The Innkeeper

Chapter 1980: Full Story III

Finally, Lex gave a response to their stories. Unfortunately, that response was merely a raised eyebrow. Well, this much was an easy conclusion anyone could make. In fact, he was certain that even Damian had reached this conclusion, so regardless of whether Leon and Serene admit it or not, everyone would assume they’d encountered some kind of fortuitous event.

The only question that remained was what exactly that fortuitous event was. Needing to pass through some kind of test did not sound like the systems he had heard of, but it was still possible that she had encountered some kind of special system.

Up until this point, both Serene and Leon had a very vulnerable expression, as if they were opening up to Lex so that he could see their sincerity, yet now that the topic had come to the heritage they encountered, Serene’s expression slowly became focused, as if she was filled with great resolve.

She glanced at Fenrir, and then Mango, before turning to her son.

"Lex, I hope you do not ask me about the heritage we encountered. Even mentioning it out right to you is more than I’ve ever done since I’ve encountered it. You need to understand, it is not that I am greedy for it and want to monopolize it, or that I am wary that it will be stolen from me.

"It is simply because through this heritage, I have accepted a mission, and the mission is too important to risk. It is not just my fate, or the fate of our family that hangs in the balance. It is the weight of all of humanity that weighs on my shoulders."

Serene paused, as if waiting for Lex to respond, but he did not seem so impressed. Actually, he seemed dismissive, which was believable, but not for the reasons Serene would have expected.

She would assume that normal people would find it hard to believe that such a mission could be casually bestowed upon random people like them. In truth, Lex seemed dismissive because he had seen too much of the universe, and had his perspective shaped by the position of the Innkeeper.

A single person affecting the fate of a whole race? It was entirely possible, especially since that is exactly what Jack was trying to do. The reason he was dismissive was because his parents’ optimism seemed naive to him, for more than one reason.

Of course, it was entirely possible that they had genuinely received a real heritage of some super duper expert, maybe even a Dao lord, so from their perspective that was their mission. But not even a lone Dao Lord could change the fate of a race like humans in the face of the trend of the universe.

Lex naturally didn’t count Jack to be in the same league as them, though. That was different.

"So it is to keep this secret that you have sacrificed so much?" Lex asked, though he kept the dismissiveness out of his voice.

"Yes, and no," said Serene, shaking her head. "Do not think I am mistaken, or that I am exaggerating. Although the heritage did not give me formidable fighting power, it did grant me a lot of knowledge. I know exactly how difficult or unbelievable what I am saying sounds, but that is true. Which is why, once we returned from the heritage, our first, and only priority, was to protect ourselves.

"We needed to hide our traces, wipe any fluctuations in our destiny, erase all our accumulated karma, dissipate all our casualties, and remove our very existence from the memory of all living beings who knew us.

"For me... it was much easier than it was for your father. My whole family was dead. No one who remembered I even existed... was alive," Serene said, and though she maintained a regular tone this time as well, Lex was extremely sensitive to emotions. He could sense the sorrow that she had suppressed.

"But that is where our troubles truly began. Neither your father, nor I were strong enough to properly hide all our traces - not from the level of beings we were truly meant to be hiding from. Our only hope was to unlock the power of the heritage itself, but for that I would need to implement the knowledge imparted to me successfully. Moreover, we needed to unlock enough levels until the point where we gained a method to successfully hide.

"Upon each instance of successfully utilizing the knowledge imparted, my access to the heritage would deepen, so we began with your father. He purposefully dissipated his entire cultivation, and I designed, from scratch, a cultivation technique. It worked. I gained a deeper access to the heritage.

"Only... since I had helped your father create a cultivation technique for his physique, the subsequent knowledge that I gained from the heritage was about physiques. There was no way I could create a physique for someone who was already born so the only option was to work on someone who was not yet born."

A level of understanding dawned upon Lex. He had many theories about how or why his mother had made their physique, from offloading her own karma, to basing them off beasts and other races. He had also wondered why they kept having children. So this was it.

"After spending so many years together, your father and I naturally grew fond of each other," Serene continued. "Our union seemed only natural, and the plan was sound. We would continue to hide on Earth, this small, forgotten part of the universe, until we gained enough power to hide.

"Then, we would leave forever. Our family, our children, would be safe, hidden by the very means I intended to use to hide us, and we could slowly grow in strength, away from the center stage of the universe.

"Unfortunately, we do not live in an isolated realm. Though we did our best, the moment I gained the heritage, the destiny of the human race was already altered, and thus the destiny of the universe itself. The thing about such big fluctuations in destiny is that it naturally attracts other people, other beings, other items that can influence destiny, and so, one after another, Earth began to attract attention it would have otherwise avoided. That included, among many others, your grandfather."

As she uttered the last word, Serene made no attempt to hide the venom in her tone. It seemed her hate for Damian far surpassed anything else.

Lex suddenly got the feeling that... there was a whole lot more to the story than what even his sisters had known.