Chapter 20-Seeing Is Deceiving.

Then the orc saw that he wasn't moved, he burst forth with a psychic attack. Gehald was caught unaware when a terrifying pain hit his mind. He staggered and almost fell. Meanwhile, the orc had followed the mind attack with a wave of elemental ice attack full of sharp icicles meant to impale Gehald. 

Gehald had recovered slightly, so he was able to repel the attack with flames of his own, after which he moved back to get some distance between them. The two elemental attacks hit each other and canceled each other out like two opposing waves of water. 

The icicles could bore 10 meters into the tough ground of the ancient battlefield while the flames could melt any weapon below Origin level on contact. They were both simple attacks yet possessed terrifying power. The simple wave of their hands as Sovereigns is enough to rile up the world to do their bidding.

The spiritual attack surprised Gehald because soul attacks are rare. Usually, creatures that attack the mind attack by finding vulnerabilities into the mind through the senses, like illusions or sound attacks. 

It is rare for extraordinaries to use their divine sense for effective attacks against someone of similar strength. If the attack was much stronger, or if his soul was way weaker, or if he didn't have his recovery, he would have died by now, so he was on guard.

"What are you? Orcs don't have soul-attacking abilities." Gehald asked

The orc didn't answer. He just smirked and shook his head in regret. Gehald realized something and immediately pressed the attack. 

He formed giant blazing hot fireballs in the air that he hurled at his opponent. But he was always missing. The fireballs just pass through the figure of the orc. So he switched from single attacks to an area of attacks, but the waves of flames he made passed through the target again. 

Then he decided to blanket the area with flames. Only then could he hear a sound of pain a little way to his left. The orc he had been seeing faded away to reveal a strange avian creature with dirty feathers and a proboscis for a mouth. 

It was about a meter tall but was hovering in the air, and it had a greyish color, but Gehald couldn't tell what it was because he felt his mind grow fuzzy from staring at it. 

He stopped looking and aimed a fireball at the bird while another spirit attack hit him again. He didn't grimace this time because he had been on guard. He was eventually able to defeat the strange creature after a long tussle. It gave up and conceded.

Gehald was teleported away with his mental injuries healed and his energy recovered. He shook himself when he remembered that attack. If he had let himself underestimate and pity that strange creature, he would have died. 

It seems the creature had been playing him since the time he noticed it with his divine sense. The creature had been able to deceive his senses and made itself look weak. 

It had begged Gehald while preparing that initial attack. Gehald realized that it probably couldn't use the attack frequently because it hadn't followed with another psychic attack after the first one. If it had, he would be gone by now. 

Even when Gehald had spoken to it, it didn't do anything. That's when Gehald knew something was wrong. At first, he thought the creature must have been weakened after that first attack, so he decided to take advantage of it, but then his attacks kept missing. 

That's when he realized he was either seeing an illusion or the orc truly had another ability to turn intangible. If it had intangibility, it shouldn't have bothered begging because an ability like that can secure its life. It shouldn't have been in hiding, or if it were, it could have hidden directly within a tree instead of on top of the tree. 

He conjectured that if it had intangibility, it should have limits. He decided to cover his bases and risk using a large amount of energy to determine if he had any chance of winning. He produced so many flames to carpet the arena, and he was ready to wait a while before he saw any effect, but he was rewarded early. 

The strange beast possessed terrifying psychic and illusion abilities. It was a born hunter. If it had faced a fake sovereign or a true Sovereign with a weaker soul, it would have killed the sovereign easily. Its only weakness is its weak body.

He had wanted to kill the creature, but it got away. If the creature had a powerful body to boot, then that fight would have cost him more. 

He was walking slowly to relax a little when he saw a person garbed in lightning. This individual is covered from head to toe in purplish black lightning that sparked and sizzled dangerously.

"This can't be good. Things just keep getting worse," he muttered before he was teleported away.

He was teleported soon after, with all his hair standing straight and smoking. Just a few moments later, he reappeared in another part of the small world.

"Thank Mother High Heaven that I had a good mind to quit early." he sighed with relief. 

This is his first defeat. He couldn't be petty about it even if he wanted to. He would have died otherwise. He had initially thought it was a lightning elemental because all he saw from afar was a streak of lightning. 

He was already planning to concede, but not before he fought a little to determine if he had no chance of winning. Lightning elementals are probably the fastest creatures after void elementals and light elementals. They also deal terrifying damage even more than fire-based concepts. 

So he had little chance of winning in the first place. That was until he realized it wasn't an elemental but a female lightning grand god. He couldn't have escaped out of there fast enough.