The Innkeeper

Chapter 2434: Eight Retributions: Crucible of Karma

One dead Dao Lord. Three thousand litres of Dao Essence. A Dao Field would allow one Dao Lord to make one drop of Dao Essence in a hundred years. Without a Dao Field, it would take one hundred Dao Lords one thousand years to produce one drop, meaning it would take 100,000 years for each Dao Lord in that group to get one drop!

Even though they were immortal and time was plenty, that was a lot of time to spend for a single drop of Dao Essence. Yet it was worth it because of how valuable Dao Essence was. It was for that very reason that the Runeking and other Dao Lords did not want the Innkeeper to join the Humanoid Alliance.

The number of resources were fixed, and more players meant more competition. It wasn’t personal, it was merely a matter of resources and benefits.

That is also why, the moment a Dao Lord died on top of the platform in the Dream realm, all eyes from across the universe focused there. A single Dao Lord died, the platform absorbed his energy, and in return produced three thousand litres of Dao Essence.

That was approximately 60 million drops. Without a Dao Field, it would, on average, take a Dao Lord 6 trillion years to gather that much Dao Essence.

Greed. GREED!

Like an unstoppable virus, greed spread across the universe faster than logic or common sense would allow, overcoming any and all restraint. Nothing - nothing - in the universe at that moment was more valuable than the platform in the Dream realm.

That one, single revelation was destined to change the course of history for the universe forever. Not only did the platform make Dao Lords far more vulnerable than made sense, it also allowed one to exchange a Dao Lord for three thousand litres of Dao Essence, basically allowing them to save six trillion years of time!

Bourdow began to hyperventilate, and neither Wu Kong nor Elrang paid attention to why a random Dao Lord had appeared in the middle of their fight. In fact, the fight effectively ended as the clones disappeared.

Luckily for Bourdow, he managed to leave a tracker of Wu Kong’s clone before it vanished, allowing him to trace it as it traversed the Dream realm.

Across the universe, many wars spontaneously ended. Literal Major realm invasions stopped, and many forces simply stopped defending irrelevant Major realms.

Except for the absolute most core Major realms controlled by the races or organizations, all Major realms across the universe were suddenly left undefended as every free and available Dao Lord made their way into the Dream realm.

Killing one Dao Lord saved 6 trillion years, two would save 12 trillion, and three... The amount of wealth being talked about was entirely inconceivable.

The mere idea that so much Dao Essence was on the table to be taken gripped them all. The best part was that the platform made it so easy to kill Dao Lords, who otherwise had no way of being killed. Thus, countless Dao Lords who had been trapped or imprisoned were brought along as well.

Their sacrifices would not be forgotten any time soon.

Whether it was Destiny, or Death, or Chaos or any other, they too paused all their plans and thoughts and looked towards the platform, trying to understand its secrets. If they could replicate it...

Especially with the Nexus event coming, all could be forgiven. They could absolve themselves from any carried debts. If they could only figure out how to copy it...

An uncontrollable madness spread among the Dao Lords of the universe, leaving most major forces crippled since there weren’t many Dao Lords left to command them. At the same time, a slaughter unprecedented since the Primordial Age began to unfold.

The blood of Dao Lords was shed easily, baptizing the Dream Arena - as many had taken to calling the platform - in one of the universe’s most sacred liquids.

Only a very, very few watched in horror. Cide and Agemo trembled within their ship as they tried to understand what crazy madness, what vile disease or plague could infect so many Dao Lords to the point beyond reason.

Although they too understood the value of Dao Essence, they were not driven crazy by it. They could not understand why they were spared while others were not, but it was apparent at a glance that this was far beyond normal.

The bet on Lex, and his match, or even the ongoing war in the Conquest realm could no longer interest them. All eyes were on the Dream Arena.

Naturally since Cide and Agemo could be spared, many others were as well. Even though many Sage races sent in their armies to the Dream realm without restraint, they were not driven to madness. Similarly, Destiny and the others were still cautious.

They sent in their subordinates, but remained hidden themselves.

Destiny took this opportunity to advance her other plans as well. The destiny of humanity needed to be crushed. A good portion of it was centered in the Midnight Inn, but she didn’t want to touch that for it seemed too closely connected to Oblivion and Eclipse.

Besides that, the Tyrannum realm seemed to attract a lot of humanities destiny. She might as well start from there.

She picked up a piece on a chessboard and placed it casually, uncaring that the destiny of an entire race would be affected by it.

Within the Dream realm, Dragon-Lex was still caught in the fight, an incredible weight pressing down on his chest. Yet no matter how heavy the weight was, Dragon-Lex did not care.

Up close, his Domination suppressed Daekol until the Sovereign too coughed out blood in frustration. In fact, there came a point where Lex didn’t even care about winning the fight - he just enjoyed frustrating the hell about Daekol.

The stupid Sovereign was too composed - it wasn’t fun beating him up. Only in moments where he finally let his frustrations show would Dragon-Lex finally enjoy himself a bit.

Yet for all his enjoyment, Lex suddenly got a very strong feeling that something terrible was about to happen. He wasn’t sure what, but his instincts were warning him that this was very, very dangerous!

This unknown danger far outweighed whatever danger Daekol represented towards him, which is why he needed to finish this fight off quickly.

"You’re nervous," Daekol suddenly said, studying the fluctuations in Dragon-Lex’s Domination. "Something has happened, and whatever it is has made you nervous. You put up a good fight, but the moment you lost your composure, you also lost the fight."

Dragon-Lex snorted.

"No, it means that your time is up because I’m done playing with you," he said before punching Daekol. But Lex’s punches lacked the impact that they used to have.

Even though the effects of the Dao Body were still there, they suffered from a harsh decline in effectiveness.

Personally, Lex was not yet done setting everything up for his confrontation with Daekol, but time waited for no man.

He had been fighting Daekol for a long time already, and step by step, he had managed to strengthen his Sovereign realm. It was not deployed to its utmost, but it was sufficient. Daekol had taken him by surprise, and given him a lot of trouble. But that was all.

Even if it was a system, Dragon-Lex did not fear it.

"Pause operations," Dragon-Lex whispered using Supremacy, a malevolent grin painting his face.

Daekol’s eyes constricted as he saw, for the first time, his system responding to someone other than himself. It did not actually pause operations, but it did pause for a bit, as if it too was confused.

That pause was enough. Dragon-Lex finally used the one Lawcraft the pain of which he had personally felt with every fiber of his being.

"Eight Retributions:Crucible of Karma," Dragon-Lex uttered, his very voice tinged with power and Domination, as he unleashed one of the most powerful Lawcrafts Lex had ever encountered.

The Lawcraft was far from perfect just yet, but having experienced everything within it himself, he could still manifest it well enough. Yet he could also change it. Pain was not enough. Pain was the perfect crippling and torture tool, but against an opponent like Daekol, it was not enough.

Thus he changed it. Not only did he want Daekol to suffer through all the pain he had ever caused, Lex also wanted to continue infecting Daekol with karma, down to his very core, so that when Lex struck his final blow, there was no escaping it.

Thus, when Daekol felt the first feeling of pain from the first pain he had ever caused, Lex saw it too. The first pain he’d ever caused... was to his mother. It was not the pain of childbirth, but the pain of abandonment. Daekol was born a superior being, a Sovereign of the universe, destined to stand at the very peak, and his mother was a mundane beast who had not even awoken proper intelligence.

That did not mean she did not feel the pain of being abandoned. For some inexplicable reason, that first pain stunned Daekol, and seemed to affect him even more than the behavior of his system.