The Innkeeper
chapter-1233

Usually, dragons were arrogant beyond measure. It was one of the defining characteristics of their race, and one of the most significant reasons why they did not band together like most other races, keeping themselves weak relatively speaking.

Other races usually all lived close to one another, built entire societies living in close proximity, and aided each other, or at least traded with each other. Dragons, instead, were extremely territorial, to the extent that some strong dragons monopolized entire galaxies for themselves, keeping other dragons away. At most, they would tolerate only their own descendants within those territories, that too until they were strong enough to carve out their own territories.

In fact, the inability of dragons to stay together for long was one of the most significant causes for dragonoids. They usually could not stay close to one another long enough to mate - not unless one was significantly and unquestionably stronger than the other.

Their arrogance was, without a doubt, one of the things that held them back as a race. But while, in general dragons were arrogant, that did not mean that all of them were ruled by it.

Some of them, the ones with the strongest bloodlines and most promise for the future, were trained from the very moment of their birth to not let their arrogance rule them.

The purple scaled dragon was exactly one such dragon. His arrogance was such that he did not recognize Wyverns as having anything to do with dragons at all, even though they were a mutation of them. At the same time, he did not let his arrogance let him act without reconnaissance on the target, or go straight in for a kill. Instead, he observed Lex and came to a conclusion that the human, despite his weak race, was genuinely a threat to him. While still not immortal, he could influence laws with his body alone. So he waited till Lex was weakened.

Lex showed remarkable resilience in the face of the lightning tribulation, but the constraints of the fire tribulation could not be escaped. Now that he had retreated to the platform, it meant that he was approaching his weakest.

The dragon saw no shame in taking advantage of his opponents weakness. That was simply how the world worked.

Jeffery was attacking Lex like mad, unleashing all the strength his body would allow him to wield, yet he could not make Lex's defense even waver. These were not simple physical attacks or beams of fire. Rather, they contained laws and manipulated the world to their whims. Yet they could not influence the laws of his defense, for they were protected by stronger laws.

The more he attacked, and the more he failed, the more deranged Jeffery became, until suddenly he sensed something and he was instantly snapped back to mental clarity. He sensed the aura of a dragon - and not just any dragon.

This dragon, despite being only in the Earth Immortal realm, contained an incredibly heavy aura, insinuating a very pure and powerful bloodline, that would surely carry it to very high realms.

Such a dragon had a race and a bloodline superiority over Wyverns, which is why Jefferys deepest instincts of fear kicked in when it felt the aura. Of course, there was also anger in his heart, but with mental clarity returning to him, he saw that he was not acting according to his strengths.

From the very beginning, Jeffrey had never been a front line fighter, so there was no reason for him to fight like this. Instead, he should stick to what he was good at, and plan and manipulate events from the shadows.

He retreated, just in time to see a purple dragon appear in front of Lex's platform, and unleash his Dragons Might.

His timing was pretty good, for exactly at this time, Lex's fire tribulation was approaching the next level. Ordinary people experienced the fire tribulation in three stages. First it affected their bodies, then their spirits, and then their souls.

Since Lex had all three fused together, he felt them all at once. That also meant he had to sustain the impact of all three at once. As the fire tribulation affected Lex's brain, his consciousness entered a sort of limbo while he lost all control over his body. In that moment, even to save his life, he wouldn't be able to move an inch.

Yet this was only the influence on his mind. When the tribulation reached the stage where it covered his entire body, Lex would experience what others felt when their soul was burning. At that point, his tenacity would be tested.

What this meant in the short term was that Lex was completely undefended, save for the formation he had secretly set up.

Yet when the Dragon used its innate influence over the world, it felt challenged back. His Dragons Might was being challenged by the remnant auras of Domination. More importantly, while forming this formation, Lex had used the influence of Glyphs, which were just weaker versions of the abilities of dragons.

Yet even with the weaker version, Lex was dominating against this young dragon, rendering its abilities completely inert.

Feeling challenged, the dragon spread his wings completely, and let his aura to bear. Dragons Might was only the simplest of a dragon's abilities. It had greater ones to use, and it was not afraid of using them.

His purple scales suddenly changed, almost becoming liquid flames, as it lunged forward at the platform. Since the dragon willed it, so it must be.

The laws of the region influenced by Dragons Might suddenly started to change, automatically falling under the influence of the dragon's will, as if submitted to it. The dragon's fiery claws struck against Lex's defense, and left a significant mark, as for the first time the barrier quaked.

Yet that was only the beginning, and soon even the laws of the barrier itself fell under the dragon's control. Lex had dealt with Pelvailin, but he had never faced a living dragon before.

Now he was finally a witness to its might, except that he could not actually witness it.

A moment later, the barrier fell.