The Innkeeper

Chapter 2296: And so it begins V

Jack stood at the bow of the Jolly Rancher, looking out at the Dream realm with a confident smirk and a casual attitude, filling his crew with reverence as they saw him cutting through the Dream Fog.

Unlike Lex, who had the Bathroom Slippers to prevent himself from being confused by the Dream realm, Jack and the crew were extremely vulnerable to the influence of the Dream realm.

One of the main reasons that their crew hadn’t been dispersed was because the Jolly Rancher had been treated by the Humanoid Alliance and improved, making it somewhat secure from all external influences. But the influence of a Mature realm wasn’t something that could be so easily overlooked. Only by standing at the bow, and shouldering the pressure while aiding its advance, could Jack allow his ship to sail through the uncertainty.

His crew were all naturally quite happy with this arrangement, especially after Ollie, the Shadow Talon, got lost in a dream with no shadows once.

Since then, each of the crew members had, one at a time, experienced the dreams but none of them had a pleasant experience. Of course, Bob was entirely unable to enter a dream at all, which was the main reason for his poor experience.

Regardless, everyone was very impressed by Jack, unaware that hidden beneath that confident demeanor, Jack was actually feeling incredibly tense. It wasn’t because of what had happened to his main body, or what was happening at the Midnight Inn, or even the ongoing war inside the Dream realm.

No, he was tense because of the upcoming Nexus event. Back in Abaddon, when he had met Mrs. Big-fat-guy, as Little Blue had so aptly called her, she had revealed to him a lot about the Nexus, and the Nexus event.¹

The Nexus was a place where trace amounts of energy, absorbed from every event that happened across the universe, were stored. That energy was usually from destiny, karma, causality and all sorts of different laws associated with Tether, at least based on what Jack could guess.

Eventually, that energy would accumulate to an absolutely massive amount until it gave birth to an item. When that item would accumulate enough energy, it would break free from the Nexus, causing a disruption in the universe’s destiny, and that would be called the Nexus Event.

Of course, when Mrs. Big-fat-guy was teaching him about how to find the Nexus, she’d thoroughly educated him about not tampering with that item for it was not something he could get in touch with, it was an item on the Dao level.

She also made clear to him that there were other mysteries and secrets revolving around the item which is why it was best he did not get involved. He simply needed to focus on finding and entering the Nexus - a place the location of which would only be revealed when the item exited it.

To help him, she had taught him a great deal about how to find the location once it was revealed, how to exit and enter the Nexus, and even how to induce the Nexus event himself!

Well, ever since Lex was defeated by Daekol, Lex and Jack had already begun working on their revenge plan.

Although it seemed like too much time had passed for Lex, in truth barely any time had gone by in the Dream realm. He had only just begun to set up his plan.

But, just in case things went awry, he decided to speed up his Nexus plan of establishing the Rebirth Chamber within it. Thus, in the Dream realm, Jack began to set up formations that would help him figure out the location of the Nexus, and how far away it was.

Due to how weak he was as a Fairy, what he could do was naturally limited, and it wasn’t like he could force the Nexus himself. He could barely set up the weakest formations and prod it.

Yet when he had done that, he realized something absurd, and yet obvious!

Mrs.Big-fat-guy had told Lex that she was the only person who knew about the Nexus, and that no one else would know about it. Yet when he set up the formation to speed up the Nexus event, it resonated with some other formations set up not only inside the Dream realm, but all across the universe!

Someone was artificially dictating the date of the Nexus event! While that much was already somewhat apparent, he hadn’t thought that their method would be the exact same as what Mrs.Big-fat-guy had taught him. That was supposed to be a secret.

What’s worse was that the resonance had alerted him to the fact that someone else was doing this, and vice-versa, it had alerted them as well that someone else was also trying to speed up the Nexus event.

Jack felt fortunate that he had the Masterless technique hiding him, or he suspected that he may have already been found out and attacked or captured by the unknown entity manipulating things in the dark.

But things had already reached this stage, and Jack couldn’t change his plans. One way to forcefully push forward the date of the Nexus event was to use the formations taught to him by the Kun Peng hidden in Abaddon. Another was to cause major, universal events.

While there was no shortage of those these days, it couldn’t hurt to push things along further.

At the same time, he needed to get his hands on a piece of World Tree root from a World Tree that was fully mature and established within a Mature realm. That would help him enter the Nexus.

With these two things on the agenda, Jack thought hard about how he could cause a few big waves across the universe - all without getting himself killed. In the end, he came up with a plan, but it would rely on him returning to the Folklore realm with a special, extremely dangerous item that may cause untold, incalculable damage to the universe.

But, it was what it was. That secret item was already in his possession, wrapped in a black cloth so that no one could know what was hidden inside.

The problem was, how to leave the Dream realm and enter the Folklore realm? This was a problem even major powers had, and it couldn’t be resolved so easily. Ordinarily, one who entered the Dream realm could exit by waking up. But for anyone who entered the realm with their bodies, exiting was a huge ordeal, especially after its return.

One of the only reliable exits to the Dream realm was the Dream tavern. He wasn’t aware of what its situation was currently. It was supposed to cease cooperation with the Henali and Humanoid Alliance after a single year, and after that the Dream tavern was meant to wind up.

Lex had decided that so that he wouldn’t get caught up in whatever the mess was in the Dream realm. Now he was hoping that the tavern was still open, at least until he could use it to exit.

As for what happened after that... who could say?

The Jolly Rancher sailed through the Dream realm, following a fixed course, right up until he saw the Dream tavern in the distance.

While many years had already passed in the Land of a Hundred Rivers, a year had not passed within the Dream realm. Jack was really looking forward to seeing the Dream Tavern once more, feeling the fresh air of the Inn, even if it was for a short while. There really was no place like-

Three figures appeared in front of the Jolly Rancher, blaring their auras at the peak of the Celestial realm, stopping the ship in its tracks.

Jack felt confused about who would be so bold as to take action right at the border of the Dream tavern. Weren’t they afraid of provoking the Inn? Or had something unexpected happened in the short time that he was missing?

"The Dream Tavern of the Midnight Inn is under the protection of the Humanoid Alliance. State your name, affiliation, and pay the entry fee, and only then will you be allowed to enter," one of them boldly announced, causing Jack’s smirk to slowly fade.

It seemed that... things really had gone awry. After years in the Land of a Hundred Rivers, watching mortals conspire against each other, Lex had actually learned quite a lot. He’d also learned about how to see through matters, and discern the likely truth.

Jack felt not a single shred of fear as he looked at the three figures, and tried to pierce through the shroud hiding their identities.

While he couldn’t tell who they were, it was obvious that they were from the Humanoid Alliance. However, the fact that they were from the alliance, and that they were using the alliance’s name, did not actually mean that these were the alliance’s actions or intentions.

The bigger the organisation, the harder it was to manage the minor details. Someone was clearly using the alliance’s name, not only to sow discord between the Inn and the alliance, someone was using this to probe the Midnight Inn!

Something must have happened while he was gone to hint at the fact that the Innkeeper wasn’t paying attention, or that the Inn was vulnerable in some way.