Lex was, as usual, cultivating in a tub of iced tea. Not only did the tea bath speed up his cultivation, it left his body smelling nice after he was done. In the past couple of weeks, his constant dedication had actually somewhat helped him make progress in the Foundation realm.
Today, however, while he was cultivating, he was hit with a sense of extreme danger! The danger was not external, but was a result of a disruption in his cultivation technique! Something had happened and before he could begin to comprehend it, there was an abrupt change in the amount of spirit energy his body was absorbing, causing the cultivation technique to immediately shut down.
Such a forceful interruption would normally be enough to completely rip away someone's meridians. Lex, however, managed to survive because of his incredibly sturdy body, as well as the fact that his meridians had been reforged out of metal. It still hurt like hell, though.
Though he managed to survive the disruption, his sense of danger did not disappear. Lex opened his eyes to find himself in a completely foreign place.
He was standing on a flat dirt road surrounded by the rubble of collapsed buildings. The sky was dark, as usual, but the familiar glint of starlight could be seen across the expanse. Lex was suddenly hit with a wave of nostalgia looking up at the heavens, but now was not the time to get lost in thought.
He turned around to his left and saw nothing more than rubble. Broken pieces of stone with rusted bits of metal sticking out of them sat in piles, undisturbed in this strange place for God knows how long. But it was not the rubble that Lex was looking at.
He was looking at the ground right before the rubble. No one was there, or at least, his eyes saw no one, but his gut was telling him otherwise. It told him there was a predator standing before him, and that he was in a situation he hadn't been in, in a long time. He was being hunted!
It was like when he was chased by zombies back on Vegus Minima, or the pack of wolves back on Nibiru. But there was one stark difference between now and then. It was that he was not afraid!
"How did I get here?" Lex asked, his voice calm and steady. Though he saw no one, his instincts had never been wrong before. Moreover, he had a pretty good idea of who he was about to meet. It was as if the gut feeling he had back when the lights failed was coming true.
His question was followed by silence for a few moments, but eventually he got a reply.
"This place is called Death Bubble. I can teleport anyone I target here, and then neither of us can leave until the other person dies."
A couple of moments later, a man appeared right where Lex was looking. He was pale and lanky, with short dark hair. His thin figure made him look malnourished, but his eyes were full of life. He grinned at Lex, revealing sharpened, yellow teeth.
"You're the first person to not panic at all when coming here," the murderer said in a gleeful voice.
𝒍𝓲𝒃𝙧𝒆𝒂𝒅.𝓬𝙤𝒎
"I'm used to teleporting," Lex replied plainly. Though he was standing still, it wasn't as if he was doing nothing. Lex's mind was running as fast as it could, and he was already making plans on how to kill the other.
"Good, good, you're strong. I've never killed a brave one before. This will be a new experience."
"Are you so sure that I'll be the one to die, and not you?"
"I'm very lucky. I wouldn't have met you if I couldn't kill you!" he answered excitedly, the saliva practically dripping from his lips.
Then the battle began.
The murderer stood still in front of Lex's eyes, but a figure appeared behind Lex silently and tried to stab his kidney.
Lex, who no longer only relied on his vision and sense of sound, was not taken by surprise and turned perfectly to avoid the dagger. At the same time, a small array of merely a few characters quickly formed in front of his left hand. Using the momentum from his turn Lex jabbed forward with his left hand aiming at the figure's neck, a small spear point blade of ice forming around his middle finger.
The figure, which was revealed to be the murderer, was surprised and could not react fast enough to avoid the jab. But, just as the small ice blade touched the murderer's neck something completely unexpected happened.
The rubble upon which Lexus was standing came loose, causing him to suddenly slip!
Lex lost his balance, causing his jab to miss and making him vulnerable once again to the killer.
A grin formed on the murderer's face as he realized what had happened and swung his dagger towards Lex. But while Lex could not dodge, he was not helpless.
Using his right hand, Lex used Talk to the hand, forming an invisible barrier which blocked the blade.
With his attack blocked, the murderer took a jump back to regroup and Lex quickly got up as well. Lex couldn't believe that he actually stumbled on some rumble, he normally wouldn't make a mistake like that.
