportant, but if you want to create and maintain a

yourself, while an Empire relies on others. If you build a force with the philosophy of cultivation, it will break apart very

time, he knew a lot of the concepts that others talked about, but this time, he had learned something new.

Styr was right.

Yet, land and resources would always be valuable, even for more powerful forces. If Gravis had been alone and had killed so many Tribes back then by himself, no level four

since his Tribe had been the aggressor, multiple level four Lords had arrived back then, dooming the entire

pushed the Tribe to its absolute limit until it broke apart.

"Thank