The Innkeeper

Lex naturally could not catch the orange orb at the speed of light. Yet his intuition could predict its trajectory and path even before it launched, giving Lex plenty of time to prepare.

Although the orb was quite a bit larger than his hand, on a whim he felt like testing out Impervious hands.

Using the technique cost a lot of spirit energy, but Lex was not in his flow state, where he always did the most efficient action. In normal life, it was okay to be wasteful sometimes.

The technique's appearance was very lackluster, in that nothing special appeared on his hands. It was as if a technique wasn't being used at all.

Just as he held out his hand in place, the aliens launched the attack. While the orange orb had no trouble breaking through the Imperial shield, the moment it touched Lex's hand, it lost all of its momentum.

Lex experienced something strange. According to the original technique, his hands should have been impervious to damage, and that is all. Yet now, from the moment the ball touched his hand, he felt in complete control of it. That was not supposed to happen as there was no aspect of the technique which extended to control, but that's what happened.

He could feel that the energy propelling it forward had not disappeared, but was simply contained. If he wished, he could use that energy to propel the ball anywhere he wished. If he so wanted, the orange orb could fizzle out, or suddenly explode.

He tried out his control, and the massive orange orb shrunk down until it fit perfectly into his palm.

"Look Fenrir, the aliens want to play catch."

He didn't try to throw the orb back, he didn't trust his aim enough. He just used its existing kinetic energy, and sent it back exactly from the path through which it came!

On the mother-ship, or rather, the mother-ship, which was its own sentient being as well, stuttered for a moment when it received a projection of a laser orb being caught with bare hands.

When it heard Lex's words, it did the robot equivalent of screaming in the air before the feed was immediately cut off. The sensors on the ships near Lex were not advanced enough to track the orb traveling at the speed of light, and so they were unable to record how Lex sent the orb back. But the mothership guessed what happened nonetheless.

"New additional objective," she sent out to all deployed robots in the region. "Anomalous subject identified. Subject has shown capability to physically interact with energy. Securing the anomalous subject is now priority number 31! Objective title: anomalous subject securing. Objective short form: A.S.S. I repeat, A.S.S. is now priority number 31!"

*****

Back on earth, Lex was admiring the massive explosion in the air. It was a shame that he didn't get to try evisceration, but he would get more opportunities no doubt. Moreover, he learned something interesting about Impervious hands.

Fenrir released a low whine, attracting Lex's attention.

"What do you mean that I insulted the tradition of the hunt? I'm the one who taught you about hunting! Besides, I'm learning that it's a little fun to tease your prey."

"Grrr."

"Don't be ridiculous! It's not more fun to immediately kill the prey. Sometimes, when you have full control of the situation, it's a lot of fun to tease your prey a little. Honestly. Try it next time."

Instead of replying to Lex, Fenrir began running towards the facility once again.

"Oh, you're ignoring me now?" Lex asked while laughing.

"Grrr."

"Me? Embarrass you? Are you serious?"

Lex and Fenrir continued to argue with one another as they continued on their path, completely unaware that various robots and ships had diverted their path to locate them. Yet, despite their advanced technology, they were unable to find them!

Whether they scanned the area from the air, or checked their last known location for tracks, there was nothing to find.

Though Fenrir was young and inexperienced, its instincts were strong. After the previous fight, it had immediately deployed one of its bloodline abilities, creating an interference field around them and hiding all their tracks.

The abilities bestowed by a god-bloodline could not so easily be countered, and so thousands of ships flew in the area, searching for them to no avail.

The mothership grew increasingly frustrated at the lack of results, and couldn't help but picture the uninterested look on the mask when it faced those ships. It understood now that the whole reason they even located him the first time around was because he was teasing them. Whoever he was, he never took them seriously for a single moment.

In her anger, the mothership activated a single infantry regiment. All the units it had sent on the ground so far were naught more than scouts. Their true soldiers were very different, and much stronger. In truth, even the mothership could get into trouble if it was detected she deployed troops unnecessarily and wastefully. But that was easy to solve. She just needed to provide a legitimate reason for their deployment.

"Reassigning planet threat level from 1 to 2. Redistribution of deployed units required. Deployment of additional troops required. Reevaluation of danger zones required."

Silently, a change started to occur as more troops approached earth, but this time in camouflage.

At the Midnight Inn, the three nascent cultivators and the devils were finishing up their deal, and shaking hands. The council had just about finished their proposal and were almost ready to request a meeting with the Innkeeper.

Down on earth, Lex finally neared the facility. But while it was protected under a defensive formation, it had also been surrounded by hundreds of robots laying siege.

Even though Lex had it pretty easy so far, he did not dare underestimate hundreds of robots. Even if they couldn't hurt him, they might hurt Fenrir of the facility. Moreover, he didn't know if killing too many would attract attention.

He had to progress with caution.