The array he used earlier was one of the quickest and easiest arrays he memorized. It absorbed the moisture in the air to form a blade that was very sharp and sturdy. But because it was a very basic array, the blade did not have a proper grip, and would only sit on his finger when attacking directly straight.
If he tried a cutting or sweeping attack, the blade would fall off.
Still, the lethality of the blade should not be underestimated. Moreover, this was just one of the many arrays Lex memorized. Lastly, Lex had also gone a step beyond just memorization. He had formed a very simple system of his own to help him create new arrays on the fly. Since attacking with arrays was not hampered in any way by Regal Embrace, Lex's lethality had shot up.
Now, equipped with an arsenal of his own, Lex no longer waited for the murderer to attack again and took the initiative.
Two arrays began to quickly form, each in front of his hands. A ball of orange fire formed above his left hand and he used his right hand to aim at the murderer. Before the murderer could even react, the ball of fire went hurtling towards him at a speed too great to avoid.
This was the second time the murderer was taken by surprise, and didn't have time to react.
But, by sheer coincidence, a nearby ruin that had survived the untold number of years these ruins had existed broke, stimulated by the small vibrations of their fight. The wall fell down just perfectly to block the ball of fire before it reached the murderer, causing it to explode.
A cloud of dust exploded in the air, blocking Lex's sight and hiding the murderer behind its veil. When the dust cleared, the murderer had disappeared once more.
Lex could temporarily not locate him, most likely because he was no longer being blatantly targeted by the murderer.
He remained standing in place as he employed Ripple shell in case the murderer succeeded in landing a hidden blow, all the while trying to figure out what happened.Twice he nearly killed the murderer. He wouldn't be surprised if the murderer found some way to dodge or block the attack, but strange things kept happening to protect him.
Was this the murderers doing, or were they all coincidences? How was he supposed to overcome this?
A few ideas crossed Lex's mind and he began forming one of the larger arrays he knew. It would take a few seconds to ready, during which he would not be able to block so he needed to keep his wits about him.
His back tingled and he dodged to the side once again, just in time to see the murderer glaring at him, his earlier joy gone, slashing towards him with his knife.
"I will make your death slow," the murderer said between gritted teeth. He was genuinely afraid for his life for a moment. If his luck hadn't been so good, he would have died to that fire ball.
Angered by the retaliation, the murderer no longer cared about holding back, and used all the quest items his system had given him. It was lucky for him, they suited his attack pattern really well.
The murderer kept stabbing and swiping, showing a certain degree of amateurishness in his moves. But no matter how careless he seemed, he had too many kills under his belt for Lex to take him lightly, which is why he didn't dare take on his attacks directly.
Just as he was about to finish the array, he felt something stab him in the back. The sharp pain, that was far beyond anything it should have been, caused Lex to lose control of the array, causing a massive explosion.
More than the heat of the flame or the roar of thunder, it was the pressure of the explosion that rocked Lex. His body shot up into the air like a bullet, spinning and flipping like a gymnast giving his best performance.
It took a few seconds before the overwhelmed and dizzy Lex found a few moments of clarity, and a few seconds more before he was able to stabilize his body. In a heartbeat, he analyzed the damage to his body, and discovered, to his great surprise, that his back was completely unharmed. There was no stab wound, and the pain had completely disappeared, as if it was only his mind.
Other than that, though, he was not in his best state. The shockwave that passed through his body had rattled Lex to his bones, and though he was largely unhurt, the blatant flaw in his array plan hurt him more.
Deciding not to take any more chances, Lex decided to scrap every array he planned on using that would take more than 2 seconds to form. But before he could do anything to attack the murderer, he had to ensure he landed safely.
He formed quick and small arrays to immediately change his trajectory, in case the murderer had something planned for him where he would fall, and immediately slowed down his descent.
But changing the direction did not work, for the moment he landed on the floor, two stabbing pains shot up through his feet, as if he had landed straight into two pikes. Despite the experience from earlier, Lex couldn't help but look down to see that his feet were completely unharmed.
His back tingled, warning of an impending attack, but the pain in his feet and his knee-jerk reaction to investigate them wasted precious moments, making it so he couldn't retaliate like usual. Instead, he leaped forward and fell into a roll to get some distance.
But when he turned back, the murderer was not in sight.
