The Innkeeper

Chapter 2371: The beginning of the end times II

Jack wasn’t looking to pick a big fight. Nothing would satisfy him more, and relieve more stress, than to beat up a bunch of Tyrannis who kidnapped one of his crew members. Heck, after everything that Lex had been through, something relaxing like this was well deserved.

But that was the exact issue. This wasn’t going to be a relaxing fight for him. A single glance was all it took for Jack to realize that there was something terribly wrong with the situation.

It was already highly unusual for members of the Tyrannis race to be here, especially when one of their Major realms was being invaded and it was difficult to move through the universe at the moment. However, that alone wasn’t enough to arouse his suspicions. After all, they could have been inside the realm before the appearance of the Tribulation Fiends, and the population of the Tyrannis race was vast so it made sense that many of them were spread across the universe, even during such critical times.

The second thing that aroused his suspicion was that they all seemed to be extremely ordinary. Their karma, their aura, their presence, none of it was hidden or camouflaged. It was simply ordinary and mundane, not worth paying attention to at all. That in itself was unusual, for they were also all Celestial Immortals. Neither Lex nor Jack had ever met an ordinary Celestial Immortal.

As if that was not enough, despite appearing extremely ordinary, they were hidden from detection using quite impressive means. Finally, despite the entire group being formed of Celestial Immortals, they were much too frightened while being ambushed by lower level cultivators.

Jack had a feeling that it wasn’t their attack that the group feared, but the repercussions of being discovered in the first place.

Regardless of whether his instincts were right or wrong, since he felt like there was something wrong with the situation, he acted with extreme prejudice. Not only did he have Rose slam the entire damn ship on them, he unleashed Bob on them as well.

Then, while they were struggling to understand the nuances of battling a ship as big as a mountain that kept hammering them, all the while chaos and anarchy became intimately familiar with them under Bob’s guidance, Jack executed his rescue of Pebbles.

The hamster was, predictably, inside a hamster cage, though the bars were made of some material Jack was unfamiliar with. Opening the cage was nigh impossible for him in a rush, he just picked up the whole cage itself.

That wasn’t the best plan - the cage would make them easy to track, but he would deal with that later.

The crew had only just loosened themselves up and were getting ready for a brawl when Jack reappeared.

"Rose, fly us out of here as quickly as you can," Jack ordered seriously as he grabbed Goldilocks with one hand and the Crystal alligator with another, using both of them to scrub the cage.

To his genuine surprise, the cage was able to resist the effect of both of them, showing just how powerful a prison the cage actually was. Jack suspected it wasn’t really meant to keep Pebbles imprisoned as much as it was to keep whatever he held in his cheeks firmly locked in there.

But who was Jack? How could he be stopped by something like that? Jack immediately gave up using the Back of Atlas on his identity as a fairy, and instead absorbed the strength of the cage. The two weren’t comparable in strength at all, and the cage immediately became brittle, allowing him to smash it on the ground.

While he had been doing that, the Jolly Rancher had teleported a few times, losing the trail of the Tyrannis, at least for now. Whether they were able to track them despite the multiple jumps was something they’d learn soon enough.

"What kind of trouble did you get yourself into this time?" Jack interrogated Pebbles, looking angry.

The hamster, for what it was worth, seemed genuinely apologetic, yet he did not move too much.

Jack frowned, noticing Pebbles’ odd behavior.

"What’s wrong? Is the item in your cheek intimidating you?" Jack asked, and Pebbles nodded immediately, as if he were a child in trouble.

"Well spit it out. If it’s too problematic we’ll just toss it overboard," said Jack, but Pebbles shook his head rapidly, as if he was afraid of doing that.

"What? You think it’s too dangerous? That it’ll harm the other?" Jack asked again, and Pebbles nodded.

Upon hearing such a concern, he sent away the others, leaving only Bob by his side. Jack found it hard to believe that there existed something Pebbles could tolerate that could harm Bob.

Even so, Pebbles was quite worried, but eventually he spit it out.

It was a bronze colored figurine of a woman in a hood, holding up a torch. Appearance wise, it actually looked like something a Deity might have as a relic in one of their temples. Except this figurine did not radiate a holy or divine aura.

No, it was filled to the brim with a type of energy so intensely negative and ominous that it made Profane energy seem pleasant.

Just looking at it, Jack felt his lifeforce being affected, draining him of his vitality at a noticeable pace. The air itself turned stale, and Jack’s clothes faded away as if they had decayed on his very body.

Even Bob said nothing, for the power coming off that thing was as if corruption had decay had been given form.

Jack did not hesitate at all, and used a gust of wind to throw the figurine overboard - he didn’t even want to touch it with his spirit sense. Yet even before the figurine left the boundary of the ship, countless figures appeared all around the Jolly Rancher, as if merely sensing the aura of that figurine had alerted them!

"How dare you?" a voice bellowed across the horizon as a hand reached out of the sky and crushed the figurine into dust.

Before Jack or any of the others could make sense of what happened, they felt themselves move into a completely new area. Jack was familiar with the feeling - he was inside a Mirage, a place conjured by the thoughts of a Dao Lord. Outside, a battle had already begun.