The Innkeeper

Chapter 2210: Failed Dao tribulation

Three years passed since the Innkeeper had released a letter in response to the pressure from the Path of Chaos. To mortals, three years was a tremendous amount of time. Their entire lives could change in this span of time. Labourers could pick up skills, kids could pick up martial arts, and many could take their first steps on the cultivation path. Marriages could be made or broken, alliances could be formed or shattered, and bright futures could turn dark, or vice versa.

However, in the cultivation world, three years were but a blink of an eye. Generally speaking, three years was not really enough time for something major to happen. There were, of course, exceptions, but most of the time three years was barely enough time for a Celestial Immortal to take a snort meditation break.

The influence of the appearance of the Dream realm had still not completely revealed itself, let alone the ramifications of the Midnight Inn successfully opening and running a tavern there.

Although, many forces had realized that there were no significant, immediate consequences for the Midnight tavern’s appearance in the Dream realm. Yes, it allowed the tavern to rescue some odd guests now and then. Over the four years that the tavern had been in place, a few million guests had been reduced, of which about 44% chose to exit through the Origin realm while the rest decided to stay in the Midnight Inn until alternative exits could be arranged.

On the grand scale of things, though, a few million hardly mattered, especially since not a single Dao Lord had been reduced via the tavern. No one was sure, as of yet, whether that was on purpose, or just coincidence.

However, the rate of the rescue efforts was too low to significantly impact even a single war zone.

What no one expected, however, was that the Midnight tavern became a safe and reliable way to enter the Dream realm, and so the Origin realm received trillions of requests every day for entries so that they could use the taverns to enter the realm. The Henali did not, however, open the realm to the public.

Only very few allied forces were allowed to send in some personnel below the Dao realm. The ones who benefited most were the natives of the Origin realm, who sought out this opportunity to safely explore the Dream realm in hopes of encountering unique treasures which could only be found there.

But the others were not resigned to miss out on this opportunity, so negotiations were ongoing. In fact, countless forces across the universe which had previously banned access to the Midnight Inn from their space were now regretting the fact that the Inn had sealed off entry or exit, preventing them from being able to readily make use of their services.

So far, for the past four years, things had been relatively peaceful. No one was causing trouble for the Midnight Inn, because everyone who was in the know about it and its background was trying to build a decent relationship with it. Those who didn’t know about it were intimidated by the protection countless forces were offering in the hopes of attracting a partnership or deal that the Inn had with the Henali.

Those who neither knew about it, nor were strong enough to be able to interact with the forces offering the Inn protection were themselves too weak to be considering any kind of invasion as they themselves were searching for safety during this time of war.

The exacerbated war had caused the sudden emergence of void bandits and pirates who would attack anyone crossing the Void while successfully hiding their identities, preventing detection or revenge. Even within realms, the crime rate had soared causing everyone trouble. So, as a universal whole, everyone was too busy trying to survive to cause the Inn any trouble, especially since it was so difficult to enter it these days.

However, the universe was a vast place, filled with all kinds of beings, and not everything that happened had to be logical, or unfold in a sensible and reasonable way.

The Dream tavern, as the guests had taken to calling it, had become a place that existed in a state of a perpetual picnic. Guests came and guests went, but the picnic never stopped, nor did the energy filled environment ever fade.

Whenever a new guest was rescued from the Dream realm, they were always ecstatic and exhausted, wanting to celebrate but not having the energy to do anything extravagant. Thus, they sat in the grass, listened to the thin water streams, watched others fly kites and ate food out of baskets.

This was not really a place for families, but many adventurer groups stayed near the Dream tavern, taking up the latest service offered by the Midnight Inn of hiring an escort who could accompany them into the Dream realm, and then bring them back to the tavern following a compass.

Z, as usual, stood atop Little Blue, observing the entire space. Although the past few years seemed to have been incredibly peaceful on the surface, in truth there had been countless close calls that they had resolved.

Although most of the time Z complained about how Lex pretended to be weak to give them some pressure, these past few years had proved just how wise that decision had been. In his absence, if Z and the others hadn’t been able to accumulate experience safely, they wouldn’t have been able to respond to these hurdles.

The irony of the situation was that this time around, Lex really did leave a contingency in the form of the Karmic bead, and so these past few years were the actual times where they were accumulating experiences without knowing they were safe. All the previous times, they were genuinely in trouble.

Everything seemed to be normal today as well, until Z suddenly sensed an unusual fluctuation within the space of the Inn. Although he was not connected to the Inn, he did not need to be since he was especially sensitive to space.

He turned his gaze towards the border of the space, and saw that an unassuming guest had entered from within the Dream realm. That was rare, but not something that hadn’t happened before. Most of the time, those who entered this space were brought back by the Midnight battalion, or the Midnight Inns’ compass wielding escorts, but a few times guests stumbled into it on their own.

Z narrowed his eyes. For some reason, he was unable to feel this certain guest’s presence at all. Owing to the instability caused by this guest’s arrival, Z sent a message to the tavern staff that he’d be the one to welcome the guest and that the others should keep a safe distance until he gave the all clear.

The guest looked like a fusion between a werewolf and a centaur, its skin all black and covered in thick hair. Its yellow eyes immediately turned towards Z, who was approaching from a distance, immediately causing Z’s hair to stand on end as he sensed extreme, deathly danger!

Little Blue sensed the danger even before Z, and flapped its wings, tearing through the aura suppression caused by the guest despite the fact that the aura contained a hint of Dao!

The other guests inside the tavern, though, froze in space as the wild, uncontrolled aura spread all around.

The guest, or rather the assailant unleashed a wild, crazed howl that caused the entire space to bubble and destabilise as the ground and trees vaporised all around him. A thought immediately came to mind of the peak Celestial guests who were in the space!

The Dao tribulation! This was someone who had failed the Dao tribulation!

While they had some insight into what was happening, the others only felt an uncontrollable, uncontainable destructive force that threatened to eliminate them all!

Yet they did not actually panic. Sure, they were momentarily suppressed by the aura, but it was only a moment. They did not actually come to any harm! Instead, all of them looked towards the crazed assailant with excitement in their eyes.

There was only one reason why they were so relaxed - they all had unquestionable belief in the Midnight Inns ability to protect them. Oh, and also the handsome man, floating in the air, protecting them from the aura and the crazed assailant.

Over the past four years, the Innkeeper made regular appearances, so they all recognised him now. The warm, gentle aura of the Innkeeper was entirely unaffected by the rampant, wild aura raging forth from the dying assailant’s body.

Many of the Celestials wondered if they could buy the assailant’s body from the Innkeeper after he was dealt with. But they knew such a thing wasn’t feasible. After all, they all knew what happened when someone messed with the Midnight Inn. They were converted into Midnight fertilizer!

Lex, for the first time in four years, allowed all 1% of his consciousness to descend into the Midnight Inn as he summoned the Butter Knife and aimed it at the target. However, he did not immediately attack, because for once, he could not tell what cultivation level the target was at.

It almost felt like he was a Demi Dao Lord, and at the same time, he was not. How curious.