The Innkeeper

Chapter 2445: For her

"Holy shi-"

"NOOOOooooooO!"

"Why’d you stop? Show me more! SHOW! ME! MORE!"

"What happened? Quick! Someone put on Daoflix! Find out what happens next!"

All across the universe, countless Dao Lords lost their minds when the feed suddenly cut off - especially because of the manner in which it was cut off.

There was a Dao Lord who flipped the table he was sitting at, but he didn’t even realize because he was extending his senses out into the universe to try to learn what was happening.

Another one smashed his face into the television, and then into a wall, and then into the surface of the planet he was on. But no matter where he smashed his face, he could not tune back into the feed because it had been cut off entirely.

Perhaps the only Dao Lord who couldn’t care less about the feed cutting off was Asux. He didn’t care that the vision ended - only that the stele stopped trembling. That was enough for him.

"Someone, send the Innkeeper a box of chocolates from me," said Asux as he turned away.

Too many Dao Lords were in such critical situations that they could not afford to continue wondering what was happening with the Innkeeper - such as the ones on the Dream Arena - but there were also many who could think of nothing else.

"This is so embarrassing," said Eclipse as she rubbed her eyes, trying not to look at Nulli beside her who had turned entirely pink. Even back during the Tea Party, Nulli had not turned as pink as she was now - and the sight was only made worse by her heavy breathing.

The sight of the Innkeeper halting the desecration of the Universal Mandate with a single word - it was too overpowering. In Nulli’s mind, there was no woman alive who could witness that scene without feeling thoroughly enamored. Eclipse didn’t count.

Afraid that Nulli might do something in her pink state, Eclipse had to summon some helpers to... restrain Nulli and help calm her down. She was only allowed to return when she returned to her normal, crystal blue appearance.

Only after Nulli was gone did Eclipse remove her hand and looked up at Lex reluctantly. She had almost considered having a private meeting with the Innkeeper after this, but now she felt like doing so was not such a good idea. Pink Nulliths were too unpredictable - she couldn’t risk it.

Nuwa, on the other hand, just sighed, closed her eyes and went to sleep. She couldn’t deal with this stuff anymore - best to just pretend like she couldn’t see what Lex was doing. She had to admit, though, that among any of the races she helped create, she had never encountered anyone with even 1% of the guts that Lex had.

The masters of the Sage races could not help but pay attention to this mysterious character. Up until now, everything they heard about him was in the rumors and hearsay. It was only now that they had, for the first time, properly witnessed his true, genuine prowess and found him to be incomparable.

The Innkeeper was truly a unique existence within the universe - an extreme rarity.

The problem was... the Innkeeper was considered a patron of humanity, but Destiny had covertly made arrangements for humanity’s destiny to be devoured. That meant that sooner or later... someone would need to deal with him.

But then they thought back to that one word ’stop’. That one word - was it merely meant for the criminal breaking the mandate, or was it also a message to Destiny herself?

Speculations and rumors were rife, and the chaos in the universe only continued to increase after that. Lex, however, neither knew about any of that, nor could he afford to care about anything else at that moment.

He’d seen how responsive his system was towards Sovereigns, and although he was not a genuine Sovereign just yet, he was the owner of this system. That had to make up for the gap.

Within Lex’s soul, under the joint influence of Domination and the Sovereigns realms enhancement of Lex’s status, the system truly and genuinely stopped. To be specific, the normal operations of the system did not stop - it was the further absorption of Primordial energy that stopped.

Had Lex still been at the peak of the Heaven Immortal realm, it may not have been so easy to achieve as much. But now, even though his tribulation wasn’t completely over, Lex was already more than halfway through to becoming a Celestial Immortal.

The change in Lex’s strength was not something that could be easily explained. The simplest way to describe it was that if he had fought Daekol in this state, the fight would not have lasted nearly as long - Lex could feel as much deep within his bones.

