The Innkeeper

Chapter 2430: Ministry of Order & Discipline

Lex was caught in a fight he could not quickly resolve, nor could he avoid. An enemy as dangerous as Daekol, who kidnapped Almira to lure Lex out, and one who knew about him having a system, simply couldn’t be allowed to live. Unfortunately, Daekol did not share Lex’s opinion and refused to die easily.

The Midnight Inn, too, had initiated their invasion. Due to the massive size of the realm, even if it was an immature one, it would take them a while to find Z’s location. It might take them even longer to rescue him due to the fact that they might need to go across the realm to do it depending on where he was.

Both were involved in extremely serious and potentially dangerous endeavors, but just because they were busy did not mean the rest of the universe had taken a break. With each passing day, the situation in the universe became more and more complex.

The feeling of dread - the one that accompanied the destruction of a Major realm - became unnervingly common. The problem became that no one could figure out which were the realms being destroyed since no information was being leaked.

Until, one day, a realm owned by an Elder race was invaded. That is the day the universe learned that the suppression and prestige of Elder races was only impressive for those below them. Whoever was masterminding this universal turbulence clearly had no regard for them, and had many ways of dealing with them.

They fell with the exact same speed as the other realms, but no one knew how or why. Let alone things like Daoflix, even powerful divination and deduction techniques utilized by expert Dao Lords failed.

The mood in the universe was becoming darker and darker, to the point where the spirit energy of the entire universe slowly started to get infected by a subtle aura of death, yin and things of such nature.

For now, only some more astute Dao Lords could sense the difference, but the fact that it could be sensed at all demonstrated how severe the situation was. A trend of ghosts, spirits and undead suddenly appearing began to increase across the universe, and many discovered that it was easier than ever before to embark onto the path of necromancy.

Unbeknownst to most of the universe, the number of destroyed Major realms crossed another major threshold, prompting the laws of the universe to react once more.

The first time, the universe unleashed the Tribulation Fiends that appeared anywhere and everywhere, targeting any and all with sins against the universe. This time, however, the universe rumbled, and all the excess energy that was released from the destroyed Major realms was gathered and channeled into Arch-Heaven.

Within Arch-Heaven existed the Heavenly Court, and many who lived in Arch-Heaven had official positions recognized by Arch-Heaven. The highest available position, up until then, was that of Lord.

However as the energy was gathered from the universe, it all channeled into a certain building, causing it to grow in size rapidly. Outside it, massive marble statues began to gain golden armaments and gained a hint of presence that hinted at them being more than just statues.

In front of the building some characters appeared in a language that had never existed before, but could be read by anyone. It read: Ministry of Order & Discipline. More and more energy flowed into the building, giving rise to various marble statues, in the shape of various Sage and Elder races.

Right in the center of the building, on a throne, an ethereal figure appeared in the shape of a Celestial garbed in ministerial robes rather than armor or anything else of the sort. The aura exuded from the figure was unusual and complex. It did not have any hint of Dao, and instead appeared to be entirely made up of laws - yet the depth of laws was far beyond what even Dao Lords ordinarily controlled.

It was as if the figure shared its origins with the laws that governed the very core of the universe.

The moment the figure opened its eyes, all the statues in the building stood up straight with their heads bowed low, as if awaiting orders.

"Crimes are being committed. The universe is in disarray. Amend the situation," the figure spoke softly.

The response, however, was thunderous. All the statues saluted in unison, before fading away from Arch-Heaven and appearing within the universe itself. Each statue had an aura similar to, but weaker than the minister, in the sense that they lacked any relation to Dao, but had immense power nevertheless.

It only made sense - their powers came directly from the universe itself, so they had to be strong.

The appearance of the ministry attracted so much attention, that almost no one noticed that the leftover energy was diverted from the ministry and absorbed into the crystal dome where Dao Lords were being imprisoned.

Perhaps at any other time, such a thing may have been noticed by others. Yet for now, all the attention was directly focused on the adjudicators of the ministry who marched as a single, unified army. Despite not having any Dao aura, together all thousand of them represented a force stronger than an army of one thousand Dao Lords simply because all of them shared the same source of power.

Many wondered where they would go first, but not a single one expected that their first stop would be the Primary realm, and to be specific, the Ruins of Ascension within the primary realm.

Without holding back, the unified army of adjudicators attacked without any forewarning!

Yet the territory of the Ruins of Ascension was under the watch of the Primals. How could it be so easily damaged?

Without displaying even the slightest hint of being burdened, the Primals deflected the attack, and locked onto the adjudicators with great prejudice. If they showed any signs of attacking again, the Primals would not hold back.

For a few, silent seconds, the two parties stood at an impasse. Then, the adjudicators left the realm entirely, as if they weren’t the least bit concerned about what had happened.