The Innkeeper

As Z picked himself up off the ground, dirt and rocks falling off his body, the background music started to change. It went from fast paced and energetic to solemn and powerful.

Inspired by anime, Z had decided his path to power long ago. Unlike Lex, who took the best of every opportunity he faced and absorbed it to make it his own, Z merely took inspiration from all external sources, and instead focused on refining himself to the utmost.

So while Lex developed a dragon’s heart, Z made his own stronger. While Lex learned the sword technique given to him by a Dao Lord, Z only took inspiration from the legacy of the human king. While Lex…

The list went on, but in essence, Z walked his own, individual path. It could not be said that any one path was better than the other – just that they were different.

Having taken inspiration from anime, as well as the Devils who spent the most time inside the Inn, Z decided that he needed to have many forms, each stronger than the one before. Yet one could not just have another form because they wanted to. So he devised a way in which he could.

Gathering momentum was the first step, using that momentum to transform was the next. Obviously if he had more time to gather momentum, the transformation would be even greater.

In truth, this was not technically a flaw in Z’s technique. After all, fights between immortals could go on for days if not weeks or months. A fight that lasted just a few minutes was exceptionally rare, for they would have incredible vitality that was not easy to get rid of, not to mention the vast amounts of power.

Lex’s fights with immortals were the exception, not the norm among immortal fights. The locusts, who were mindless creatures that could not wield laws with any level of expertise, were still easier to kill despite their innate qualities.

The dark knight, however, not only had formidable strength, his very armor influenced the laws, allowing him to wield a limited number of laws with greater expertise than Z. Ordinarily, against such an opponent, a long fight would be required.

But as Lex pointed out, the situation didn’t allow for a drawn out fight. Z would have to use some extreme measures. There could be no growth without discomfort.

Unlike Lex and Velma, Z didn’t only have just one tenet. Instead, he had a number of tenets, yet their essence was fairly simple. It was, perhaps, an idea even more bold than Lex’s tenet for supremacy.

Z’s tenets revolved around the idea that whatever he did was the right and correct way of doing things!

That is why when he started to use hand symbols, inspired by an anime about ninja that he saw, his tenets began to work, and the laws were being influenced. Technically using one’s tenet did not require any physical movement or change, but since Z believed that using his hand signs improved the power of his tenets, and whatever he did was clearly right, that’s exactly what they did!

As the music reached a crescendo, a purple lightning bolt fell from the sky and slammed into Z! Yet instead of suffering as a result of the lightning strike, a purple aura became visible around Z, and his long blonde hair stood up straight.

Purple lightning flashed in his eyes as he looked at the black knight, and like a flash of lightning, Z disappeared. He was so fast even Lex lost track of him, an incredible feat.

But a loud, thunderous boom quickly informed everyone of Z’s location. He had appeared right before the black knight, punching him straight in the face.

Space rippled from the enormity of the power unleashed and the ground erupted underneath the black knight, yet that was not even where the real strength of his punch was focused.

The real battle was between the laws that Z was using, and the laws within the knights black armor.

Laws made up everything that existed within the universe, and immortals could influence those laws to behave as they wished. At the Earth Immortal level, it was still only influence, and never completely control.

The true clash between the dark knight, and the now clad in purple aura Z, was directly between their laws. Z was trying to break the influence that the armor had on laws, which was much harder than it seemed.

With every attack, with every technique, Z tried to whittle down the armor’s influence on the laws, while the dark knight tried to shatter Z’s tenets! It was an incredibly dangerous way to fight, and not usually how immortals fought. It was too risky.

Lex, who was observing the fight, suddenly gained enlightenment about how he could improve his defense by imbuing it with laws, just like that armor. The laws need not be relevant to defense at all. They need not even be used. Their very existence will make the defense much harder to break due to how stable laws themselves were.

Conversely, it would similarly be difficult to imbue those laws to begin with.

A new bead appeared above the Go board, but this one was not the normal, round bead that Lex usually summoned. Instead, it was in the shape of a shield, and Lex instinctively knew that the ten tiles around this bead could never be attacked by the Rook piece, or any other piece!

He immediately placed it near the few beads he had placed on the board, protecting them, and gaining new insight into the fight he was having in his mind. But he didn’t have time to dwell on that.

“Luthor, we have more guests. Make sure they don’t disturb Z. Go to the Great Hall and try out the weapons that were installed in the walls.”

From afar, he could see a new tide of locusts appear, and leading them seemed to be what Kaemon called a king locust.

They were the perfect opponents to test out exactly how strong the castle really was.