Bang. Bang. BANG !

Lex put the hammer aside and wiped the sweat off his brow before looking down at what he had just created. A pineapple. Or rather, a P.I.N.E.A.P.P.L.E. It was a Personal Internal Nullification Engine for Arcane Power Preservation Locking Enchantment.

He was not the one who named this particular version of his seal, in case that much wasn’t obvious already. This was, however, the strongest seal he had created to date, so much so that he put up with the name.

"Bloody hell, it really works," Lex said, picking up the small engine that looked like a purple crystal. He took a deep breath, and then focused on the estimated time left on his current seal. According to his own analysis, the seal would last another four minutes.

So, without further ado, he picked up the purple crystal and stuck it on his forehead, providing it with just the slightest bit of energy it needed to power up.

The Pineapple came to life, fusing into his skin, a huge deal considering how difficult it was to even scratch his skin, and looking like the purple crystal was a part of his body.

It hummed slightly as it tapped into Lex’s own energy pool - with his permission of course - and started to suppress his cultivation. It was so effective, in fact, that Lex’s cultivation was suppressed all the way to the base of Earth Immortal level 9.

Based on the current strength of the seal and pressure from his cultivation, it could last a little over 3 decades.

"Your design is not bad at all," Lex said as he turned to look up at a blurry figure sitting atop a tree branch. After over a year in the jungle, Lex eventually noticed that every time he ventured into the jungle, he was being watched by some unknown creature.

It did not reveal itself to anyone else besides him, and even he could only see a vague outline of what looked like a rainbow colored rectangle with a tail. Lex had named the creature Nyan cat.

"My design is flawless. Your execution is abysmal. This can merely be considered... operational."

Nyan cat was a super tsundere character, who always criticised everything anyone did, but also went out of its way to solve any problems Lex had. As far as Lex could tell, Nyan cat was the only non-insect resident of this jungle, and just like them, it was taking refuge here from Abaddon’s destructive forces.

"Well, thanks for putting up with my mediocrity," Lex said with a hint of amusement as he put his makeshift hammer away. He looked down at his miserable state and discovered that he really needed to shower.

Oddly enough, while regular heat could no longer cause him much issue, the pressure of working with complex laws made him feel like a mortal who had gone on a four hour hike in the middle of a heatwave. In short, it was bad.

Over the past year, under Nyan cat’s insistence, Lex had used less of his many abilities, and focused solely on using laws for everything. As a result, his control and understanding of basic laws had improved tremendously, so much so that Nyan cat reluctantly began guiding him on more complex laws.

One day, Lex had asked the cat why it was helping him out. The cat had been brutally honest about its reasons. It was bored. Also, according to it, there was no way Lex should have been able to survive passing through the barrier between the inner and outer jungle, but he clearly had. It had watched him enter, like so many others before him, but he was the only one who came out. That was enough to intrigue it.

To be honest, Lex didn’t remember much from crossing the barrier, so he couldn’t really explain to the cat how he had done it.

"Now that I’ve managed to make the Pineapple, do you think I’m ready to start studying Abaddon’s laws?" he asked the cat.

"Going by your current pace of learning, and your current realm, you are about 1 million years too early to begin trying to understand any laws in Abaddon," Nyan cat said dismissively. "You’d be better off trying to learn how to hide your soul signatures and positive karma."

Lex groaned. He had asked Nyan cat about the creatures that had come for him - the ones that suffered universal rejection - and why they might be after him. The answer was surprisingly straightforward. If they could steal enough positive karma, they could disguise themselves as beings without universal rejection, and leave the confines of Abaddon.

Seeing as how Nyan cat seemed to know so much, Lex had even asked it about the Chalice of the Abandoned, but it had never heard of such a thing. Nor had it heard of the Well of Forgotten Dreams. It had heard about a bunch of other things with ominous sounding names that felt like they hid unspeakable secrets but Lex already had enough on his plate, so he tried to remain uninvolved with them.

"You should start heading back to your castle," Nyan cat said with a distinct tone of disinterest. "I think your friends should be returning soon."

"No, Z’s fights usually last a few weeks and Luthor already found what he was looking for, so he..."

Lex suddenly paused, and then looked at the blurry figure waving its tail.

"You don’t mean them. Are you referring to Fenrir and Little Blue?" he asked.

"How am I supposed to know the name of your friends? But they’re coming alright. I just felt the barrier seal up once more. The jungle is going to retreat again. You guys should probably leave before nightfall, or you’ll be stuck in the jungle for a long time."

Lex took a deep breath, and cleaned his body with a technique, then blasted off in the direction of the castle. Night was still far away, but Lex knew by now not to judge Abaddon by common sense.

Nyan cat simply watched Lex leave, and then faded as if he was never there, undetected by any other living soul in the entire outer jungle.