The Innkeeper

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.

"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.