The Innkeeper

Teleporting randomly was not a good idea, especially considering how dangerous the situation was already. As such, when Lex detected the incoming danger, he immediately locked onto the only familiar point: Fenrir's location. Due to their connection, Lex could always feel where the pup was and summon it to himself, but usually he could not do that in reverse. This time, using the In-Law effect, he managed to do just that.

The moment he reappeared he found himself, not in the pool of blood, but in one of the empty halls.

That was all he had time to do before he felt the change. All sound was muted. It was as if the air itself had vanished and the world itself stopped vibrating.

Feeling his sense of dread rising, Lex immediately dismissed Fenrir and let it return to the Inn. The world suddenly turned black, and Lex could see absolutely nothing, even with his left eye.

He closed his eyes so as to not dwell on what was happening and immediately used Harden, Impervious Hands and began wrapping himself in Imperial Shields.

The next thing that happened was the loss of sensation. First the world had become mute, then all light had disappeared and now his body could feel nothing. Even the sense of impending doom vanished. But he knew that the crisis was far from over.

Since Lex could not tell what was happening, he had no idea that his body had begun to slowly float upwards, alongside everything else. The walls around him had crumbled and all the debris was mixing together.

The blood that had been in the pool in the adjacent room floated across the air, and it seemed like it almost wanted to splash onto Lex, but all it could do was cover his barriers. The lava, which had been falling down in the main hall, was now falling upwards, and it too seemed to approach Lex, yet it was once again blocked by his shields, and all it could do was slowly envelope them.

An invisible, wood ring suddenly became visible, stuck inside Lex's shields. It vibrated, almost as if out of frustration, as it tried to reach the blood and lava, but it had no strength. A small crack appeared in the ring and it stopped vibrating, as if it had lost all its energy.

Lex remained oblivious to all of this since he could not feel anything. In fact, the only thing he had left were his thoughts. Time was unusual when there was no stimulus at all. Lex had stopped trying to create more barriers once he lost all sensation, because he could not be sure if he was using the technique correctly. If, due to his loss of all awareness, he channeled his spirit energy incorrectly he could suffer severe damage, which was something he could not handle right now.

But unbeknownst to him, barriers were forming around him still as more and more lava surrounded him, trying to get to the wooden ring that was hovering around him. This continued until he formed a massive, floating ball of lava approximately 20 feet (6 meters) in diameter.

As the ball kept rising, it eventually emerged from the debris that the mountain range had turned into, and began to rapidly cool down, solidifying into a shape suspiciously similar to an egg.

The planet around the egg was absolutely devastated. The detonation of the artillery shell did not result in an actual explosion, but had instead unleashed a devastating curse. If Lex could see the situation around him, he would discover that destruction caused by the curse was eerie and unnerving.

Everything, from the planet, to the ships, to the Frigals, icy abominations and all the foreigners who had been exposed to the curse seemed to have come undone. They were not disintegrating into finer, smaller particles. Instead, everything that they were composed of was coming undone.

The ships, for example, had been perfectly deconstructed down to the last nut and bolt in such a fashion that a knowledgeable engineer could rebuild it perfectly.

The Frigals were coming apart as if they were not living beings but constructed robots. Their skins were separate from the muscles, which had been separated from their blood vessels which had been separated from the blood itself. Each tooth, each fingernail, each scale, and every other part of their body had been perfectly removed without causing any harm during the removal process.

The dwarves, elves and the abominations had been deconstructed in a similar fashion.

Even the planet, under the influence of the curse, was slowly and systematically being separated. Each mineral in the soil was being separated, each ore perfectly purified so that each metal it contained was separated.

Slowly and steadily, the effects of the curse were spreading deeper and deeper into the planet, but for some odd reason, when the curse tried to penetrate the 'egg' Lex was in, it was being greatly resisted!

Meanwhile, Lex, who had no idea what was happening, tried to initiate his return to the Inn. If something happened it would disrupt the teleportation, but there was no harm in trying.

A few seconds later, the egg disappeared.

The planet, on the other hand, continued to suffer the curse's effects. Everyone in the immediate vicinity of the detonation was already dead, but those some distance away were still alive, for the moment.

Deep within the castle, deeper even than the supposed last level that Lex had found the dragon on, the king of the Frigals was accompanying his son. As it turned out, it was not a bodyguard protecting the child, but the king himself!

The reason why this previously unfavored child of the king was suddenly getting so much attention was simple. The royal family had long since known that the dragon had died, because the moment of the dragon's death, he had transmitted unto this child secret information. The royal family's job now was to aid the child until it could complete the mission given to it by the dragon.

"This is the opportunity we have been waiting for. Spreading the news of the dragon's death really was a good idea. Look at all the chaos those foreigners have caused. That 'thing's' attention is finally diverted towards preventing the destruction of the planet. It will not notice at all if we leave," said the child, his voice a lot more confident than would have been expected from one of his age.

"You are wise," the king responded, showing no emotion on his face. No one could decipher his thoughts.

As if on cue, an unusual power filled with an icy chill rose from the opposite end of the planet and attacked the curse preventing its spread, but not really eliminating it directly either.

Meanwhile, back at the Inn, the egg had reappeared in Lex's meditation room right in front of the dragon.

The return of all his senses was not immediate, but it happened fairly quickly. First came the feeling of extreme weakness, as if he had not eaten food in years. Although it was not much consolation, at least he was not in agonizing pain.

Then came the feeling of suffocation. He had used up all the oxygen within the small area around him. Then came a strange feeling that Lex couldn't really describe. If he had to put it to words then all he could say was it felt like he was… leaking.

He moved, and the lack of pain he had just been grateful for vanished. It was not in any one area that he was hurting, it was the surface of his entire body.

Suffocated, irritated and in pain, Lex stretched out and his hands hit a cold, hard surface. For a moment it resisted against Lex, but he ultimately broke it apart and an unusual situation unfolded. In front of the dragon's eyes, an egg seemed to be breaking open, and from within it a skinny, bloody creature emerged.

Lex would have used his spirit sense to investigate his situation but he was too drained to use even that, so when he finally broke open his confines and light finally entered, Lex realized why he was feeling so many peculiar sensations!

The skin on his entire body had… detached itself from him. Lex was left there, standing in his suit completely with all his muscles, guts and flesh exposed. If he were not a cultivator, and if his body were not resilient enough to keep itself together despite the harsh condition, Lex may have just died right there.

In front of him, on the ground, his skin lay on the ground like an old shirt he threw on the floor. Even his hair was still attached to it, making it seem like an extremely creepy yet realistic costume.

Lex trembled, for the sight was just too nerve wracking, before teleporting to the ORR. It could reconstruct any organ, and his skin definitely counted! All the while he was wondering what the hell actually happened!