The Innkeeper

Chapter 1248  Time limit

Lotus had accompanied Lex for a long time, and had played a significant part in Lex's journey. Before anything else, Lotus was the first one to evolve Lex's body, making him stronger and more durable than others in his realm, which was a quality that continued throughout his realms. n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

There were times it cured poisons, not only in Lex but in others as well, absorbing excess energy to prevent Lex from blowing up, and countless other times it had been extremely useful.

It was kind of sad to see him go, but at the same time it obviously wouldn't live with Lex all its life either. At least since they were bonded, they could stay connected, and continue to benefit each other.

Initially, that's what Lex thought. In fact, Lotus had only been even more helpful to Lex since it left his body and drastically increased the feedback Lex got from him. Lotus, due to the immense amount of energy contained within the realm that it was trying to fuse with, spent more time lucid as well, and Lex had taken time to chat with him every now and then.

Lotus was incredibly powerful, but its greatest ability as far as Lex was concerned was directly turning energy into matter.

That was one of the most broken abilities Lex had ever even heard of, and its applications were limitless.

Lotus, being a baby, could not articulate how he used the ability, so it just proposed that Lex can just try using the ability himself. Since they were bonded, Lotus could share its ability with Lex temporarily.

Naturally, Lex was interested, but they discovered that as powerful as Lex's body was, it could not sustain the pressure of Lotus' ability. Despite his affinity for countless laws, and ability to bear immense pressure, there were just some things a mortal body could not do.

Now, that was no longer a concern.

Double lightning strikes struck Lex's body, but he did not even flinch, nor did his body burn like it used to. Instead, the lotus tattoo started to form quicker than before, as if it had gained more energy.

The final immortal who had long been prepared to pull Lex into their next attack finally struck. He wanted to pull Lex into a special illusion, formed using incredibly potent laws, strengthened through the use of some valuable treasures.

Yet the moment his attack struck Lex, the immortal suddenly paled and coughed out blood. One of his tenets, the one he had used to conjure the illusion, ruptured. It was as if he tried to touch one of the deeper laws of the universe - the ones that Earth Immortals were unqualified to come into contact with.

No one understood what happened or why, but the feeling Lex was giving off was no longer in the bounds of a mere Earth Immortal. Lex's eye's flashed open and looked towards the immortal who had tried to attack him.

Lex could feel that he could, at most, maintain his lotus tattoo for three seconds with his current energy levels. After that he would be entirely drained of energy and completely incapable of fighting.

Lex realized that even the Earth Immortal realm was not enough to make use of Lotus' ability to create matter out of energy. But that didn't matter, for even entering this state was a huge advantage for him for one single reason.

He was like a sponge for almost any kind of energy at all. He could absorb them without any reservation, and use it to maintain his lotus tattoo. This included any and all attacks targeting him. He was also better able to manifest his status equivalent to a sentient, budding new realm, which was the reason all the immortals felt pressured around him. It was actually the pressure of someone far superior to them on the Cosmic Ascendance Spectrum.

Lex could no longer teleport, it consumed too much energy, so instead he dashed towards the injured immortal and grabbed him. Too weak from his recent injury to escape, and too suppressed from Lex's aura to resist, the immortal could only watch as Lex grabbed him.

Then… then Lex discovered another way to kill immortals.

Constrained by his rapidly dwindling energy reserves, Lex made use of another, minor ability he gained as a result of the tattoo, which was to suck the energy out of anything he touched. In less than half a second, the immortal was drained of all his energy, becoming a literal husk.

His tenets withered out and his soul just… it just extinguished. Lex, on the other hand, gained three more seconds of energy to sustain his tattoo, bringing him to a total of five and a half.

"We need to abort the mission," one immortal said as he retreated, but suddenly found a barrier restricting him. It was not one of Lex's shields that blocked them. Rather, it was Jeffreys.

The moment Lex began to emit his dangerous aura, the Wyvern did not hesitate at all. It erected a massive barrier around his comrades and saluted them for their sacrifice of buying him time.

Lex, who was feeding on and could feel Jeffrey's desperation and fear, smiled. Under a rain of lightning strikes, he discovered yet another way to kill an immortal. Empowered by the lotus tattoo, Lex discovered that his physical strength transcended to another realm altogether.

All it would take was one slap to completely overpower any laws connected to an immortal, preventing them from using any laws that would allow them to recover from the complete and total obliteration of their body. It also prevented them from saving their souls at the last moment, transferring it from their existing body to the new one.

Ten seconds later, even though he had plenty of energy left, the lotus tattoo faded on its own. It seemed like he could not escape the time constraint in the end, but that was still good enough.

Wiping the sweat off his brow, Lex turned towards where Jeffrey ran. It was time to follow him.

Up above, in the sky, the final bolt of his fourth tribulation had already turned into a lightning beast, but it had not attacked Lex yet. Instead, with eyes filled with intelligence, it looked at the clouds for the fifth tribulation to end, so that it could accompany a partner.