Chapter 1742: A close second
Dragon-Lex looked at the enemies around him and decided that, unlike the Dark Knight, they did not deserve his ire. They were simply monsters, doing monster things. The Dark Knight, on the other hand, had been an incessant irritation, what with his loud bragging and pompous attitude.
Although he was in a different form, Dragon-Lex was still Lex, so he was still pissed about the knight making his headache worse. Fortunately, with the advent of his partial dragon form, his headache had also gone away. Of course it had, because he was the best.
Unlike his lotus form, which was supposed to grant him lotus’ abilities, his dragon form did not actually grant him any new abilities. They just made the ones he already had much stronger, allowing him to use them as a true dragon would.
Which was to say, in this form, Lex did not need to rely on tenets, or Lawcraft. All powers and abilities would manifest as he willed them to.
Lex unleashed his Golden Inferno, a jet stream of roaring golden flames which ate through everything they touched, and channeled the flames into assuming a shape identical to his form. Then, under his command, the flames started to fly around, crashing into the enemies, burning and eviscerating them. It wasn’t actually hard.
If Lex hadn’t been weakened, he wouldn’t have even needed to transform to defeat them all. It was a pity that none of them presented the same challenge that Kreel had, or else Dragon-Lex would have shown off the superiority of his new form.
Even so, Abaddon was nothing if not persistent. Enemies kept raining down on them, trying to stop Kaemon from doing whatever he was doing, yet while Lex’s barrier stood erect, none could reach the Magma Lion. Meanwhile, the flaming incarnation of Dragon-Lex kept consuming all the enemies that came their way.
This provided Dragon-Lex with the opportunity to focus on his clone. It was true what Jack had said. Something had hijacked the connection between Lex and his clone, and was using the clone to approach the well. Originally, distracted and overwhelmed as he was, neither Lex nor Jack had noticed that the clone was acting oddly. Now, though, it was clear.
Like a tsunami, Lex’s will erupted with little warning, snatching back control of his clone. A wretched cry, one entirely unhuman, came out of his clone’s mouth as control was snatched back.
Unable to contend against Dragon-Lex, whatever had taken control of his clone did the only thing possible. It cut off a piece of the clone’s thumb, and latched onto it, severing the bond between the thumb and Lex.
Such ignominious defiance was an insult to Dragon-Lex, and so he had no intentions of letting the morphed, severed thumb, which now looked more like a centipede scurrying away than his thumb, survive.
Yet there was interference. It was not Abaddon who stood to defy his will, it was a white bead.
A single, inconspicuous bead placed on the board caused the clone’s energy to fail. The severed thumb had created a weakness, and the bead expanded on it. As unlikely as it seemed, Lex’s cloning ability was nowhere near perfect, and the wound became the foundation of the technique unraveling. If left alone, the clone would disappear and the centipede would escape.