Gravis immediately knew that it was a Sin Monster, and his body shook when he saw it.
Its appearance wasn't very intimidating, but Gravis felt several things that made a cold shudder run down his spine.
If Gravis hadn't known that the Sin Monsters were coming for him, he wouldn't even have noticed it.
What did it look like?
It was a mosquito, a very small one.
It wasn't even a centimeter tall.
However, the things Gravis felt made this mosquito feel like the end of the world for him.
First of all, Gravis felt that its body was impossibly powerful.
Gravis could feel space warping around it due to its sheer power.
Yet, there was something even worse.
There wasn't a shred of Energy inside it!
It was made of something else.
The Sin Monster was made out of pure Death!
It was a manifestation of the Law of Death!
Gravis knew immediately that he couldn't fight it.
The Sin Monster looked at Gravis from a distance. Gravis and Mortis were still hurrying towards the distance, but the Sin Monster kept a static distance from Gravis.
Gravis couldn't escape.
Gravis and Mortis looked at the Sin Monster with unsure expressions.
It wasn't doing anything.
"Why have you become silent?" Arc asked through Gravis' communication ring. He had been planning with Mortis and Gravis the entire time.
When the mosquito heard Arc's voice, its gaze focused on the communication ring.
Gravis felt some form of sense stretch to the communication ring, and a cold shudder ran down his spine.
BANG!
Gravis destroyed the communication ring!
Gravis didn't know what the Sin Monster could do, but he wouldn't take any chances. What if it could remember Arc's voice or aura? What if it could find Arc via the communication ring?
When the ring was destroyed, the Sin Monster lost interest and looked at Gravis again.
Then, it started to slowly fly towards Gravis.
A shudder ran down Gravis' spine.
He had no idea what the Sin Monster would do. Even more, he knew that there was nothing he could do to stop it.
His life was in the hands of the Sin Monster.
If it wanted to kill him, he would die.
Gravis was not in control of his life right now.
At the side, Mortis gritted his teeth.
Then, Mortis stepped between Gravis and the Sin Monster.
Gravis' mind shook in horror.
However, he understood what Mortis was doing.
Mortis had to try what the Sin Monster would do to him.
As insurance, Mortis had already created a clone.
When the Sin Monster reached Mortis, it simply moved around him. It was like Mortis was just part of the environment.
Mortis moved to Gravis and touched him.
The Sin Monster still ignored him.
Then, Mortis summoned some God Stones and gave them to Gravis.
The Sin Monster still ignored him.
It was like Mortis didn't exist in its mind.
After several more experiments, Mortis knew that he could still help Gravis.
This was valuable input! This meant that Mortis could act as an intermediary between Gravis and the world.
Mortis didn't have a Sin Aura around him since he was only Gravis' Star.
This meant that he wasn't the target of the Sin Monsters, and it also meant that he could interact with Cultivators.
After that, Mortis went back to the Sin Monster and stopped before it.
When the Sin Monster tried to go around Mortis, Mortis moved with it. He remained between the Sin Monster and Gravis.
The Sin Monster continued trying to go around Mortis.
Yet, after a couple of attempts, the Sin Monster stopped trying to go around Mortis.
Instead, it moved towards Mortis.
Mortis gritted his teeth and watched the Sin Monster.
When the Sin Monster reached Mortis' body, it simply created a hole.
Its dense Force of Death canceled out all the Energy along its path. Mortis was made of Heavenly Lightning, but Heavenly Lightning was also made of Energy.
The Sin Monster didn't care what form of Energy was in front of it. Death canceled out all forms of Energy.
The Sin Monster slowly passed through Mortis, leaving a hole behind.
Mortis frowned as he looked at the hole in his torso. The hole had been created with the Law of Death, which meant that it was impossible to heal it without the True Law of Life.
BZZ!
Mortis transformed into Heavenly Lightning and transformed back.
The hole was healed, but Mortis had permanently lost a small part of his Realm.
Mortis knew that he couldn't stop the Sin Monster.
It would do whatever it wanted with Gravis.
Gravis was emotionless right now, but a bit of fear still appeared in his mind.
The Major Law of Emotions wasn't perfect. If it were, it would be the True Law of Emotions.
After some seconds, the Sin Monster reached Gravis' body.
It slowly landed on Gravis' body like a normal mosquito.
Then, its tiny proboscis extended.
There were tiny human teeth at the end of it!
The proboscis reached Gravis' body, and the teeth tore a tiny chunk out of Gravis' body.
When Gravis felt the teeth bite off a part of his body, an unimaginable pain assaulted him.
Gravis had never felt anything like this before!
The pain went throughout Gravis' body, Energy, Spirit, and even went through his will!
A chunk had been bitten out of everything!
Gravis had expected that the Sin Monster would consume a part of his Realm, but he would have never thought that it would even consume a part of his will!
Gravis felt it.
It had bitten a chunk out of Gravis' Will-Aura!
Even Gravis' Will-Aura was weakening!
This horrified Gravis!
He could easily recover his Realm by simply consuming God Stones, but he couldn't recover his Will-Aura without tempering!
Even more, the pain was intense!
Even Gravis had some difficulties in dealing with it, and his Will-Aura was unfathomably powerful!
Gravis moved away and even teleported, but the Sin Monster remained on his body, simply chewing on the part in its mouth.
Gravis couldn't get rid of it, no matter what he did!
"It's worse than we thought," Mortis said with narrowed eyes. "We can consume God Stones to counteract the weakening of our Realm, but it's not easy to recover our Will-Aura. If this takes too long, we might even need to temper ourselves again to reach our old peak."
Gravis could only agree.
"Argh!" Gravis shouted as the mosquito took another bite.
The pain was just as bad as before!
Gravis could deal with pain normally. After all, the worse the pain, the more his Will-Aura would increase.
However, this was different.
Every instance of pain didn't strengthen his Will-Aura but weakened it.
There was nothing positive about this pain.
Nothing.
Every instance of pain drove Gravis further to weakness and death.
He was like an old man with a painful, terminal illness.
There was only a painful death waiting for him.
It was like Gravis was decaying.
He was vanishing.
"Maybe we can delay our weakening by giving it God Stones," Mortis suggested.
Gravis agreed and took out about 100,000 God Stones.
Sure enough, as soon as the God Stones appeared, the Sin Monster looked at the God Stones.
CRACK!
Its proboscis enlarged and engulfed all God Stones in an instant. It had been so fast that Gravis had barely seen it!
"Argh!" Gravis shouted again as the Sin Monster took another bite out of him.
The God Stones hadn't even distracted it for a second!
Now, Gravis knew why everyone feared the Sin Monsters.
The bites the mosquito was taking out of Gravis were incomparably tiny. The Sin Monster itself was already incredibly small, and its proboscis was even smaller! The bites it took couldn't even be measured in millimeters. They had to be measured in micrometers!
Yet, every single bite symbolized agony and a decline in strength.
At least there was one positive thing about all of this.
Mortis and Gravis now knew more about the Sin Monster, and they could act accordingly.
For the next few days, Mortis and Gravis continued planning, but the entire atmosphere had changed.
Every minute, Gravis received another terrifying instance of agony.
Dealing with intense pain for a short moment was entirely different from feeling sharp instances of pain again and again.
Gravis already felt his resistance to the pain reducing.
Some days of planning passed, and Gravis and Mortis had already come up with what they should do.
However, something horrifying happened.
The mosquito's body shook a bit.
Then, its body seemed to stretch until something came out of its body.
Gravis' eyes widened in horror.
A second mosquito was on his body now!