Lex narrowed his eyes. As amateurish as he was in his attacks, the murderer wielded abilities that were genuine and quite lethal. By now Lex had understood that whenever he felt piercing pain, it was fake and served just as a distraction. But he dared not completely ignore the pain in case this was a feint, so that a real attack would follow when he learnt to expect nothing.
He had also somewhat gotten used to the murderer disappearing and consistently attacking from behind him. But even that he dared not get too comfortable with either.
But no matter what he did, Lex would not overcome him by waiting for him to attack first. He thought up a plan quickly and formed an array that caused fog to slowly accumulate at the knee level.
This way, he'd be able to determine as soon as the attacker attempted a single attack. He also formed another array, using the low level fog to hide a trap. But the effectiveness of the trap would depend on if the murderer continued to attack from the back, and the nature of the attack.
If he had managed to bring his thinking cap with him, he would have been able to use more complex and powerful traps, but alas life does not follow one's wishes.
His back tingled once again and, to hide the existence of the trap, Lex dodged normally and just as he turned around to look, his back tingled again.
This time the attack was too fast for him to dodge even with the warning, and something slammed into his back, throwing him onto the ground. The attack was not sharp and piercing, like he had been expecting from the knife. Instead, it was a large blunt force, as if he had been hit by a beanbag or something.
"You are nothing, idiot!" the murderer yelled, his voice filled with both anger and jubilation. "You are nothing. You are dead. All that remains is your final struggle."
Even disoriented, Lex was paying attention to his surroundings and the moment he located the direction the sound was coming from he fired off another fireball. But this time no accident happened to block the attack, and the murderer himself dodged it easily.
Yet when he turned to Lex to gloat, he was startled to find a flaming man walking his way. Lex had actually lit himself on fire!
This was not a diversionary tactic. Instead, Lex was acting off of his instincts. He felt that some kind of goo had latched onto his body where he had been hit earlier, and the goo was alive and trying to penetrate his skin! He felt actual, genuine danger for his life from the goo.
But the information provided by his instincts was jumbled and vague, he could only determine that the goo was alive, and that it would not come off his skin easily now that it had latched on.
So, taking advantage of his body's toughness, Lex lit himself on fire using an array.
But that was not all. More than pain, Lex felt a minor sense of humiliation at having to rely on having to light himself on fire. This feeling of humiliation came from a recent sense of pride that had planted itself in Lex as he overcame so many trials. Now this pride was fueling a flame much brighter than the one covering his body, and it sent Lex's mind into a state of overdrive.
It was similar to the sense of 'flow' that Lex used to get, but much greater, and with far fewer restrictions. Not only did his mind work faster to absorb all the information his various senses and instincts were providing him, he could almost split his mind into two. He could focus a majority of his attention on a certain task while leaving a portion of his thoughts to focus on a separate task without compromising the quality of work.
Moreover, the boost in his thought process was dozens of times greater than when he used the crown made by the crystal race, or even when he used to enter the state of flow before he entered the Foundation realm.
This boost would have been great if Lex had anticipated it. Since Lex did not anticipate it, and was caught in the state unaware, all his extra mental energy was focused on his anger at the murderer.
Lex used the technique he hadn't used a single time since he learnt it, Home Sweet Home, and, in a burst of speed, barely comprehensible, arrived before the murder in the blink of an eye and slammed his burning body right into him!
Burned and crushed, the murderer's body was flung away but Lex caught his ankle, keeping him from flying away!
With a furious bellowing roar Lex slammed his body into the ground and put his flaming foot on his chest. He aimed his array at the murderer's face and launched a flame ball at him.
But, just as the flame ball was about to hit him, the ground beneath him collapsed, revealing a sinkhole, moving his body out of the way.
Lex immediately absorbed a lot of information and quickly drew the conclusion that for nonlethal attacks, there would be no accidents, but as soon as he tried to kill the murderer, something would prevent it.
A few theories propped into his mind, but before he could try them out, the murderer let out an angry yelp as he dangled over the sinkhole and disappeared right from within his hand.
Lex squinted his eyes as he drew another conclusion. The murderer was not turning invisible but disappearing entirely, or teleporting somewhere else.
Lex formed two more arrays, entirely ignoring the fact that he was still on fire and the goo that had latched onto his shoulder had been completely burnt off by now.
