The Innkeeper

Chapter 2188: Troubled times

Lex, Wu Kong, Jack and the others weren’t the only ones focusing on the Dream realm all of a sudden. Its resurgence was at a very inopportune time, for both the Path of Chaos and the Path of Order. The Dream realm’s reach could not be curtailed, nor its targets controlled. As such, it messed up many carefully calculated plans, as well as created various opportunities for some.

One such opportunity involved a report that was sent through official information channels for Dao Lords, stating that all known clones of Wu Kong had disappeared, suspectedly sucked into the Dream realm.

While that was not nearly enough leverage for some people to consider attacking the Midnight Inn, it was enough for a few to start thinking about how to seal Wu Kong again. More importantly, Wu Kong had previously acted as Lex’s guardian prior to the Tea party, deterring anyone from actively acting against him.

Now, with Wu Kong conveniently missing, many once again turned their attention towards Lex. Yet for now, getting to him was impossible. Not only was access to the Midnight restricted from most of the universe, the Innkeeper had sealed it off even from the places that didn’t have seals.

It was uncertain how the Inn would operate in the future, but to an extent that was a good thing. The ongoing war was complicated enough, and the fewer the unpredictable variables, the better.

For example, the sudden emergence of the Dream realm created a critical weakness in the defense of a couple of Major realms, resulting in one of them suffering from a full on invasion, with the war transferring from the Void outside the realm to the space inside the realm.

Similarly, a few realms that were under a lot of pressure suddenly found themselves with a lot of breathing room, since the invading forces were affected. While individual battlefields and realms experienced beneficial or harmful consequences, the overall situation deteriorated for everyone since complex plans were affected.

Yet such unpredictable randomness was the nature of reality, and those who could adapt would be the ultimate winners in the final war.

Inside the Origin realm, Giselle cursed as she focused on healing the grievous injury she had suffered. The entire right side of her body was burnt to a crisp, her entire hand missing. Such an injury would take centuries to heal for a new Heaven Immortal like her - at least if she could not get her hands on the right resources.

To heal a Heaven Immortals body required material that was of sufficient quality, and if she could not get her hands on it, then the healing process would be even slower. It would involve her body using ambient spiritual energy to slowly regrow her body, one molecule at a time.

Even normal humans, when they heal, source the nutrients and materials used to heal their bodies using the food that they eat. In the absence of such nutrition, the body would not heal.

This was actually what normal Immortals went through. She kept getting distracted thinking that if Lex were here, he’d find some way to just miraculously heal from these injuries using hidden, forbidden bloodlines that would shock anyone who heard them. Or maybe he’d just directly mastered the law of healing to the point of instant recovery.

Such absurd and unreasonable things were exactly the kinds of things one could expect from him. Compared to him, these friends of his were all normal geniuses, the kinds that didn’t rewrite her entire understanding of reality.

"Alright, we need to move," said Rafael, who was meditating nearby. Despite his steady voice, his condition was actually much worse than Giselle, retaining only his face, neck and chest. Everything else had been burned away.

The rest of the group all had similar levels of injuries, but it could not be helped. When the war reached the Origin realm, and affected the Champions tourney, the enemies they faced weren’t conveniently at their own level. No, they were all far beyond what they could reasonably face.

If it weren’t for Giselle, and Marlo who had recently gained a huge boost in strength of his own, they would have all died. The problem wasn’t that they were attacked, or that they faced greater odds than normal. Such things are expected in war.

No, the problem was that they seemed to have stumbled onto some kind of secret, and for that they were still being hunted down in the midst of the ongoing war!

The last assault on them had been carried out by a secret, elite team including one Celestial Immortal and four Heaven Immortals! A team like that, against them, meant certain death! The fact that they were even alive right now seemed a miracle. However, in truth, it was a result of the fact that their entire group consisted of crazy humans, each of which could fight above their level.

That allowed them to survive long enough until Giselle killed the Celestial Immortal using a technique involving Time, and then was able to save them. Yet the hunt was far from over. They had merely experienced a temporary escape.

"Where are we going?" asked Larry, who was the only one who appeared to have a whole body. Then again, he only appeared fine because he could remake his body using metals. In truth, he was just as weakened and injured as the rest of them.

"If we want to survive, then we need to leave the Suera galaxy. To do that, we need to reach Frigra," said Rafael with confidence. No one asked where his confidence came from. They were long used to Rafael’s unique ability to guide them out of danger.

It was not always effective, but it was effective enough that they could rely on him.

Giselle narrowed her eyes. She had heard about Frigra before. It used to be a very prosperous planet, and was the territory of a dragon, until a strange curse affected the planet, killing everyone. That was the planet they were supposed to go to for a chance at survival?

She could not help but resist the urge to sigh. She hadn’t realized just how subconsciously dependent she had become on always being to go to the Inn until the Inn entered lockdown. How convenient would it be if she could go there now?