Draco was shocked one moment and the next, he found himself crashing through the earth, digging a huge gully along the way. Pain wracked his body as he felt his HP drop from 100% to almost 30% in one moment, the lowest he had ever been since his fight with Caelo years ago.
There was a confused expression on Draco's face. He didn't even see how he was hit or what hit him. One moment he was about to attack and the next, he was in this ditch.
He coughed out a wad of blood and slowly rose to his feet, his expression becoming grim. Meanwhile, the True God wolf called Kuiper simply trotted over casually, its expression full of casualness.
From its current actions and behavior, one would be hard-pressed to think it was the culprit for the damage Draco suffered but he knew very well it was this very beast that had caused him harm.
Draco was silent. "Extremespeed huh."
Draco partially seemed to understand something at this moment. He felt as if he truly understand why True Gods and mortals were dived by such a huge gap, that the former never even thought about crossing the latter.
Never in history had a mortal defeated a God, even a semi-true God had not achieved this rank-crossing feat. The only one was Sigurd who used the Dragonlance's suppressive effect on Dragons to slaughter the species from mortals towards True Gods, building up power for his breakthrough.
Much of Draco's confidence in dealing with true gods as a mortal and using mortal means came from this information. If Sigurd could do it, he could too since he was far beyond what any mortal could ever hope to reach logically.
However, Draco now felt that Sigurd's story had been embellished in order to increase his prestige. It was less likely that he slaughtered all the Dragons and more like he handled the small fry to build up energy while the others were dealing with other True gods.
Even if Sigurd defeated True God dragons, it was likely only after he had accumulated enough and broke n through to become a True God on the spot, barely obtaining the qualifications to battle with them.
Draco also wondered, why had stats been thrown away for True Gods? However, it seemed less like stats were gone and more like they had been merged into the law, or rather that the law provided them with their stats.
So if that was the case, what was the numerical value of power provided by laws, even a Basic Law, to a True God compared to that of a mortal?
Draco could not know because neither he, Eva, nor Shuangtian had ever used any of their laws before. Even when they fought that World Boss tree, they had only used their normal class-related abilities to beat it to death with ease.
It seemed that as long as Draco sued his law once, all the answers would come to him. Yet he was also seeking a different set of answers right now, so until he answered those, he would not jump the gun.
On that note, he smiled and spat out some blood as he glanced at the casual wolf and then slashed, unleashing a wave of destruction energy toward it.
The eyes of Kuiper became serious. Destruction Energy could even eat away at Origin Energy, much less Divine Energy. Not to mention that Draco's Destruction Energy was insanely potent and pure compared to the norm.
The wave came at it and passed through its body, but did not do any harm. Draco's expression became ugly as he understood immediately. Kuiper had used that famous technique of the flash, phasing!
Vibrate your cells so fast that all matter and energy can pass through you.
If Kuiper could achieve this, how was Draco supposed to strike it? The only way to achieve this would be for him to also vibrate his cells and blade fast enough that he could do the same.
Of course, there was another obvious alternative, which was to use a law! At the same level, there was no law that necessarily stood on top of the pyramid.
All laws had their counters and weakness and could basically restrain each other.
Draco's eyes flashed as he charged forward and used his miasma-coated blade to strike again. Once again, he noticed that despite his abhorrent speed that could even wear down the folds of space, Kuiper reacted normally.
This time, he saw the True God wolf raise its paw casually and swipe at him. When the blow struck his chest - though he tried to avoid it - he was sent flying one more.
Draco got up from his crater while spitting blood and noticed that he had been forced into his first invincibility state. His expression darkened but he now understood that these attacks were Kuiper's casual blows.
It had not used any special applications of its law, just using imbuing the law itself into its claws and striking at Draco. Due to the presence of Divine Energy and the law, it had the full nature of a True God attack and affected both Energy and Law suppression on Draco.
His Destruction Barrier which reduced 150% damage was negated by this and most of his other buffs were suppressed. If Draco was fighting a Rank 7, he could have flicked them to death with one finger in his current state.
But against a True God, he was completely and utterly out of his league.
Draco was neither stubborn nor pedantic. After understanding the nature of things and that he was wasting his time doing this, he lost all his scruples and decided to use laws as well as Divine Energy to fight.
He was already forced into invincibility, so was he going to wait for Kuiper to beat it off him and then take his life? No.
Draco first imbued his body with two laws, the Law of Movement Velocity to enhance his movement speed and the Law of Attack Velocity to enhance his attack speed.
