The Innkeeper

Lex was feeling good after showing off in front of the kids, but he did not let his success or growth get to his head. The Dark Knight was not nearly as weak as Lex made it appear to be. The fact that his strength had been rising evenly to match Z meant that either he was holding back, or he was growing rapidly. The fact that he could continuously come back to life also played in his favor a great deal.

Logically, it made more sense to seal and imprison him than kill him, but Lex had not been lying when he said he wanted to study the dark knight. Before killing him, Lex had left a mark in his spirit and hoped to follow it to see what happened to it. While it worked initially, and Lex was able to track his spirit as it evaporated, the experiment quickly came to an end as something cleansed his existence by marinating it in with the avarice of Abaddon.

Facing the knight was a calculated risk he was taking, but of course he could never let his opponent know that Lex was taking him seriously. Making the knight assume that Lex was arrogant due to his strength was a purposeful act on Lex’s part so that he would never actually anticipate the depth of the precautions Lex was taking.

A lifetime of ending up in an immense amount of trouble had taught him exactly how to avoid being caught unaware - as much as his own abilities allowed.

Despite the relatively comfortable time they spent in the jungle, everyone was happy to leave it behind, for more than one reason. As soon as they were far enough from the jungle where it was no longer visible on the horizon, the flow of time in Abaddon once again began to fluctuate, changing from one moment to another. Generally, though, it was much faster than the flow of time in the Midnight Realm.

The absence of the jungle also brought back the many dangers of Abaddon. There was no warning save what his instincts gave him, meaning Lex had plenty of warning. Even then, he did nothing.

The ground erupted revealing a large tentacle made entirely of bones, reaching out into the sky like a tower. Though the tentacle had no mouth on it, as far as Lex could see, it screamed before curling and then throwing itself towards the mech like a whip.

The mech, under Z’s command, was more than ready to react to such an attack. But this was the time for Little Blue to get used to his power. Lex gave him no instructions, mainly because Lex had no idea what a Kun Peng was capable of, or what its power entailed.

When Little Blue saw the bony tentacle, instead of feeling intimidated by its size or power, he felt a giddy energy. He was finally going to fight too! Fenrir had too many cool fighting stories, but Little Blue had none. Now, it too, could brag back at the Inn.

He extended his four wings, spreading them out completely, and let the entirety of his aura explode. Lex withdrew Domination, so as to not interfere. He wanted to see how a Kun Pengs aura differed from Dragons Might.

Dragons Might was an incredible and powerful suppressive force, as a manifestation of the dragons high position in the Cosmic Ascendence Spectrum, as well as the dragons individual power. It could freeze, intimidate, and pressure any who felt it, not to mention that it often acted as an instrument through which a dragon could display their power. It was one of the three most iconic things about a dragon, alongside their dragon breath and dragon scales.

So when Little Blue spread its aura, Lex expected some of the same. To a degree, he was right. The majesty of Little Blue spread across the land through his aura, declaring it a superior being in every conceivable way, a predator with no equal, where all things were its prey. Simultaneously, everything within his aura was marked as its target, and it had to consciously choose to leave out the mercenaries, the mech and Lex.