The Innkeeper

With Ra's gaze fixed on Lex, a pressure fell on the room and everything became still. This pressure was not like that of divine aura or Dragons Might, which Lex could overcome through sheer force of will and determination.

The entire room froze still under its effect, including Fenrir and the hands as well. The only thing still working was Lex's mind - he could not even drive his energy at the moment. Lex did not panic, but he was cognizant of the fact that he was stuck in a tricky situation.

If Ra were so powerful, he could instantly freeze them all to begin with, and then there would have been no reason to put up with their previous farce. But he hadn't and even tolerated the humiliation of being attacked by Lex and Fenrir at the same time. He even suffered many wounds from Fenrir, though for some reason he attributed the hatred from that to Lex as well. The point was, Ra's ego would not allow him to tolerate such a thing unless it was absolutely necessary.

The only explanation was that this was a part of his technique, and the reason why Cassandra had specifically taught him to disrupt divine techniques. But she had not taught him how to effectively disrupt corrupted divinity, which is what he faced. This was either just another thing she hid from him, or the temple had no way for him to train with corrupted divinity. At least she had taught him all the traits of corrupted divinity, so he wasn't caught unaware.

"YOU INSUFFERABLE COCKROACH," Ra's voice boomed, though he was not yelling frustratedly anymore. "YOUR CRIMES ARE NUMEROUS, AND FOR THAT I SENTENCE YOU TO AN ETERNITY OF SUFFERING!"

Lex observed everything with his left eye and saw massive amounts of energy begin to flow as soon as Ra spoke. Just as he suspected, this was some kind of technique. As if he were not the one being judged, Lex calmly but quickly reviewed everything he knew about deities.

Whether they are fallen or not, the nature of a deity's power is dependent on their beliefs. If they want to expand their list of abilities, they need to either incorporate that into their belief or steal the domain of another deity, which naturally will add that both to their belief and their abilities.

Lex, unfortunately, had not done extensive research into Ra's beliefs, but he vaguely recalled some stuff back from earth when he visited Egypt. Let's see, there was something to do with being the top deity, the creator of everything. He vaguely recalled something about judging the souls of the deceased. Or was that another guy?

But looking at Ra sitting on his throne, this really did look like him judging Lex. If that was the case…

Lex immediately summoned both his new Invincible Tyrant mask, as well as the Butter Knife. Although he could not move his body, his spirit sense was free. He used that to manipulate some of the divine energy around them and imbue the mask and knife with it.

Ra immediately sensed what Lex was doing and sneered.

"FOOLISH ATTEMPTS!" his voice bellowed, and Lex's surroundings changed. Instead of a stage, Lex found himself in a…

Even with how serious the situation was, Lex could not help but burst into laughter due to how unexpected, yet expected, the situation was. He found himself in a lava pit.

Now that his surroundings had changed, the pressure holding him down had disappeared, but the arms of stone still held him down. Completely ignoring his surroundings, Lex began hurrying up the imbuing process. Although there were multiple ways to negate deities' techniques and abilities, the easiest way out of them was to interfere before they were established. Since Lex failed that, his next step was to use divine energy itself, or items containing divine energy, to fight back.

Moreover, instead of breaking the stone arms, he began cycling his cultivation technique, absorbing the divine energy from the arms. But Lex stopped that almost immediately. Although his cultivation technique would eventually adapt him to tolerate corrupted divine energy, at the moment he couldn't deal with it, and that's exactly what filled the hands.

As if completely incensed by Lex's dismissal of his situation, Ra leaned forward to glare at him as he hurried up, filling the pit with lava. He was looking forward to seeing Lex scream and plead as the lava burnt him. This was, of course, not ordinary lava, but a special kind that directly burned the soul instead of the body!

Yet Lex seemed to completely ignore the lava even as it inched closer. Ra sneered at his attempts to put up a brave front, but even as the lava finally touched his feet, and began to surround his body, Lex did not even flinch.

Sure that he was just resisting the inevitable, Ra leaned even further in anticipation of his inevitable cries. But they never came.

Lex, meanwhile, was curious about why Ra constantly kept forgetting about Fenrir? Was that the pup's new ability?

The Butter Knife fully imbued, Lex's eyes flashed as he began his retaliation. He swiped the knife at the many hands holding him down, cutting through them like… like a hot knife through butter.

Free from his restraints, Lex bolted, not away from the lava, but inside of it. His eye had already located the weak point of this technique, and he was going to stab it. Contrary to what he had expected, this lava was actually hot, and it did burn him. But the extent of the burns was completely negligible for Lex right now.

Ra, stunned in disbelief at what he was seeing, nearly dropped its jaw - or its lower beak. But since his focus was completely fixed on Lex, he seemed to have once again forgotten about the existence of Fenrir. He did not even notice when the pup broke out of his restraints, and was reminded of it only when he once again felt teeth sink into his neck.