The two arrays took him 2.4 seconds to form, even in his overdrive state. But, once they were completed a surge of spiritual energy started flowing around him, spinning in a circle.
His burning body acted like a flint, and lit up the energy into a fiery tornado that began expanding outwards, quickly burning everything it touched.
This attack would reveal the limitations of the murderers teleportation if there were any. Well, it could not entirely test the limitation of his ability, but Lex would eliminate them one by one.
In only a few moments the tornado had spread across half the visible land and continued to grow when, spontaneously and without warning, a burning meteor fell from the sky!
The meteor crashed into the ground some distance from Lex, causing a massive explosion that startled even Lex. He quickly deployed Talk to the Hand, using both his hands to block the aftermath of the clash between the fiery tornado and meteor!
Cracks formed in the invisible shield, but it ultimately held until the force of the explosion passed, leaving in its wake a site fit for armageddon. Only two small patches of land seemed unharmed - one behind Lex's shield, and another, conveniently blocked by a massive rock that jutted into the ground.
Behind that rock stood the murderer, panting and in pain. Though his ears were ringing, the murderer managed to hear a small sound. When he looked up to investigate he saw a flaming Lex, looking down at him from the top of the rock, like a King about to sentence one to death.
Before the murderer could cry out or yell, Lex smashed his body into him using Home Sweet Home once again. The fire on Lex's body had gone out but the one in his heart was raging on as he continued to attack relentlessly.
Letting go of arrays, Lex used his bare fists to beat his body into submission. Since fatal attacks would trigger the coincidences, Lex aimed only to cripple him. Punch after punch landed on the murderer's skinny body, breaking it bit by bit. Compared to other body cultivators Lex's strength may not be as impressive, but to a person who was not a body cultivator, each of Lex's punches was like being smashed by a wrecking ball.
Unable to retaliate or even avoid, the murderer disappeared once again. But the ruins had been completely destroyed by the blast, eliminating all hiding spots. The moment Lex climbed up onto the big rock, he could easily see the collapsed body of the murderer in the distance. Not interested in giving him any time to retaliate, Lex dashed towards him once again.
But the murderer had been pushed to the brink of desperation by Lex's relentless assault, and he began mindlessly using anything and everything in his arsenal. A blue bubble appeared around his body just in time to stop Lex, causing him to crash head first into it.
Unable to stop in time, Lex's body hit the bubble hard, and fell back with a strong rebound. His nose broke and started bleeding.
Even in his state of anger, a part of himself could not stop himself from commenting on the irony that the greatest wounds he'd suffered so far were self-inflicted.
The murderer was not interested in Lex's self depreciation as he began to spend his Murder Points, or MP, to buy everything available to him. Mannequins started appearing out of thin air, all holding blades similar to the murderer, all looking at Lex with dark eyes.
When 109 such mannequins appeared, they attacked Lex in unison. Their coordination was immaculate, and it was as if a higher power was controlling each of their movements. Each of their attacks were smoother and deadlier than the murderers, though Lex could detect a hint of similarity in their attack patterns.
Still, none of it mattered. Something as simple and straightforward as physical attacks could not overwhelm Lex unless there was a massive difference in speed and strength, which there was not.
Guided by his instincts, Lex dodged so smoothly and seemingly effortlessly that were anyone to see it, it would seem that Lex and the mannequins were working together to purposefully avoid him. It was like he decided where he would move to dodge before they even decided to attack, and it was more or less exactly what was happening.
𝙡𝒊𝒃𝓻𝒆𝒂𝓭.𝙘𝓸𝓶
This was a result of a flaw due to how perfect their coordination was. That perfect coordination made it so that their next moves became predictable, even to the point where, in his overdrive state, Lex was able to determine what would happen four or five moves ahead.
Lex was moving as fast as he possibly could, but at the same time he was under no pressure. This allowed him to begin forming arrays to deal with the mannequins.
But the murderer was not done either, as he had killed enough people to accumulate quite a bit of MP.
A mannequin was hovering over him, healing his broken body while two, much more intimidating ones stood around him as guards. Moreover, armor filled with metal spikes slowly appeared around the murderer's body.
