The Innkeeper

Chapter 2396: On the verge of death...

The flower was not actually made of flames despite looking like it. It was hot though. Yet the heat did not really act as an obstacle to Lex at all, and not just because the universe was being lethargic.

If the flower followed the same principles as the Death Metal Rose, no one would be affected negatively by the rose until they touched it. That was also why Lex anticipated that the Dao radiation from the flower would be self contained until he actually touched it. The radiation that the shell was currently reacting to was from his surroundings.

Once Lex touched the flower, the heat from the extreme yang nature of the flower would incinerate him - or anyone else that touched it. Of course, in this case, the lethargy of the universe meant that the flower would be slow to incinerate him, or that when it began to do so it would be weaker than normal. That would give him sufficient time to absorb it into the necklace.

Moving on, the Death Metal Rose had the effect of purifying even the strongest curses, but strictly speaking it was not restricted to just that. This part hadn’t been told to him by Regix, and was instead something he surmised on his own.

The Death Metal Rose should have an unquestionably strong yin nature, which should allow it to resonate or affect with other things a yin nature. Yin and yang were broad concepts that Lex did not traditionally get into, but it was something he had started to research ever since learning about the rose.

Basically, Lex suspected that the reason why the Death Metal Rose could purify curses was because it could affect the yin nature of most curses. Hardly any curse was a yang nature or affinity thing,which is why he could generalise when he said that.

Lex had no way of confirming this, but this was his own theory nevertheless. In that case, the Disaster Rose should have a similar ability of being able to affect and influence things with yang nature. That was a very broad list of things he could influence, but Lex had already had something in mind, which was life.

Yin was more associated with spirits and ghosts, whereas yang was more associated with life and birth. If he could, he wanted to fuse the flower with his necklace and use it to supplement the naturally occurring life within his fake realm. If he could improve that, and do it properly so that it formed a proper cycle, his fake realm would naturally stabilise much quicker and on its own, reducing his work load.

A certain part of Lex’s mind realized that he was procrastinating, and he did not have time for such things. Every moment was critical. So, without further ado, Lex grabbed the flower using the eggshell as a kind of oven mitt, ready to transport it to the necklace.

Yet the moment the shell and the flower came into contact, an uncontrollably thick, overbearing Primordial aura erupted from the shell, spreading throughout the room and then the rest of the pyramid. Moreover, it was not a random, passive Primordial aura like the one that filled the Primordial Garden.

Nay, this was the kind of aura that accompanied a living being! Although Lex had a genuine Primordial aura of his own now, he was stunned in place when the aura erupted for alongside the aura, he also felt an unbelievably strong spirit!

With his body frozen in place, unable to do anything, only a single thought ran through his mind. There had been a living soul hiding inside the shell, and it could not escape until the ability of the shell activated. If the shell had been destroyed before the ability activated, the hidden soul inside would have also died.

Moreover... most likely the reason that the universe seemed so angry was not solely because of the shell itself, but also because of the identity of the soul hidden within. Lex had no idea who exactly it was, but he could tell that it was no ordinary being.

Lex felt the spirit observe him, and then his surroundings. For a moment it paused as it observed the flower he was grabbing. The Primordial aura churned, and then encompassed the flower, causing thin, black smoke to rise out of it.

"We’re even," a thunderous voice roared in Lex’s voice before the spirit completely vanished. The egg shell was still in Lex’s hand, and it was still producing Primordial aura from contact with the flower, but the spirit within the aura seemed to be gone.

Lex also felt like the immensity of the danger he had been feeling from the flower had dropped drastically. That said, it was still not something he could take lightly so he absorbed it into the necklace, still held via the egg shell, and was dropped into the remaining Genesis Dew that Lex had left.

At the same time, he triggered the retribution string and felt it wrap itself around him before pulling him away. It had happened instantaneously, but that was not enough. In the minor fraction of a moment where the eggshell was gone, and Lex had not yet disappeared, Lex was exposed to a faint amount of Dao radiation.

Despite how brief the contact had been, and despite how faint the aura itself was - comparatively speaking - Lex’s soul felt like it was on the verge of being extinguished. He could not tell if he was injured or not because his spirit seemed affected as well, and his mind had gone adrift.

Naturally, the necklace itself wasn’t in such a good condition physically either. The timing for this could not have been worse for he was being pulled into a retribution, and within the space of the necklace a flower with literally the word ’disaster’ in it was being processed... or was supposed to be processed. What its condition was now was not something Lex could comment on.

The Dao radiation Lex had felt was nowhere near the full extent of the radiation that room normally had, since the universe was still lethargic, and that was the very reason he had survived.

In fact, it was that very same lethargy which was preventing him from immediately reaching the retribution. Meanwhile, the flower began to lose its shape, and a pulse of yang spread throughout the interior of the necklace, affecting the fake realm until it eventually reached Lex’s soul.

The fortune that the Fortune Lord had mentioned previously began to reveal itself, for the yang nature of the flower began to resonate with the phoenix part of the Helix Petal Rose that had been fused into Lex before his birth.

It was always very obvious that Lex had a strong affinity for dragons, but his phoenix affinity and abilities always remained somewhat suppressed, perhaps because the population of phoenixes in the universe were far fewer, giving him less opportunities to interact with them.

Now, that aspect of his nature was being triggered on its own.