The Innkeeper

Chapter 2009: Research

All the bounty hunters who had gathered to hunt down Lex were searching outside the barrier for the enemy attack, so when Lex attacked from right in front of them, they were not prepared. The truth was, they had been sold the information in bad faith.

There were a lot of forces which had begun to conspire against Lex. Since the Midnight Inn itself was outside the scope of their reach, then their external assets came under scrutiny. Among those assets, Lex was the most well known. In fact, he himself had attracted enough enmity that there were even those targeting him for his own sake, rather than because of the Midnight Inn.

These forces, the ones targeting Lex, understood him a lot better than the ones searching for him for the reward of the puny bounty he had acquired as a serial kidnapper. How could someone suspected of being an heir, or at least apprentice of such a mysterious Dao Lord, be weak? Or, at the very least, be without sufficient protection.

These forces were sure that the Innkeeper was not secretly protecting Lex for one, very simple reason. Lex himself had stated time and time again that the Innkeeper wanted him to resolve his personal issues himself. Such an attitude may seem like he was out of favor with the Innkeeper to those who did not understand Dao Lords. To those in the know, however, this was an indication that the Innkeeper thought Lex had the potential to one day touch upon the Dao.

Of course, even that was not something they could be entirely sure of, which is why it was necessary to test Lex - to probe his strengths, and his secrets. These bounty hunters, then, became that probe.

Even as Lex attacked, he could pick up signs and hints of a greater conspiracy. Unfortunately, whoever was behind it knew how to conceal their traces, and so Lex could not track the karma back to them. That, however, was a concern for a later date.

Lex’s first two moves, his Domination and his sword attack, had nearly wiped out the invading forces. Of the ones who remained, the truly troublesome ones were the Celestial Immortals and perhaps the peak Heaven Immortals. That is why, for now, all Lex aimed to do was restrict them. As it turned out, Lex was an expert at that as well.

All his experience in creating seals for his own cultivation had taught him a tremendous amount about sealing cultivation, so the moment his sword intent cut into any target, it also began leaving behind small seals in their bodies, aiming to directly seal their cultivation.

Of course, these seals were not a significant obstacle. Some effort from a Celestial Immortal would easily break it, while a Heaven Immortal would only need to focus on it for a few seconds to break them. But when in a battle against Lex, what was the difference between a few seconds and death?

"What the hell is going on?" one of the Celestials screamed as he unleashed his full power, unwilling to hold back in the slightest. This was not how a battle between Immortals was supposed to go. It was not supposed to be this easy to kill immortals. It was not!

So then why was reality betraying them? Simply because they had chosen the wrong foe to hunt.

In but a blink of an eye, in the mere few seconds that the Celestials had been held back, a majority of their forces were destroyed. All that remained of their original attacking force were the crumbling remains of once mighty ships, the floating corpses of those whose karma was sinful, and the unconscious bodies of the prisoners Lex would interrogate. Of course, there were also them.

Six Celestial immortals, and eleven peak Heaven Immortals had survived the initial onslaught.

"I sincerely hope all six of you focus on different ruling laws," Lex said as he studied the remaining six Celestial Immortals. His words, of course, only enraged the Celestials further.

"Do you think this is a game? Do you think you will get out of this alive? I will make you suffer in ways you never even thought possible!" one of the Celestials roared at him as he unleashed his attack.

"Do your worst," responded Lex casually as he summoned a barrier that blocked the Celestials attack entirely, focusing the weight of his Domination into his gaze as he looked upon them. "Put in everything you have. My research won’t be complete if my data is lacking."

Though Lex taunted them, he was not taking them lightly. Though he appeared to stand casually in front of them, baiting them, in truth he was doing quite a lot.

With Domination in his gaze, constantly keeping his enemies pressured, he used his right eye to constantly construct arrays and formations all around them, both attacking his enemies and defending him.

With curses, attacks, and seals raining down on them, the bounty hunters felt like they were facing an army, not a single man. Yet they had no time to feel horrified at their newfound reality, so they unleashed their most powerful lawcrafts - just as Lex wanted.

After all, he was simultaneously using his left eye to study their laws, their lawcrafts, and everything in between.

Oh, while doing all of that, he was also working on his latest Lawcraft. One of his favourite attacks from when he started cultivation was called Evisceration. It was an attack shot out from the eyes, and it targeted the soul. Back then, it was an overpowered attack, and it felt cool too.

Now, soul based attacks weren’t a big deal. So, Lex decided to make a Lawcraft version of Evisceration. Instead of attacking the soul, it would attack something far more critical - it would attack the very core of what connected his opponents to laws. For humans, that would be tenets, for beasts, it would be a core part of their bloodline, something that existed both in their bodies and souls. For other races, it would be other things, but whatever it was, that’s what he would target.

He had not named it yet, but this was going to be his one-hit kill move, or at least that’s what he had in mind while creating the technique. It would take a long time to use, since he needed to use his left eye to lock in on the targeted spot, as well as gather sufficient energy, as well as control the relevant laws.

This was only his first test run of his new lawcraft.