The Innkeeper

Chapter 1967: Fighting fists with his face

"I hope Lex doesn’t get into any fights while he’s here," said Serene as they traveled. "Fighting under the influence of the limiter is tricky, and far from as straight forward as people assume. He might not bode so well if no one tells him to effectively use his power despite the limiter."

"You’re over imagining things again," said Leon dismissively. "Belle is the one who picks fights everywhere, not Lex. He’s a very relaxed person - I’m sure he’s more likely to make friends than enemies here."

"You’re not wrong," Serene said. "But the cultivation world is different from what he’s used to. My poor boy, I hope no one tries to swindle him. His heart is too pure for his own good."

Both Serene and Leon sighed simultaneously, worrying about their little boy. Of course, he was not so little anymore, and he had been surviving on his own for countless years now already, but in their minds he would always remain a little kid.

Meanwhile, in Pink Top Mountain, Lex was using his face to beat Diyor’s fists. Or was it the other way around?

"Goddamit, what the hell are you made of?" Diyor exclaimed as he pulled back his bleeding hands, but he was too slow. Lex headbutted his hand once more, nearly turning it into minced meat.

Lex, normally, would have taken this opportunity to infuriate his opponent to death, but he was himself too irritated to do so. Fighting someone with a higher power percentage than him turned out to be a whole lot more complicated than Lex anticipated.

Sure, he knew it would be hard. In fact, he fully expected that Arch-Heaven would grossly side with Diyor. But was it really so necessary to add so much math into the equation?

Both of them only had a certain percentage of their power, yes. Theoretically, though, even with a lower percentage, Lex should be more powerful than Diyor if his base power was greater. That meant that Lex’s 11% was stronger than Diyor’s 14%. This was not complicated so far.

The issue was that for every percentage point that Diyor was higher, the effectiveness of his power against Lex grew exponentially. That meant that if Diyor had an advantage of 1% point, the effectiveness might be raised by 5. Yet if he had an advantage of 2 points, instead of the effectiveness being 10, it was more along the lines of 12.

In short, even though Lex was technically stronger with a weaker power percentage, effective application of that power was being limited.

Fine. Lex could accept that Arch-Heaven was rewarding a higher power percentage with benefits. It would only entice its residents to strive for greater power percentages, thereby furthering Arch-Heaven’s own agenda willingly.

What irritated the heck out of Lex was that the application of his own 11% power was not even across the board. Meaning, he did not have 11% of his total strength, and 11% of his total defense, and 11% of his speed and so on. Instead, all his power was considered one whole, and of it, Lex got 11%. As it happened, now that he was actually fighting, he realized that the 11% he actually got was how tough his own body was, with scarcely any strength to back it up.

In essence, Lex was a walking, talking, indestructible punching bag. In fact, due to just how tough he really was, Lex did more damage to Diyor by letting Diyor punch Lex than by actually attacking himself.

Thus, against this insane, brainwashed cultist, Lex ended up facing the most frustrating fight of his life. What was absurd was that the enhancement Diyor got was actually working against him, because the harder he hit Lex, the more damage Diyor himself suffered, while Lex remained entirely unharmed.

"What’s the matter? Why are you running away"? Lex yelled as he chased Diyor and his bleeding fists. "Come one, attack me. Attack me one more time."

"Get away from me you freak!" Diyor yelled as he ran, feeling even more frustrated and helpless than Lex himself. This was not how the fight was supposed to go. What was even more frustrating was that the longer he spent fighting Lex, the greater the chances that he would fail in his trial to attain an official position.

For a brief period, they reached an impasse with Lex unable to catch Diyor, and Diyor unwilling to face Lex directly. But it did not last long.

Lex noticed something peculiar happening. Diyor’s power percentage dropped by 0.5%, yet the structure of his power changed. Just as Lex had all his power concentrated in his body’s toughness, Diyor must have had his power stuck in some areas that were unuseful. Yet as it underwent a change, Lex detected divine energy beginning to fill Diyor.

At that point, he finally turned around and faced Lex once more. This time, with the blessing of the Deity he worshipped he attacked Lex, and a miracle happened. Even though he was nowhere near strong enough to harm Lex’s body, his attack managed to injure him.

"You see, you sacrilegious vermin. The might of the lady is beyond your fathoming, and your meager abilities will not help you now," Diyor yelled as he launched a deadly counterattack, leaving numerous traces all over his body.

Yet Lex was not worried about failure just yet. Instead, all his focus was on studying Diyor, and understanding what had just happened. The meager pain he felt from Diyor’s attacks was not enough to seriously harm or worry him.

This led to an unusual result. Diyor was the one attacking, and Lex was the one suffering, yet Lex’s unwavering stoicism and complete lack of regard for his injuries made the situation weird. In fact, Diyor started to even feel... a hint of fear. No matter how he cut, how he injured, how he faced Lex, Lex did not slow down, or even seem distracted at all.

The more it was like this, the more Diyor began to fear Lex, and when the fear appeared, Lex noticed something.

Some of his powers... seemed to be working fine, as if they had not been suppressed by Arch-Heaven at all. His ability to accumulate divine energy through fear and the spread of his legend was one of the abilities that seemed unaffected by Arch-Heaven, he simply didn’t notice before since it seemed invalid.

Now, though, Lex had a few more ideas he wanted to try.