Chapter 1574 — 1574: I watch anime too II

Z was standing above a kneeling armored knight, this time a red aura around his body, and a small dagger in his hand. From afar, it almost looked like a butter- no, like a steak knife!

"Have you been holding back this entire time?" the black knight asked, looking at Z oddly.

"Not really. Using my second form means I'll exhausted all my energy and need to go to a Recovery pod for days. I didn't want to use it, but I had no choice."

"Should I act like a defeated villain, and ask how you did it?" the knight asked. His voice was strained, yet oddly lacking the kind of emotions one would expect from someone about to be defeated.

"I have a powerful bloodline called Regalia Bloom. It allows me to manipulate energy through my weapons. But, that doesn't really suit my style, so I've been working on a way to manipulate energy through my body instead, unlocking my second form. Unfortunately, my body isn't strong enough to tolerate the laws that allow my bloodline to so easily take control of external energy, nor can I rely solely on my body, hence the knife.

"But, even in its incomplete state, my second form allows me to use all the energy around me to my will, making me as strong as I want to be. For you, unfortunately, that means that the power of your attacks only serves as my fuel. Do you have any last words?"

The knight looked at Z for a while, then turned to look at the castle in the distance.

"Before I died, I too was from Earth. I sensed the aura of Earth on another, and came to see my fellow planet made. Unfortunately for me, it seems I won't be able to see him just yet. Unfortunately for you, I also grew up watching anime."

Z suddenly felt an immense danger, and rushed to strike the knight with his knife, but it was too late. A beam of black light, if such a thing were possible, shot out of the armor, before the armor exploded in its entirety!

Z was neither able to attack the knight in time, nor could he block the attack. Instead, he was forced to divert all the energy from the explosion away from himself.

His transformation allowed him to handle a lot more energy than he could have just simply using Regalia Bloom, but the downside was that the more energy he converted, the more damage his body would take.

Diverting away the energy from an attack that would otherwise kill him only caused him a grave injury. The trade wasn't bad, but Z grimaced even so. He could tell that the dark knight wasn't dead, and that he would be back. It seemed he had himself an adversary.

The red aura around Z began to fade away, and weakness quickly began to replace the strength he had, causing him to stumble. Yet before he could catch himself, Lex appeared beside him and held him steady.

"That was not bad. You did better than I expected," he said honestly. Yet the praise stung Z, for this was the first time he had received praise for failing.

"He's not dead. He'll be back. I failed to catch him for interrogation."

"Yeah, Luthors sulking in the Great Hall now that he has no one to interrogate," Lex said with a chuckle. "But don't be too hard on yourself. You did well against a stronger opponent. Next time, you'll do better."

"It's going to take me weeks in the Recovery pod to come back to fighting condition. It's likely the black knight will be back long before then."

"Well, you're right about the fact that the black knight will probably be back sooner than that," said Lex. "But you're wrong about your recovery time. You think I'm holding your shoulder for, what, balance?"

Z, startled, turned his attention towards his shoulder where Lex had grabbed him from, and noticed that his body was already visibly recovering. There was no warm aura, no cooling effect or anything like that.

Lex was simply, directly healing him. What's more, there were various intents hidden in his body, yet under Lex's influence they seemed to melt away. Shocked, Z looked back at Lex, then just rolled his eyes.

Of course he shouldn't be shocked. It made total sense. The Earth Immortal human who could fight Heavenly immortals, probably, and gave death threats to Demi Dao Lords on the weekends of course knew how to heal as well.

He probably learned in one weekend when he was off saving a galaxy or something. Z bet Lex could heal souls and spirits too, because why wouldn't he be able to do that? Just because it was one of the most difficult things to do? No, that was no barrier to Lex.

Not content with rolling his eyes once, Z rolled his eyes again. He wouldn't be surprised if Lex learned to heal just so that Z couldn't take sick days. He would be forced to work always.

How was anyone with a sane mind supposed to believe Lex was just an Earth Immortal? Honestly, he should have worked more on his disguise - like riding in on a Jorlam. That would p-robably be less conspicuous.

"By the way, I'm going to fuse a drop of Jorlam heart's blood into your body. It will make you much stronger, and much more resilient to the effects of laws on your body and soul," said Lex, as if it was the most casual thing in the universe.

Z would have rolled his eyes a third time, but Lex was currently healing his eyes so he had to make do with a groan.

"Also, I like your transformations, but you're wasting your aura by just making it visible. Instead, why don't you also imbue it with certain powers? Let me give you a few ideas…"

Lex began to improve Z's techniques on the fly, because that was totally so normal.

He felt Lex was just showing off at this point, but that didn't stop him from listening to the advice. It was good.