The Innkeeper

Chapter 2397: Crucible of Karma

It wasn’t like Lex hadn’t activated his lingering phoenix affinity at all. Even without excessive contact with phoenixes and any associated treasures or materials, Lex’s body inherently demonstrated some similar abilities.

He was always excellent at healing - especially others - to the point where his blood was literally better than most healing medications in existence. The only reason he wasn’t extremely proficient in healing himself wasn’t because he himself lacked healing capabilities, but because his body itself was so powerful that healing it required a lot more energy and resources.

But being good at healing, and being able to be reborn from an extremely wounded state were two entirely different concepts, and were not even on the same level.

In Lex’s current state, exposure to Dao radiation had brought him on the verge of death. The reason it was on the verge, and not actual death, was because of his 51% Dao Body giving him some minor resistance to it.

Yet this was merely the result from the initial exposure. That did not mean that everything was over, as the damage would continue to compound unless the Dao radiation was cleansed from him.

That, however, was not the only thing happening to him at the moment. The flower had begun to lose its shape as it processed itself without any guidance, passively affecting the fake realm and the necklace in the most suitable, stable and gentle way. That naturally included Lex’s soul as well. The surprising thing, however, was that even the egg shell was not excluded from the treatment.

Yet even that was not the full extent of what was happening. Two other, extremely critical things were happening simultaneously. One was that the egg shell was producing massive amounts of Primordial aura.

Such unconstrained aura inside the fake realm, especially when it was in such a vulnerable state, should have destabilised it. Yet what it did, instead, was stabilise Lex’s damaged soul since he had fully acclimatised to Primordial energy and aura himself.

Not everything was rainbows and sunshine, however, since the final thing that was happening was that the necklace was being pulled into the retribution. Although the process was slow, that was only relatively speaking. In a few seconds, at most, the necklace would be pulled into the retribution zone designated for Lex’s own final retribution - the one he feared might reach the Dao level.

Yet those few seconds were enough. Although the situation did not get significantly better, at least Lex’s deterioration was stopped. Everything entered into an equilibrium state.

Unfortunately, equilibrium, safety, stability and all manner of such things didn’t really seem to be a part of Lex’s fate. The necklace entered the land of retribution that the Gilded Hollow had specifically created.

Lex had already faced a few types of retribution, with varying levels of difficulty. Now, it seemed that the Gilded Hollow had decided to show him the last type of retribution, which was also what was normally considered the hardest.

Mithon had told him that in the last type of retribution, the Hollow pulled out the targets soul and puts it through eight cycles of torture. That was exactly the type of retribution Lex faced now - with one notable exception.

The Hollow could not separate Lex’s soul from the necklace because the nature of Lex’s existence made it so that his body and soul were basically one. In short, the necklace fell into the first type of torture.

A stream of cool information flowed into the necklace, as if the Hollow wished to inform its target about the torture they were about to face. The cool stream of information actually stirred Lex’s spirit, and allowed him to wake from his stupor.

Before even processing the information given to him by the Hollow, Lex realized the state his existence was in. It was not good - he was on the verge of being destroyed. The necklace and his soul were both on the absolute verge of collapsing, and it was only the actions of the flower which were keeping the destruction from happening.

Then he processed the information he got from the Hollow.

The first cycle of torture he was going to face was called Crucible of Karma. It exacted on Lex every injury and pain he had ever caused to anyone else for any reason.

The pain had not yet started, perhaps because the Hollow was waiting for him to understand exactly what was about to happen to him. Once he understood, the pain began.

Lex took in a deep breath because that... was going to be a lot of pain. Then, he smiled. No matter how much pain he endured, pain itself was something Lex no longer even took into consideration. He did not even scream or grunt, instead recalling the time that he asked the Hollow to teach him how to punish his enemies.

This was not a bad idea. He could cause his enemies to suffer without actually taking any harm.

Even for people who could ignore the pain, much like himself, it did not negate the fact that they were in actual pain.

Lex estimated that he would be within this cycle of torture for quite a while, and understood why the Fortune Lord had arrived so early. Even though the deadline was almost a year away, the retribution itself would take time.

Instead of wasting this time wallowing on the time he batista-bombed Belle in their childhood - the pain from which he was currently feeling - Lex focused on the state of his recovery. He could heal himself, but the flower seemed to be guiding him towards a better path. He could now understand why the Fortune Lord had recommended he try to take the flower.

If he could awaken the legendary rebirth by fire ability of phoenixes, his strength and survivability would shoot through the roof. Thus, he took this time to begin guiding and accelerating the growth from the flower. He aimed to complete everything and be ready by the time the next cycle of torture began. Who knew whether it would also be as harmless as this one.

What Lex didn’t know was that he was actually suffering one of the most deadly versions of the torture retribution, and that he was literally the first in history to disregard it entirely. It wasn’t that others weren’t as impervious as him to pain - it was just that most who entered had lived much longer lives than him, and had a whole lot more time to do damage than him.

That said, the pain and suffering Lex had caused - purposefully and inadvertently - was not little. The extent of the pain he was suffering was enough to drive most immortals insane.

He had not just caused pain to people, but his actions had occasionally caused emotional distress even to Dao Lords. Even if that karma was well hidden by the system and the Masterless technique, it could not be entirely erased. An entity on the level of Gilded Hollow could see through it.

Thus the pain he was going through... it could not be quantified. Yet the smile his projection wore never wavered, even if his eyes reddened as he focused on processing the flower. Rebirth through fire was more than a literal definition of the ability. The pain, the excruciating agony that was coursing through his entire being at the moment, too could be called a type of fire. Once he came out the other end, he would be reborn - and not just because he aimed to fix the necklace by then. No, his aim was to have the entire ability unlocked and working by then!

It wasn’t just Lex who was ignoring the pain. Since it was a conceptual suffering that he was going through, Jack was also not exempt.

Yet no matter where the pain came from, no matter how severe the pain itself was, it could not break Lex’s focus for even a moment.

"Maybe I’m just too magnanimous," Lex joked to himself, though in truth there really was no shortage of suffering.

There was, however, an end to it. One end was if Lex’s mind broke, and he died. The second end was if he bore all the pain he had ever caused, and survived. Five weeks and three days later, when the cycle of torture finally ended, that’s exactly what happened.

Only Lex himself knew just how much suffering he had endured, and how he had maintained his focus through it. None would ever be able to tell the immense severity of this cycle simply from observing Lex, for he showed no outward sign of suffering at all.

Instead, he grinned as he observed the new state of his necklace. It had genuinely gone through a rebirth, from almost being destroyed due to Dao radiation to now being stronger than ever, both internally and externally.

The faint, lingering hint of Dao radiation on the necklace had been absorbed and turned into Primordial aura - the very same aura Lex used to baptize the fake realm and strengthen its space.

The Hollow, however, did not give him any reprieve as it immediately channeled a cool stream of information into his spirit to let him know about his next torture. The next torture cycle was titled Prison of Gluttony.