The Innkeeper

Daekol found it hard to believe, but he was forced to nevertheless. The human had somehow found a way back. He clearly had countless contingencies in place, proving that he was a formidable enemy that should not be underestimated. If that wasn’t the case, he would not have survived, and he certainly would not have been able to take back his body despite all of his preparations.

Daekol did not get angry, though admittedly he did feel frustration at his repeated failures. He suppressed that frustration as quickly as it appeared, however. Instead, he used the momentary respite to analyse the situation and discover his mistake.

From the start, it seemed like his greatest mistake was to underestimate the human. It seemed to Daekol that the human had anticipated that Daekol would underestimate him, and used that to his own advantage.

Since that was the case, he would no longer make the same mistake. All it took was a split second for Daekol to analyse why everything had gone wrong, and to fix the mistake. He would no longer try to take control of the system. Instead, he would use the human to stabilize the leaking Primordial energy within his own system, and once that was done, he would...

No, if he used the human to fix the Primordial energy, he’d have to give back the access to his own system, which was dangerous. In that case, he’d need to suffer a loss and accept that he couldn’t get the optimal outcome from this system. Still, just by selling it to the system-hunter groupchat, he could make a significant profit and upgrade his own system that way.

Such a path would give him the least benefits, but that was, ultimately the result of something the human had forced upon Daekol. Respect. The humans incessant attempts to interfere with Daekol’s plans, to the point of success, had earned Daekol’s respect.

Only the strong deserved respect, and at that point they warranted caution too. Daekol had grand ambitions in life, and he would not let paltry things such as arrogance and greed bar his path.

Daekol looked at the human, his face slowly being reconstructed, and then up in the sky. For the first time since targeting Lex, Daekol finally encountered something that caused him to pause.

"Did you... use a tribulation to find your real body? And you triggered it?" Daekol asked, feeling profound confusion. "Before initiating a big fight against me, a fight you have already lost once, you felt like triggering a tribulation that would only make it that much harder for you to fight?"

In truth, Daekol didn’t really care if Lex did stupid things. The issue was... if Lex died during the tribulation, then the system would be lost! Was this... the ultimate contingency? To what extremes was the human willing to go?

Daekol’s evaluation of Lex shot through the roof as he realized that he was not fighting a mere human, but a genuinely formidable enemy!

Lex, meanwhile, was not even considering the tribulation as a serious threat at all. The reason his face was damaged was not because of the lightning, but because of the damned necklace! In a way, it could be stated that it was not the tribulation, but Lex himself who blew half his face off!

He’d even been through a damn, Primordial Major tribulation. How could an ordinary Major tribulation even register as a threat to him any more?

"What the hell are you talking about? Using tribulations to fight is my signature move," said Lex with a smile, looking particularly terrifying with half his skull exposed. "I must really thank you for taking such good care of my body while I was away. Allow me to share some of my hospitality with you."

Daekol was no longer listening. He was calculating the perfect battle strategy to incorporate the tribulation into his own attacks to target Lex and...

Daekol’s eyes narrowed when he realized that he lost sight of Lex. Out of sheer instinct, he dodged just in time to avoid the razor edge of Naraka, keeping his neck. Honestly, a simple sword should not have been enough to cut him so he didn’t know why his instincts had warned him.

No, he did know. Lex was clearly much stronger than before.

Daekol threw out all unnecessary thoughts and focused on the goal.

"Slow," he commanded using his Sovereign authority to influence Lex, but something unexpected happened. Instead of Lex slowing down, a strange red tint spread out from Lex’s body enveloping the entire region.

"Kneel," Lex commanded using Supremacy, alongside the fake Sovereign authority he had within this superimposed realm. His command, with the impact of a sledge hammer, crashed into Daekol’s body and caused him to temporarily feel weak in his knees. Without even realizing it, he had almost kneeled!

Shock finally appeared for the first time within Daekol, yet there was no time to dwell on it for Lex, unfortunately, no longer planned on savoring this battle as much as he had originally wanted to. With Z’s whereabouts unknown, and the condition of the Inn in question, he could not justify wasting time beating up a stalker.

Lex teleported right in front of Daekol, his hand already grasping his stalker’s neck. After working on Lex’s body for so long, he had developed an immense amount of karma with Lex, and now all of it was going to be used against him.

Daekol could not see, but in Lex’s eyes there were countless threads between him and his stalker. Each one of those threads was a weapon in Lex’s hand.

"Are you ready?" asked Lex as he raised Daekol’s body up in the air. "Try to put up some resistance. It would be a shame if I prepared so much to face you, and you end up not being worth it at all."

Before Daekol could respond in any way, the next lightning bolt from Lex’s tribulation struck down, slamming through Daekol’s body.

That... was much too fast for a normal tribulation. Ordinarily, the tribulation needed to build up energy for each strike. This time, however, Lex personally collected so much energy for the tribulation to strike him with.

Moreover, since the tribulation judged that Daekol was interfering with Lex’s tribulation, it increased its lethality by a lot. Normally, he’d be able to use his Sovereign authority to avoid this kind of disaster, but the red tint coming from Lex’s body seemed to be suppressing his Sovereign nature.

Daekol narrowed his eyes and ignored the damage he had accumulated. Instead, he pulled out his weapon, a large sledge hammer the same size as his body. This had long since transcended the point of being a joke.

Author’s Note:Many readers are confused so I thought I’d reiterate this within the text of the Chapter. Innkeeper release is 2 Chapters on weekdays, 1 Chapter on weekends, all released at 1 am + 8 GMT time (or 1 hour after reset on web.novel). Also, I usually leave a message in the discord if the Chapter will release later than scheduled.

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