The Innkeeper

Chapter 2376: Picking Sides III - Death

The Primal realm was, largely, considered the territory of the Primal race. That went without saying. That did not, however, stop Death from living there, nor did it prevent him from using it as his base of operations.

Unlike his counterparts, he had never hidden himself. He had always remained out in the open, unafraid of any action or retaliation. Of course, due to the restrictions from the universe, he hardly ever left his humble home which acted as a kind of isolation and protective barrier from him.

As long as his main body remained within, the universe would do nothing to him. Any clones he sent out would have to be restricted to the Dao Lord realm, but that was also true of the others, so he didn’t mind it too much.

However, these days, his mood was not so great. When the others started to act, he became excited. For too long, he was the only one who dared act openly - or even discreetly. If any of them were making any moves at all, it was with such immense subtlety, and over such a massive timeframe that it became virtually impossible to detect, which was as good as not acting at all.

He foresaw an age of excitement for him. The universe had become all too boring. But... things did not go as he planned. None other than that Henali took him too seriously, and even that was because Death had been prying into his plans with the Origin realm for too long. The others couldn’t be bothered with him at all.

Who was he? He was Death! He was the end of all life, the destruction of all hope, the natural destination for every living being. He was to be feared, to be revered, to be worshipped. But what was happening in reality? Nothing.

No, nothing would have been fine too. He was used to nothing after so many years. What was actually happening was that his very domain was being subverted, his very presence ignored! It was totally unacceptable!

Death calmed himself down and soothed his emotions. Though he was arrogant, he was not stupid. In fact, it was because he had achieved the pinnacle of arrogance that he knew just how to react when that arrogance was challenged. Blindly reacting was not the solution here - the correct solution was to realize that for too long he had been in an information deficiency.

He arrived at the natural conclusion that it was exactly because of how powerful he was that the others had spent so long creating a workaround so that they could act without alerting him. Perhaps they had even worked together to undermine him.

Yes, that was the only thing that made sense. After all, unlike the others who were ignorant, he knew much better the actual situation of the universe. While they assumed that only a few Major realms had been destroyed, he knew the actual number was upwards of 20!

That number, while horrifying to everyone else, should have been quite pleasant for him to hear. While others would have wondered why these realms were destroyed without a reaction, and why hadn’t anyone realized it, he should have been enjoying the feedback from the innumerable deaths caused by such destruction.

But he wasn’t. It wasn’t because he had suddenly grown a conscience. No, it was because despite the massive number of Major realms destroyed, the number of deaths in the universe hadn’t actually exceeded the norm!

Of the over twenty Major realms destroyed, the only realm where all the residents actually died were from the Julias realm, which had been attacked by Elizabeth. However, he could get no feedback from those deaths because their souls were not actually destroyed, they were converted into resources!

For the rest of the realms, the only deaths had been from the Dao Lords from a few of the realms - mainly because the deaths of Dao Lords were much harder to fake, so it was easier to let them die. Even then, their deaths had been utilized so completely that he still got no feedback.

The question, then, was where had all the living beings from all those realms gone to? Only the mastermind knew, because the karmic debt of destroying so many Major realms was being offset by saving so many lives, making them untraceable!

The fact that so many Major realms were destroyed should have also caused major fluctuations in destiny, but the lives saved caused all their destinies to remain intact, minimising the change in destiny of the universe as much as possible.

What’s more, by reducing the Strain on the universe by destroying Major realms, while keeping all those beings alive, the mastermind was probably being heavily rewarded by the universe itself!

All of this was easily said, but to actually achieve such a thing was astronomically, unbelievably difficult, to the point where it should have been impossible. Yet it was happening right before his eyes, all without alerting him as to who was responsible for it all.

He almost wanted to reach out to Destiny and ask her if she knew anything. After all, among the others, his relationship with her was the best. But he could not guarantee that she wasn’t behind something like this to begin with. If that was the case, reaching out to her would only increase his risk.

Death began to tap his fingers on his armrest as he thought to himself, and then slowly began to smile. His frustrations faded away, and amusement began to fill his rather than irritation.

How long had it been since he encountered genuine obstacles? Wasn’t this exactly what he wanted?

Yes, since he could not discern who was acting and what their goals were, he would need to create his own contingencies and plan for unexpected situations. Only in uncertainty could he find amusement.

Whoever was behind this all deserved his genuine praise. Since they’ve earned his praise, it would be too boring if he only sat back and watched their performance, wouldn’t it? He wondered whether or not they would mind if he interfered a bit. Or maybe he could join them...

Nah, that was too boring. Interference it was.

But how to do that? Interfering blindly was a waste of resources and effort. He needed to do something that would actually benefit him. Now what would that be?

Should he focus on the Origin realm again? Should he go looking for where his old friends were hiding? Or should he make sure that the residents in the destroyed Major realms actually died?

There were so many good options that it actually made him tingle with excitement. He got up from his chair and walked into his library where there were a number of files stored containing ideas for projects that he had wanted to do but never got around to doing.

After looking over them once, he pulled out two and laid them out in front of him. One was labeled ’Necromancy Project’ while the other was labeled ’Nether Portal’.

Now, should he do one of them, or both?