The Innkeeper

Chapter 1845: Years of prep

Lex made himself insignificant. He made himself seem unimportant, barely able to do more than retain the protective barriers. On one hand, he did it so that the Defiler would treat him as relatively unimportant, focusing on Giselle himself and leaving Lex to his Profanites. This was so that Lex could study the Defiler a little more, and grasp the full scope of his abilities.

Even Sovereigns could not just outright change the laws of a realm, let alone an Earth Immortal, so Lex wanted to understand the scope and limitations of his abilities.

On the other hand, he did it so that he could genuinely finish the formation to disrupt the storm. Fighting the Defiler during the storm was an issue, but if the greater issue was that the storm itself was threatening countless lives. Currently, it was a greater threat to the population of this planet than the actual Defiler.

So, as Giselle fought the Defiler, Lex fought off the Profanites storming him, pretending to only barely survive while he used his spirit sense to finish the formation in secret.

Meanwhile, the Defiler and Giselle had a few clashes but paused afterwards. Every iota of Profane energy that leaked from the Defiler, whether on purpose or by accident, would corrupt or defile everything it touched. The effect was several hundred times more potent than Profane energy used by Profanites.

For Giselle to be able to tolerate, or even absorb, Profane energy from Profanites was one thing. To remain unharmed and unaffected in a direct clash against a Defiler... now that warranted scrutiny.

"Hey, little Gigi, you have learned some neat tricks since I last saw you," the Defiler said, widening his smile to make it appear twisted and inhuman. "Not bad, not bad at all. If only you had been like this when we were younger - I wouldn’t have had to refrain myself."

Giselle did not respond. She had nothing to say to him. All her life, she had imagined how intense this situation would be for her, but with Lex’s support, she didn’t feel nearly as much pressure as she had imagined she would.

So, she put all her attention on thinking of how to defeat the Defiler. The reason she had paused was not to take stock of her strength, or to allow the Defiler enough time to be shocked at her abilities. She was silently preparing her attacks. Ironically, using Time as a weapon... consumed a lot of time to set up.

Seeing as how she was not replying, the Defiler clicked its tongue - or at least he made the same sound - before attacking once more.

Unlike cultivators who had numerous spiritual techniques, Defilers were limited in their abilities. Profane energy, due to its inherently corrupt nature, was not useful for the majority of techniques, and could only be used for a limited number of techniques that had been specifically designed with that energy in mind.

But the lethality of Defilers, for the most part, came from just how potent their Profane energy was, and how effectively they could use it. With Giselle displaying immunity, or at least great resistance, to Profane energy, the Defiler was severely weakened.

He lunged at her, new limbs growing out of the darkness that was its body to claw at her body. If passive corruption didn’t work, actively destroying her body, and more importantly her tenet, would suffice.

Yet, no matter how he spread his body, how unexpectedly he attacked, how quick his slashes, Giselle dodged with effortless finesse. Her body moved as if she were dancing, evading no where she was attacked from. If one did not know the situation, they would think that she was once again putting on a ballet performance. The grace of her dance was matched only by the frustration in the Defilers screams and curses.

Lex, however, saw something else. He did not see her pirouette or her elegant leaps as a dance, as he had for so long. No, he recognized them as precise and deliberate weapons prepared against Defilers over countless years.

In each clash against the Defiler, in each seemingly impossible dodge against attacks from an entity with no fixed shape or form, Lex saw years of dedicated effort and preparation. He saw effort, he saw pain, and he saw an unwavering focus the likes of which very few people ever achieve.

Although he had always respected her privacy, Lex could not help but feel curious about Giselle’s life. For now, though, he continued to watch.

He had seen how she had trained to dodge Defiler attacks, and he had suspicions about how she remained immune to their energies. Now he wanted to see how she had prepared to actually counter them, though he already knew it was related to time.

For a time, the fight reached a delicate balance. Ignoring Lex, who appeared to constantly be on the verge of defeat under the onslaught of the Profanites, Giselle perfectly negated the Defiler but never attacked, and the Defiler continued to attack, free of fear of retaliation. In the meantime, their surroundings began to get corrupted as the laws around the Defiler changed into something else entirely... something hideous.

Fortunately, the Defiler could not corrupt the laws completely, only the ones near him. But if the Defiler was stronger, or the realm weaker, there was no telling what might happen.

Then... it finally happened. Giselle attacked. There was no apparent build up, no warning. One moment she danced through the onslaught, the next her body emitted a pulse - one that was unavoidable for any, including Lex.

The world seemed to slow down drastically, or maybe the flow of time affecting the surroundings slowed down, with only Giselle remaining unaffected. Taking advantage of the situation, Giselle stabbed her sword into the Defiler, an act that was completely useless under ordinary circumstances.

Yet as the sword cut into the Defilers body, it did not emerge from the back. Instead, it seemed to disappear inside him. It was almost as if... the sword itself was merely a container for a very powerful technique... a very powerful Lawcraft.