The Innkeeper

Chapter 2429: Massive secret

Cide had never thought that he’d actually get invested in a fight between two Celestials - not since he became a Dao Lord - but the fight between Lex and Daekol had an intensity that had him on the edge of his seat.

Wherever either of them gained an advantage, the other would pull out some trick to quickly turn the tables, turning their fight into a competition for who had more secret cards. Moreover, they could also see that both fighters were silently preparing for a greater confrontation. It was too thrilling, especially since the level of their power was at the absolute peak beneath the Dao realm. Of course, the true reason that the match felt intense was the immensity of the betting pool!

Even though the actual prize pool would be divided among all who bet on the winner, the sheer size of it was ridiculous. The amount of wealth bet on two Celestial Immortals had to have set some kind of record.

The Edolix shard, especially, attracted a lot of attention.

While watching the fight, a popup suddenly appeared showing an entirely different fight.

"What’s that?" Cide asked, and Agemo immediately responded with a laugh.

"Hah! That looks like another fight going on by the same force that Lex belongs to. They’ve been made a part of this bet. This is crazy!"

Cide raised an eyebrow, and looked at the leaflet which contained information on both parties, meaning Daekol and the Path of Chaos behind him, as well as Lex and the Midnight Inn behind him.

"I thought the Inn was supposed to be peaceful. Why the hell are they invading a realm? Did a guest run away without paying the bill?" Cide asked, confused.

Fortunately, the information on the leaflet was updated in real time.

Agemo glanced at it, and suddenly found it incredibly interesting.

"Ho ho, look at that. Betrayed by the Humanoid Alliance? For a single Immortal they invaded an entire realm? Is it because he’s special or more specifically to send a message to all who would deign to attack the Inn?"

As if to answer his question, the leaflet updated once more. On top of that, the leaflet also added a bit of additional information.

"Oh my, it seems they’re very protective of their own," said Cide as he read the leaflet. "I wonder how they’ll react when they learn the location of the immortal they’re looking for."

Suddenly, Agemo felt an itch... and itch to place a bet as well. He wanted to bet... that this matter was far from as simple as it seemed, and whoever was streaming the fights seemed to know something.

There was a conspiracy at play, and there was nothing more exciting than getting involved!

*****

Conquest realm

From the moment the Grand Conqueror had gotten his hands on his system, his system had not failed him even once! It had always been perfect, granting him miracles beyond his imagining and exposing him to a whole new realm of possibilities.

While he dared not be arrogant in front of a Dao Lord, beneath the Dao realm he really didn’t take anyone seriously - at least not with his system to support him. Who the hell could mess with him as long as he had his system?

He still didn’t know, because his system seemed incapable of connecting to the entire Conquest realm at all! It was as if there was some kind of interference between the system and the realm that it could not break through.

Not only could he not access the systems surveillance of the realm, he also couldn’t ascertain the situation with at least 30% of his armies. It was fortunate that he did not completely rely on the system for gathering information, although he did use it for most of it so at the moment he was severely handicapped.

"Mobilize all forces, deploy all defenses, activate all the... what is it?" the Grand Conqueror asked as he looked at his assistant who was staring back at him in confusion.

"Sir you... you always deploy the defenses yourself. No one else knows how to do it," the assistant answered, feeling extremely confused.

The Grand Conqueror suddenly went quiet. He’d always directly controlled his army deployments, defense activations and all other war related actions directly from his system interface. Everyone was used to his magical and mystical ways of doing everything, to the point where they did not know how to behave without it.

It was only in that moment that the Grand Conqueror realized just how dependent he was on his system.

"The enemy has employed some kind of means to interfere with my surveillance and communication systems," the Grand Conqueror explained, gathering his thoughts. "The soldiers are trained enough, they’ll defend themselves until they get other orders. What we need to do is figure out how I’m being blocked and stop it. The fact that the blockage is not 100% effective means that there are gaps in the enemies methods."

The assistant nodded and quickly went to gather the nearby soldiers while the Grand Conqueror looked at his system. While it was disconnected from other things, his own augmentations could still be implemented.

What neither the Grand Conqueror, nor Velma herself realized was that the suppression of the system surveillance and many of its functions were not a deliberate plan implemented by Velma. They had inadvertently encountered a massive mystery or secret of some kind.

Velma herself had no knowledge of systems, so how could she plan to suppress it? The actual suppression of the system happened because Velma was utilizing customized versions of formations used by the Humanoid Alliance during wars and invasions.

It was her own customizations which reduced the effectiveness of the formations against systems. Had she used the authentic thing, the system would have been suppressed entirely.

But there was no way for Velma to know such a thing because there was no mention of it in the Alliance’s data records, and the annotations of the formations did not mention this specific use either. It was as if a huge secret was being kept by the alliance, or that the alliance itself did not realize that during its wars, it suppressed systems.

Of course, Velma had customized the systems because it would be too difficult to use them as they were, not to mention they didn’t necessarily suit her needs perfectly.

Meanwhile, the Grand Conqueror’s strength was not only severely curtailed, but he also became a lot more cautious in his actions, unsure of what his enemy had in store for him.