The Innkeeper

Chapter 2475: Should have killed me when you had the chance III

Convincing Eclipse to help out had been a whole lot easier than Lex expected. He naturally had Mathew, the ’Grand Conqueror’s’ karma recorded on hand, so he thought he’d just show it to Eclipse and she could point him in the right direction. He could not have anticipated that not only would she help him, she’d escort him personally to the location where Z was being held.

He was being held by some kind of cult dedicated to the revival and glory of humanity who believed that humanity was, in fact, the most superior race and so on and so forth. Lex did not believe for one moment that these were the true people who had managed to buy Z from Mathew.

It made no sense. They were strong, yes, but not nearly remarkable enough to hide from Lex’s own senses. There was clearly some deeper ploy, but now was not the time to dwell on that for one very good reason.

Eclipse had not just a projection or clone alongside Lex. No, she had emerged from the Dream realm with her main, actual body. There had been no major reaction just yet, but Lex understood what the action signified. She was ready to allow the universe to progress.

She was either holding back from triggering it immediately due to proximity to Lex, or perhaps the process had already silently begun. It wasn’t necessary that everything needed to happen with a bang.

After Lex killed all the cult members - and he did not hesitate to spare a single one since they had gone as far as kidnapping Z and making use of him - the trio waited for Z to finish his own fight. Lex could go help, but since he had already started the fight, it would be too anticlimactic if Lex didn’t even let him vent his emotions. That untimely spoiler seemed to hurt him more than his time as a slave.

"So now that I’ve brought you here, I have a question I want to ask you," said Eclipse as she looked at Lex, sitting atop a pile of corpses, getting ready to pose in front of Z. "Finding this place wasn’t so hard. Why didn’t the Innkeeper just bring you here? Or better yet, why didn’t he just rescue his worker himself?"

The question did not alarm Lex, nor did it take him by surprise. He didn’t even need to come up with a convenient lie, because he merely needed to answer truthfully.

"The Innkeeper is... a protector of the Inn," Lex answered slowly as he thought about all those that depended on the protection of the Innkeeper. "He is a positive force, an encouraging personality. The day he is forced to drop that role, that identity, the day he is forced to transition from a protector to an avenger, the universe may never be the same. That warm, calm smile is something he must never lose. As much as all the workers of the Inn are protected by the Innkeeper, we in turn wish to protect the Innkeeper from the day he is forced to replace that smile."

Lex’s reasons for wanting to protect the Innkeeper from facing such a reality were complex, but he hadn’t lied in the fact that this was how most of the Inn workers genuinely felt.

Lunareth put down his dictionary and looked at Lex for a moment, absorbing what he heard about this Innkeeper. He was intrigued, and would love to meet him one day.

Eclipse did not push further. She was not like what Lex had seen her in the Primordial Garden. Her powers were no longer suppressed, so she could see that the power keeping others from peering into Lex’s mind came solely from Nuwa, and not from the Innkeeper at all.

She had some thoughts on the matter, but did not pry or comment. Instead, she gave Lex a piece of paper with all the listed mental weaknesses he had that she had discovered. If he did not address them, they would definitely become Heart Demons during his next major tribulation.

Chief among them was Lex’s attachment issues. No one extremely close to him had ever died. They had suffered, yes, but they had not died. Even so, Lex’s emotions became extreme every time he dealt with their perceived suffering. Unless he managed to reign in his extreme emotions, they would come back to haunt him sooner or later.

There were also a few other items on that list. Finding out he had so many weaknesses put him in a bad mood, but before he could go through the rest of the list, or come up with countermeasures, Z emerged.

"You’ve been missing work without leave," said Lex, venting his negative emotions towards Z, causing him to freeze and his comrades behind him to freeze.

But Lex did not let the mood linger, immediately smiling as he jumped off the corpses and came to inspect Z.

"I’m kidding. You did a good job surviving despite the difficulties you faced. Let’s go home - you’ve earned yourself a proper break. Naturally, your friends can come along if they wish to as well."

Z shivered. The sound of Lex praising him caused Z to shiver as he felt like something was terribly wrong, and that Lex was trying to lure him into an even more desperate situation, like the time he made him manager for the Gamer’s Den!

Before they could continue the conversation, however, Eclipse intervened.

"While we’re on the topic of heading back home, you should probably call back all the Inn workers and everyone else you know back to the Midnight Inn. The universe is going to be a very unsafe place for the next few centuries, and as admirable Brenda is with her shenanigans, I don’t think she’s cut out for intense survival circumstances."

Lex froze. Z froze. They both locked eyes, realizing that compared to the two of them... perhaps poor Piere had a tougher time.

But Eclipses’ words reminded Lex that there were still many out there he had been trying to reach or contact.

Chief among them were Liz and Fenrir, but that also included Belle, Brenda, as well as Alexander and the others. The problem was... they all weren’t so easy to locate.

*****

Death pushed himself up off the ground, a deep, intense hate boiling in his eyes.

"You should have killed me when you had the chance, Primordial bitch, because I’m going to make you regret leaving me alive," he said through gritted teeth. He was no longer inside the Primal realm - he had already retreated to his most hidden and secure hideout to recover from his injuries.

Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t as secret as he had assumed.

"Do you really think that the Primordial Queen would make such a basic mistake?" asked a familiar voice, sending a chill down Death’s spine. He looked up into the darkness and discovered that he recognized the face.

"You? How can it be you?"

Whether he got the question to his answer or not was entirely unknown, for above the building where Death hid, the Enigma Pillar revolved silently, shrouding in secret whatever happened within.