The Innkeeper

The area he arrived at was not the territory of some noble, but instead a trade city established by some kind of sect. The sect itself was quite mysterious, and not many knew the details of their practices or purpose.

They were, however, quite accepting of everyone and everything as long as they obeyed the laws of their territory. Moreover, the sect would accept members of any race without compromising the unity that the sect members displayed. Why the members had so much unity was yet another mystery, and not one Lex was too interested in at the moment.

Lex was too distracted by the growing tension he felt. At first, he thought that the anxiety was normal. After all, almost two months out of six had already passed, yet he was not anywhere close to his destination. Sure, the teleportation formations would surely help and theoretically, he would arrive in the middle of the fourth month or early in the fifth month if all went well. This was the deduction based on the map. But there was no way of anticipating any problems he might encounter along the way.

But as the anxiety grew, Lex reassessed the situation and concluded that it was a hint from his instincts. He began deducing what issues he would encounter and how he could circumvent them.

In his mind, the feeling of running out of time was a result of him being on a tight schedule, which was the most logical deduction. After making a few contingency plans, he headed directly to the teleportation formation to continue his journey.

As it happened, quite coincidentally, at the exact same time, various seemingly unrelated yet incredibly important events were taking place.

In the Crystal realm, at that very moment, Aegis, the crown prince of the Hum nation, seemed to be in the middle of a devastating battle. As the foremost genius the Hum nation had ever produced, there were very few instances where he was beaten so badly, and all of them were at the hands of his own father. This time was no exception.

"Aegis, why are you doing this?" the King asked, somewhat exasperated. Was it not enough to rule the entire human race? Now he had to deal with parental issues as well.

Around the two was a battlefield, littered with the corpses of Kraven. They were deep within the territory lost by humans, so neither of them had reason to be there. Cornelius especially should not have been there.

"Why am I doing this? I think the question should be, why aren't you doing this? I am only seeking retribution for the losses we have suffered against the Kraven, and taking back what is ours."

"I have told you Aegis, you alone cannot face all the threats that humans face. The human race as a whole must become stronger. If they depend on the strength of a single man to keep them safe, they will once again fall as soon as that man disappears."

"Such a convenient answer, when it requires you to sit back and do nothing but let the humans die! Why train me so hard then, if you were never going to let me use my strength? You should have let me live in mediocrity."

"I am not doing nothing, I am raising the strength of the human race bit by bit! If you had obeyed my orders, and retrieved the cultivation technique of the True path, as I had told you to do, you would be doing the same."

"The cultivation technique of the True path? What's the point in pursuing a path that the majority of the human race cannot follow? That directly contradicts your statement about raising their strength as a whole!" At this point, Aegis was screaming at his father. Years of bitterness and resentment had mixed in with the new frustrations he felt as he began exploring the truth of the Crystal realm, under the hints of the Innkeeper.

He had already developed a few theories of the truth, but each one hurt his innocent heart more than the next.

Before Cornelius could answer, there was a flash of lightning, and with it, Aegis disappeared. In his stead, he left behind a few roaring words that echoed throughout the battlefield.

"WASH YOUR NECK OLD MAN! IF YOU HAVE SOLD THE HUMAN RACE, THEN I WILL BE BACK TO CUT IT OFF!"

Instead of being angered, Cornelius only sighed. It seemed his son was finally entering his rebellious phase.

Elsewhere in the Crystal realm, an army of Kraven was slowly marching out once again. Yet what was different between this army, and every other army that they sent out, was that each and every member… was an immortal! Hundreds of thousands of immortal Kraven were on the move, their destination unknown.

Back in the Origin realm, quite a few significant events were happening at the same time as well.

The allied forces, meaning the various forces who under the order of the Henali combined their strength to combat the Fuegan, were both unified in their mission, yet at the same time very disjointed in their chain of command. At least, that was the case with the allied forces operating in the Suera galaxy.

As such, a lot of information often went missing, and entire records sometimes disappeared. This was usually not due to any sabotage, but just bad logistics. Among the millions of orders being processed each minute, a file containing the deployment orders of the Midnight Battalion suddenly disappeared, and in its place, another file appeared with completely different orders.

At the same time, a file containing details of Z were copied and sent to an unknown destination, far away from the galaxy.

On Earth, the battle for New York took a drastic turn when a group of immortals suddenly appeared and surrounded Marlo. Yet facing certain death, Marlo did not frown, and instead grinned like a madman.

On his neck, the golden nano-talismans he was so proud of began to shine. The advantage of being known for stupidly intense brute strength was that people often forget that Marlo was also a genius businessman, strategist and an overall intelligent person. For a long time he had been wondering if he could create a spiritual technique that mimicked the effects of a nuclear bomb. If he could, then he'd be able to convert it into a talisman, right? It was time to see the fruits of his efforts.

In another place in the Origin realm, the Fiery Mammoths had officially sent a delegation to the central galaxy of the Jotun empire while unofficially they had begun to invade the galaxy neighboring theirs. True war was not their intention, so as long as their negotiations were concluded successfully, the situation would not escalate.

In another planet in the Origin realm, Bastet and Falak wore a depressed look as they were escorted into a jail cell. At their cultivation level, they were more or less at the absolute peak strength that the Origin realm would naturally allow, so the identity of their captor was extremely mysterious.

Even they did not know who it truly was, or what they wanted. After all, they had been overwhelmed the instant they were discovered.

Somewhere else, in the Henali portal, someone sent out an invite for members to join a book reading club. The venue for their meeting would be the Midnight Inn.

Elsewhere, far away from both the Origin realm and the Crystal realm, in one of the older and more complete realms, a group of four had encircled a single being.

The group consisted of a true dragon, its massive red body radiating unbearable heat, a gravin, a race equal to both dragons and celestials, a henali, and Kilgore, a beast completely unique in the universe with no other members of its race besides itself.

The being that was encircled was, surprisingly, a member of the celestial race!

What was more unusual was that, despite the celestial being a Daolord, looked like he was suffering from grevious wounds.

"Do you know what you're doing?" the celestial asked in a hoarse voice. "Do you think you can afford the consequences of harming me? There is no race more unified than the celestials! None of you will escape!"

"You should have thought of that before you messed with the Versalis Bank," said the Henali, showing no signs of remorse.

"Are you serious? You're all dogs of a bank?"

"Stupid celestial, don't you know the most important law in the universe? There is nothing more powerful than money!" Growled the dragon.

"The celestial race will never let you go!" the celestial said, anger and hatred filling his voice.

"We shall see," replied Kilgore.

Then, the group attacked once more. They did not ultimately kill the celestial, for that was easier said than done. They did, however, capture the celestial, and took him away. As soon as the celestial was delivered, their debts to the bank would be cleared. As for what happened afterwards, that was the bank's problem, not theirs.