The Law of Movement Velocity came from his Rapid Legs skill and the Law of Attack Velocity came from the Rapid Hands skill.
However, the moment Draco activated the laws and felt their power and information flow into him, he understood everything. Every doubt and every question he had about the gap between mortals and True Gods became clear.
In fact, knowing did not necessarily make him happy, but rather very embarrassed. He understood how foolish and childish his thoughts of gauging the gap between a mortal and a True God was, and why Kuiper stopped taking him very seriously as he did so.
To compare…
No, all these examples were not good enough. The rawest comparison Draco could make was like a fat and unfit person trying to run 100 meters and thinking it was impossible.
Then that same person became fit and slim, running the same 100-meter distance. They would feel complicated and embarrassed because they were the same person, but a difference in their means yielded a hugely different result.
If the previous him and the him now were to compete, the previous him would not even be able to comprehend how the current him could so easily handle all the exertion without feeling like he was about to die.
It was like this.
Draco had truly been too hung up on stats and skill descriptions and the like. Stats were just numerical values representing a person's ability in various fields.
However, Divine Energy and Divine Laws could not be put into something as convenient as statistics. At the True God level, it was all about you, your Source Origin quality and quantity of Divine Energy, your law's nature, your comprehension of your law, and your applications of your law.
It was very much like the power system with stands in Jojo or Devil Fruits in One Piece. They all had different abilities, but none were necessarily better than the other on paper.
Some had cooler and way more explosive effects, but they naturally had their own costs as well. What was more important was how the individual used that ability.
Someone could have the almighty law of omega destruction of universal end and still lose to a user of the law of smelly farts. It was also important to know how and where to imbue your law.
Some could be imbued into the body, some to weapons, some to summons, some to equipment and of course, to skills or techniques. Applying the right law to the right thing at the right moment could win the battle instantly.
The two laws Draco used enhanced his agility to the level he needed it to reach. Now, the movements of Kuiper in his eyes had become normal, no longer something he couldn't see or even comprehend.
In fact, when he didn't apply the law, Kuiper seemed to be casually trotting over with a bored expression, but that was actually his afterimage. The current Kuiper was lying down in front of Draco, waiting for his cognition to catch up to his current situation.
When Kuiper saw that Draco was looking at it and beginning to move at speeds that were on par with it, Kuiper was shocked and horrified. It had only behaved so arrogantly because it thought Draco could never catch up to his speed, but what was going on now?
In fact, Kuiper was right. The Law of Extremespeed granted both movement and attack speed, but came at the cost of defense.
Each person could only have one law, so even if Draco had something to enhance his speed, it should have either been attack or movement speed, in which case Kuiper could still suppress him using the other one.
However, unfortunately for it, Draco combined two pieces of the law to gain what was essentially equivalent to Extremespeed, but without the defense weakness to balance it out.
Draco also in this moment understood one of the advantages of their methods of amassing laws. He could bypass the weakness and limitations of special laws that had better effects which was placed on those laws by the world.
Draco struck with his sword and imbued the Law of Malevolent Darkness into it. This was his first law and its ability was a mixture of offensive and curse type.
It dealt darkness damage and left a miasma within the wound preventing healing and corroding flesh. Draco carved out a huge chunk of Kuiper's flesh near its neck just like this, causing the wolf to yowl in agony and jump back.
Kuiper's eyes became bloodshot from fear and hatred, the pain of the Malevolent Darkness eating away at its lifeforce slowly but surely. As it was law based damage, Kuiper couldn't just remove it freely but had to find a quiet place to slowly expel and purify it using a mixture of its own law and Divine Energy.
In other words, it had to end the battle fast! As such, Kuiper howled and jumped forward finally bringing out its full strength as it ran its Extremespeed law at its full power.
Draco's eyes flashed as he received Kuiper's speed attacks which were in the form of bites and swipes with its claws, even firing kicks from its hind legs as it warped about.
Draco easily responded to all this with his two laws, but he quickly found the weakness of his own method of fighting. It was naturally the energy consumption.
In battles between True Gods, laws alone didn't always decide the winner, but one's Source Origin's quality. Draco had a Draconic Source Origin which was the best among the races and had the highest quantity and quality of Divine Energy within.
However, no matter how plentiful, there was a finite limit to the energy. Kuiper was fine since he was only powering one law, but Draco was powering three at the same time!
Even if every law took the same amount, Draco would need three times and quantity of Divine Energy that Kuiper had in order to match its consumption in battle.
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