The Innkeeper

Chapter 2427: Already taken care of

Gilded Hollow

Hemzy, the porcupine, opened her eyes and took a deep gasp, coming back to life once more. This was around the fifth time she had been killed by Mithon, and she was running out of cultists to replace her death. She needed to-

Hemzy paused, her mind going blank, as she looked at the angel of death in front of her. Although that was mostly just an expression, the humanoid figure with angel wings, drenched in so much blood that only the color red was visible, standing in front of Hemzy really did look like an angel of death.

Belle looked at the many Seraphim corpses around her, and then at the porcupine beast. She was sure that thing had been dead, but now it had come back to life. She didn’t know what the deal with that thing was, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

"No, senior, wait!" Hemzy screamed as she tried to save herself, but it was no use. Belle killed Hemzy with a single slash, and then quickly left the area. She still had a location marker on her, which meant more Seraphim were probably on the way to kill her. Before then, she needed to raise her strength further and maybe set a good trap or two.

A few hours later, the porcupine reattached her head and looked around with an unresigned expression. She needed to quickly find a way out of here and initiate more people into her cult of dopamine cleansing, or else she might really end up dying one of these days.

*****

Conquest Realm

It was an average day in the Conquest realm. Ever since the Grand Conqueror had unified the realm, peace had finally returned, if only within the realm itself. The Grand Conqueror would often go out of the realm to continue his conquests, wage war, win trophies and resources, and continue to grow.

Such things naturally enriched the realm itself, even if it simultaneously put a strain on the realm to produce more warriors. Thus, while there was peace on the surface, an air of intense competition and desperation gripped the lands. Everyone worked day and night in the hopes to become strong, for only the strong had any rights within the Conquest realm.

Mortals... didn’t even have the right to a name. They were identified by the name of the place they resided in, followed by a serial number. Only after becoming Immortal could they have the honor of choosing a name.

Even then, they could only take on a surname by becoming a Heaven Immortal. That, too, was the bare minimum convenience for true prestige, honor and rewards were granted only to capable warriors.

Thus, despite having achieved peace, the mood in the Conquest realm was always tense and filled with a sense of urgency and desperation.

An orc kneeled in front of an altar and completed a ritual, opening a portal and allowing the Devil that the orc had been dealing with to enter.

"I have done as you asked, oh devilish one. Please, aid me in healing from my injuries faster. If my bones do not recover their former strength, then I will surely fail tomorrow’s monthly combat assessment."

A smiling devil, dressed extremely sharply, stepped out from the portal and looked at the orc fondly.

"Don’t worry Buro-112233, I promised to help you resolve the assessment issue, didn’t I?" the devil asked warmly. "It’s just that, rather than healing your bones, I was considering a different solution."

Buro-112233 looked at the devil in confusion, unable to understand what he was getting at? If he wasn’t healed, how could the issue of the assessment be resolved?

Before he could ask, a breathtakingly beautiful woman stepped forth from the portal, garbed in golden silk armor.

She glanced at the orc for a brief moment before turning her gaze to the rest of the realm.

"As per our agreement, the contractor who summoned us here is off limits," the devil said with a smile as he looked at Velma. "I still have my own end of the bargain to fulfil after all. Everyone else... is fair game."

Velma glanced at the devil and nodded to him with a polite smile.

"Pleaure doing business," she said before her figure disappeared.

By now, Buro-112233 had caught onto what was happening, but he was too horrified to react. Had he just... allowed enemies to infiltrate the realm?

As if to answer his question, a massive explosion occurred far off in the distance.

"Come on Buro-112233, let’s grab a good spot to watch the show," said the devil as he patted the orc on the shoulder. "Trust me, there’s no way you’re going to fail any assessments after this."

Within the capital of the Conquest realm, the Grand Conqueror immediately opened his eyes when his system gave him an emergency notification.

He wasn’t being notified that the realm was being invaded - no, that’s what would have happened if someone else had attacked. But since this was Velma, a master of manipulating information, the emergency notification that he got was that the system was no longer able to minotaur the realm!

Across the entire Conquest realm, a number of formations were being activated by hundreds of devils, disrupting all monitoring as well as flow of information. These formations had been custom designed by Velma using the Humanoid Alliances formations, and they were specifically for the purpose of disrupting communication during a realm invasion.

Since Velma knew she was doing this, she naturally took advantage of the alliance’s deep history by collecting information about how they usually handled such situations and used the information for herself. Blocking information was, perhaps, the most important thing during a war.

The beautiful thing about Velma’s custom designed formations was that disrupting information was merely the first step. The real fun would only begin after the enemy finally figured it out and began destroying the formations.

Even though this was a major invasion, and even though they were grossly outnumbered, Velma felt not a hint of urgency. Instead, she remained completely calm as she began collecting information from the realm to find Z’s location.

Meanwhile, all across the realm, members of the Midnight Inn were beginning to arrive. They wasted not a single second, for they already had their orders.

Such an invasion was naturally not a secret at all for the Dao Lords of the universe. The members of the Humanoid Alliance, and especially those who were responsible for backing Z’s kidnapping, all realized what was happening.

Before they could even react, a certain message traveled from the Origin realm to the Humanoid Alliance, causing their Dao Lords to pause. None of them had the time to intervene anyway, but just in case any of them felt like it, Velma had already employed defensive measures to protect their invasion from the interference of Dao Lords.