The Innkeeper

Could one quantify an attack that was powerful enough to completely and safely defeat a Nascent realm cultivator, human, beast or otherwise, without actually killing them? It had to be remembered that the rebels on Earth had to plan for decades, and resort to nuclear and hydrogen bombs to threaten merely 5 Nascent level cultivators, all of whom were stuck at the very start of that realm.

Yet now, Lex was facing 300 of them. In fact, he had taken their beating not only without dying, but without breaking a bone. Sure, the interference from the other competitors made it so none of them were really able to focus on Lex properly, but he took a beating nonetheless. Of course, the fact that the Lotus had been basically reestablishing his foundation again and again, and in the process nourishing his body, also played a significant role in his survival.

Now, as if facing such an army was already not tough enough, Lex only had arrays as a viable option to do enough damage to counter them. In theory, arrays could be endlessly powerful. Theoretically, if a Qi training cultivator were given an unlimited supply of energy, they could eventually construct an array massive and complex enough to unleash attacks far more powerful than even nuclear bombs.

Yet in practicality, it was far from so simple. The first issue was that an array had to be drawn using spiritual energy. The supply of energy in the entire array, and each individual character, needed to be steady, and it also needed a constant until the array itself was formed. Now, as if that was not enough, the theory behind the array needed to be correct, but more than that, each character had to be the absolute perfect one to corroborate its behavior according to that theory.

There were hundreds of characters for fire, and each of them behaved differently. There were hundreds for air, hundreds for water, hundreds for abstract concepts like beauty, love, hate, anger and so much more. If the purpose of the array was to fuel the fire with oxygen, you would use a different kind of character, and if the purpose of the array was to birth a single ember, a different character would be used.

The more characters were used, the more the chance of contradictions forming there were. It had to be remembered that even an array gone wrong could fuel itself from energy from the universe. More than once Lex had formed arrays that collapsed, which resulted in explosions. In fact, Lex had even used failed arrays as last minute, desperate attacks back in the Crystal realm when he faced the Kraven.

So, based on Lex's understanding of arrays, it was even possible to form an array that had the strength of a Daolord. Practically though, he would need a mind powerful enough to comprehend and calculate arrays and characters on such a level. As for his accomplishments at the moment? Even he was not fully conscious of the fact that he had no idea how he was doing these things, though he himself was ultimately generating the ideas for what kinds of arrays to use.

Lex did not have a clear understanding of how much damage needed to be dealt to defeat these opponents, so he did not think in terms of damage. First he needed his attack to be fast enough so that they cannot dodge, regardless of their cultivation or race, hence he chose lightning. But it was not traditional lightning damage that he was relying on to defeat them. No, it occurred to him that he could replicate the unconscious state if he could temporarily disconnect the soul from the spirit. As it happened, there happened to be a kind of lightning with that kind of affinity. Moreover, quite conveniently for the motif of the Inn, it was golden in color.

With a bang the lightning struck, but instead of a devastating explosion, the only thing that occurred was all the competitors collapsed on the ground. Their eyes were still open and their bodies were unhurt, but they lay on the ground as unresponsive as corpses.

There were no wild cheers from the crowd, for with this unexpected victory, almost all of them had lost some MP gambling. Only the craziest gamblers who were hoping for a miracle bet on Leo ended up winning, but even they forgot to cheer. That was because the sight was too horrifying.

In the arena stood a man, drenched in his own blood, smiling at them with pearly white teeth showing. All around him lay the bodies of his enemies.

Even when the announcer declared Leo the winner he didn't really move, and swept his gaze over the crowds until he found the few specific fellows who had been bugging Z.

"I hope you enjoyed the show," the bloody man said, his smooth voice a stark contrast to the bloody scene. "There'll be more interesting things for you to see at the Inn, there always will be. So don't go looking for my cute little workers and force him onto the stage every time. Alright? It's not polite."

There were no threats in Lex's words, and at most there was a slight admonishment. Yet the spectators didn't feel that way, especially the folks Lex had been looking at. They completely forgot that they had lost their money. They forgot everything. The single thought in their minds was… forget Z, they had to bet on this Leo in the future!

Lex did not know what was going on through their heads as he teleported out of the arena and disappeared. He realized that people, the workers mostly, might be curious about why he could teleport in places whereas only people from the Security team should have the authority to do so.

It was not an issue he would address directly for it would be less believable that way. Instead, he would reveal things in a roundabout manner. It was time for Leo to meet Luthor.