At a small distance, dirt from the ground was automatically piling up on itself, forming some kind of massive monster.
Up in the sky, the starlight was blocked by thunder clouds that were beginning to form.
All of this was taken in by Lex, even though he was busy dodging the mannequins. He did not know how the murderer was suddenly doing all these things but it was best to let him fully prepare.
His mind went through the various arrays he memorized, but none were suitable for the situation. He also didn't want to risk using Evisceration, as while he had increased his mastery over the technique, with the unusual coincidences happening, Lex didn't want to risk it. If the coincidence went from blocking the attack to somehow interrupting Lex's Evisceration, the result would be catastrophic.
He took a deep breath just as the arrays he was forming ended. The ground trembled and hundreds of sharp earthen spikes erupted from the ground, impaling most of the mannequins.
It was time to employ the rest of Lex's preparation with arrays. The conundrum of forming new arrays to match various situations was an extremely difficult one. If he had time it was not an issue, but in the heat of battle it was not possible.
So, Lex found a loophole using his knowledge of programming, and the unique connecting method employed in the Crystal realm for their arrays. It would somewhat diminish the power of the arrays, but it was good enough as it provided versatility.
Lex memorized over a hundred, extremely small arrays that performed very simple and basic tasks. He originally wanted to call them 'functions' but ended up just calling them letters. The reason for this was because the concept he was working towards was combining the various small arrays in the way letters combine to form words, and then words combine to form sentences.
Combining the so-called 'letters' was still not exactly straight forward, for even language has rules about how the alphabets behave let alone something as complex as arrays. Yet the concept of joining many small arrays to form one big array was too attractive to overlook, and much easier to design.
What he needed now was immense, concentrated fire power and so he began forming just such an array. At his current speed, within 1 second he could form up to 10 mini-arrays with the function of gathering heat. For the array he had planned he would need hundreds of such arrays, so he couldn't wait and began immediately.
A few seconds went by when the murderer realized that Lex was not attacking, as he usually did, and was instead preparing something.
"Attack!" he roared to his final two mannequins that acted as his bodyguards, as well as the arachnid shaped dirt monster. "Attack! Attack! ATTACK! KILL HIM FOR ME!"
A sharp, piercing pain stabbed him directly through the eyes and into his brain, but Lex did not even flinch in his overdrive state. Pain meant absolutely nothing to him right now.
The mannequins reached him in the blink of an eye, these ones armed with a sword and shield each. They were also much faster, and much stronger than the previous ones. Truly, they were formidable foes. Well, they were formidable if their opponent wasn't Lex.
With the forewarning from his instincts, Lex dodged each attack easily. In fact, Lex did not even look away from the murderer as he casually avoided each swing of the mannequin's sword.
The dirt monster, 12 feet (3.65 meters)tall, also arrived and started smashing at Lex with its numerous legs. It was not as fast as the other two, but it was much stronger. Dirt and rubble flew into the air under the explosion caused by its massive legs, yet Lex was as elusive as the wind.
A hint of fear crept into the murderer's mind as he observed Lex who never broke eye contact. But the fear was followed quickly by madness. He joined his hands together forming a strange symbol and began reciting some unusual prayer.
From the moment he uttered the first syllable, Lex felt the danger around him increase, and he knew he could waste no more time. Whatever he was doing had to be stopped! But his array was not ready either. It would take a few more seconds.
The duel suddenly turned into a lethal waiting game, and whoever struck first would gain the advantage. Normally Lex might have felt nervous under so much pressure, but his overdrive state allowed him maximum control of his every thought. Nervousness was not a useful emotion right now, so it would never be activated.
Of course, a part of his also had to do with the fact that Lex's mind had been flooded with pride and anger.
Just as 2 seconds were all that remained for Lex's array to be complete, he dodged his attackers and rushed towards the murderer. A monster that had previously not existed suddenly appeared in front of Lex, blocking him.
Unwilling to change his actions, Lex used Home Sweet Home and continued in a straight line. Either he would tear through the monster's body, or take him along with him.
But how could a monster formed from dirt be sturdy enough to block Lex.
Bursting right through the monster's chest, Lex appeared before the blue bubble that blocked the murderer and aimed his right palm at him. Even Lex was interested to see what kind of coincidence could block him now.