The Innkeeper

For once, Lex wasn't able to stop his expression from changing. Carefully, he read the notification once again.

New Notification: Host has entered a space sealed by a Destiny rank space lock. Teleportation facility unavailable.

"Mary, can you hear me?" he asked inside his mind.

"Of course. How can I help?"

Lex did not reply immediately, for he was currently analyzing his situation. He was connected to the Inn, still, but he was once again stuck in a situation where he could not teleport back. But unlike last time, where he was unable to teleport back because his system was too weak to carry out cross realm teleportation easily, this time it was because of something that locked space.

He analyzed his situation a bit further, not relying solely on his instincts for they had already proved that they were not reliable in his current situation. He had been teleported mysteriously to an unknown location, alongside millions of others.

Although he did not recognize many of the races, he had reason to believe that everyone of them had come from the Crystal realm. After all, while the Crystal realm boasted 7 major races that controlled the majority of the realm, it did not mean there were no minor races.

Subtle racial traits, as well as traces of different energy signatures led Lex to believe that everyone had been pulled to this mysterious place from across the entire Crystal realm instead of from just nearby where Lex was.

He also noticed that the majority of the crowd seemed to be gathered either near the tower in the middle, or the edges of the canyon. Moreover, they were 'near' these places only because there seemed to be some barrier keeping them at a distance. So that meant that they could neither leave the canyon, nor enter the tower.

Lex stopped his 'ship' from moving forward or he'd immediately reach the tower, which was not something he wanted. Getting off the ship, which was extremely prominent and eye-catching, and jumped to the ground. Until he had a better idea of the situation, he did not want to attract any attention.

He swept his spirit sense and observed some of the crowd near him. The crowd's cultivation level seemed to vary, and ranged from mortals, all the way to nascent realm cultivators. It was reassuring that there were no immortals, but they could also just be far away from him, or hiding. The fact that the crowd was so mixed meant that there really could be some immortals around.

He listened to the conversations happening nearby, and thanked the system for the universal translator for almost everyone was speaking in a different language entirely. It didn't take him long to gather that people had apparently been brought here only a few hours ago at most, yet no one knew anything.

"Mary, I seem to be trapped somewhere again," Lex told, feeling like he was living through a bad joke. Why was it that the first time he encountered an area able to completely block out all teleportation was when he was in a rush?

"That's strange," said Mary. "According to what I can tell, you should still be in the Crystal realm. There shouldn't be an issue teleporting out."

"I'm being blocked by a Destiny level space block. Have someone start looking up relevant information about that wherever they can. Moreover, I'm going to describe the area I'm in to you as well. Have Velma look into any information regarding it from the Crystal realm. Make sure to check old stories, myths and legends so that all possibilities are covered.

Lex described the area in great detail, though there really wasn't much to go on. He could only hope that he was caught in some usual and known phenomenon of the Crystal realm so that he could safely make his way out.

If there was no information about this place at all, there could only be two possibilities as far as Lex could tell. Either this was the first time such a thing was happening, or no one had ever made it out after entering this place.

Once he passed Mary the information, he let her be so that she could oversee the search while he himself began to study the area some more. His instincts were not picking up on any danger around him, but that could possibly be because they were being suppressed somehow.

He stayed away from all fights, and chose not to interact with anyone as he waited for a while. Fenrir too was looking around curiously, sniffing the air from time to time.

He waited for a few hours, but nothing seemed to be happening, except that more and more beings appeared in the canyon. Eventually he reached a conclusion that nothing significant would happen until either the canyon was completely filled, or that the canyon would continue to fill until something significant happened.

Tired of waiting, he decided to make his way to the edge of the canyon first, to investigate the barrier keeping them in. Moving should not have been much of an issue, for all the fights had ended by now, and the Kraven had been overwhelmed. Anyone else who was not smart enough to not antagonize millions of beings on their own also met a similar fate.

Unfortunately, Lex's bad luck seemed to continue as a new Kraven appeared in front of him just as he was making his way to the edge.

The familiar, poisonous stench of the black slime covering their body irritated Lex, so he did not hesitate to extinguish the Kraven by using Evisceration before it could even attack. The Kraven was only able to let out a single, painful squeal before it collapsed.

The surrounding crowd was shocked at what happened, then moved to keep a distance. Whether they wanted distance from the poisonous slime, or the intimidating Lex who killed a Kraven with one look, could not be accurately determined.