The Innkeeper

Chapter 2244: Make things interesting

There were a few key reasons for why Lex was in such a predicament. It had been a long, long time since he’d been so thoroughly overwhelmed by an opponent. In fact, Lex was almost convinced that he would never again face problems against opponents who had not touched upon the Dao. The fact that he had two holes in his chest and had to stab himself with his own sword to stop his opponent made it abundantly clear how wrong that notion had been.

His self confidence, however, was not one of the reasons he was in this predicament, for no matter how confident he felt, Lex always had his guard up. In fact, it was because of how he always maintained his guard that the situation wasn’t worse, or that he had managed to keep Almira alive.

That being said, being taken by surprise severely limited his ability to react effectively to the attack. It wasn’t just the surprise trap itself - the fact that he was fighting a Sovereign was something his opponent had kept secret right until Lex forced it out of him.

Honestly, all the Sovereigns he’d met all had very goofy personalities so he never even imagined that he’d be facing one himself in combat one day. Even so, he’d already considered what he might do if he ever had to face them in a fight - and that was to run.

A Sovereign’s influence on the universe was tremendously powerful, to the point where it would be easier to just escape than face it head on. Unfortunately, in his given situation, Lex did not have that option.

Another reason for his current predicament was how well prepared the opponent was. They had set the battlefield in their favor, and had apparently done a lot of research on Lex himself. While it was impossible for them to know everything about Lex, all the fighting styles and techniques he may have used in public or in front of others had been exposed.

While he could just fight using techniques he didn’t frequently use, or change his tactics, the premise was that he knew that the opponent had studied up on him. Unfortunately, that was another thing he learned too late.

The fact that this information was incredibly important, to the point where it could have changed the entire outcome if Lex had known from the start, was proven by the fact that once Lex learned his opponent was a Sovereign, he was able to resist him better.

While he didn’t prefer to go against a Sovereign, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t if he had no choice. To counter his ability to influence the universe, Lex merely needed to make his Dao Body more active - a thing he didn’t actually know how to do.

A Sovereign could influence the universe, and similarly, the Dao could influence the universe too. Another thing that could directly affect the universe was Dragons might! At the same time, while a tenet did not influence the universe itself, it could affect laws, and once could manipulate laws to influence events and outcomes.

In short, Lex didn’t lack the means to actually fight Sovereigns - it was just a whole lot harder than he had imagined.

Besides all that, there was one more, very significant reason for why Lex was in this situation: this opponent of his was genuinely, incredibly strong!

Well, considering he was a Sovereign who had, somehow, learned about Lex’s system and was targeting him because of it, it made sense that he was strong. Lex imagined that this Sovereign was a system user himself, which would make sense. Every system user Lex had personally fought against was strong.

Now that he had established how Lex got into this situation, he needed to figure a way out of it. Even now, as he used his spirit sense to look at the enemy whose name he did not even know, Lex displayed no fear or panic. Unfortunately, that did not mean his situation was any good.

"Sleep," Daekol, his words washing over Lex like a command his body found hard to resist.

His body was already feeling heavy, but now even his tenet began to feel heavy as if it too was falling asleep.

"Sorry, I don’t really sleep with guys," Lex responded in a hoarse voice as he activated the Back of Atlas.

As much as Lex would have liked to seal this opponent’s Sovereign influence within his back, Lex’s back was not yet capable of carrying such a burden. Even putting the influence away put a great strain on him - but at least it freed him from the actual oppression he was feeling!

As soon as the oppression ended, Lex created a domain around himself and Daekol and took him by surprise. This was yet another technique used by the human that wasn’t in Daekol’s reports!

Lex changed into his karmic form and escaped from the seal, leaving Naraka embedded within Daekol. As he turned back, Lex immediately activated Eternal Rebirth to heal the two massive holes in his body.

Honestly, the loss of his heart definitely weakened Lex and healing from such a wound completely was going to take a long-

Lex’s eyes narrowed as he sensed something amiss. His blood, which packed immense healing ability, was unable to heal him at all. A poison had silently spread throughout his body, making his healing ability go dormant and slowly eating away at his own vitality!

Lex had no idea what this poison was for it to be able to affect even his physique, but it allowed him to realize one thing. His situation was actually far worse than it appeared, for this enemy had surely planned for everything Lex had ever publicly displayed.

Daekol smiled when he realized that Lex finally noticed the poison. But it was the smile of amusement, nothing more. Everything was still within the range of his expectations, for he always expected Lex to have a few contingencies that had never been revealed.

"I see you want to make this interesting," Daekol said as he began to resist the seal on his body. "I would normally allow you to play around a bit, but this is too important. It’s best that we end this."

Lex’s expression turned somewhat solemn as he took stock of his situation. He was poisoned, his system was out of reach, he could not teleport out of here, and he even had to protect Almira. Moreover, the weight kept in his back was not something he could hold onto for long.

It seemed... it really was best to end this.