"There is a foreign object interfering with your operations. Perform a self diagnosis," said Lex, even as he manipulated his energy into the type of soul pollution that Mary had told him about, and condensed it all around the system, forcefully pushing it with.

He had also been specific in his wording - choosing to scan for foreign objects rather than Primordial energy. Doing as much would have caused much greater resistance from the system. For now, seeing that he had merely stopped the absorption of Primordial energy rather than withdrawing it, his system did not resist.

The system had a soul, which meant that it was a living being. It had a memory, and some form of spirit, even if those aspects weren’t pronounced. Up until the system could truly break free of his influence, it dared not underestimate Lex - he was the human who was meant to die along the way, but had overcome every single adversity he had ever faced.

The system began its scan, and while it did that, Lex briefly observed his situation. His tribulation had returned to normal, but perhaps something had been triggered, and now it seemed like the pool phase was about to end soo, and the next phase was about to begin.

He would need to finish all other matters before then.

Much more importantly, the more the tribulation pool healed and strengthened him, the more Lex’s own natural healing factor kicked in. Regardless of his feelings against phoenixes, the case was that the stronger his Celestial aura became, the more the phoenix aspect of his powers became active.

It was as if everything before this was fake - like he was running a car on cheap, knock off fuels, and now finally he was using premium fuel. Faintly, Lex began to realize that the Celestial realm was genuinely special, and that he could now do a lot of things - including finally making use of Lotus’ unique ability.

But none of that mattered for now. Though he was growing exponentially stronger with each passing moment, he did not delay at all. Getting his system to properly activate a high-priority self diagnosis was a complex procedure, but he followed Mary’s instructions to the letter, finally triggering it.

It was just one more notification atop the thousands that waited for Lex to check, but he didn’t bother at all. As soon as the diagnosis started, he dedicated 100% of his focus to observing the system. If he made a mistake, Mary would die, so he would not make a mistake. He could not make a mistake.

For the one companion who had been beside him from the day he got his system, the one who had guided him, taught him, teased him, had laughed with him, Lex would ensure that this went without a hitch.

Time passed by second by second, until an entire hour passed by. The high priority self diagnosis was not a quick or simple process, and it took far longer than even Mary had anticipated, but it didn’t matter.

For a brief moment - for a fraction of an instant, too quick to even be quantified with a unit of time - another aura appeared within the core of the system. Lex had no idea how long that aura was meant to appear, but he immediately recognized it as Mary’s, and grabbed a hold of it with his Domination and Spirit Sense faster than he had ever done anything.

"RELEASE!" Lex roared as he used everything - every single ounce of power, focus, strength and will power that he had - into pulling out the container of that aura.

It was easier said than done. Interfering with the internal workings of a system was something that even Dao Lords struggled with. It was just that the system itself was detaching the foreign entity as a part of its protocols, so Lex’s efforts coincided with its actions, allowing him to pull the treasure free before the system could try to recycle it for its own use.

From within the system in his soul, Lex suddenly pulled out a heart shaped pendant. He had no time to be surprised at the appearance of the treasure, for the moment it appeared, he felt his connection to Mary sever.

His faithful assistant, who had guided him from the moment he received his system, was no longer connected to Lex on a mental level.

Without wasting any time at all, Lex plunged that pendant inside the new body that Mary had been making. She had already told him what to do in case he was successful - now all that was left was to hope it worked.

No - Lex had no interest in hope. He would make it work.

"Vinei," Lex said, summoning the black phoenix in front of his projection, frightening it so much that it nearly shed its feathers.

For some reason, the black phoenix could not help but feel like the Innkeeper was looking at him... with an unusual look. But he had to have been mistaken. Why would the Innkeeper look at him with killing intent? Yes, there was definitely a mistake somewhere.

"Help her with her rebirth," he said, sending the phoenix down to Mary’s body. In truth, Vinei was a Celestial Immortal, but he was too weak for such a task in Lex’s opinion. After all, now he knew that phoenixes were a scam. Temporarily, though, he’d still have to rely on him.