The Innkeeper



"If you end up needing to use the battle formation I sent you, do not control it yourself. Have Z take control of the formation."

Luthor was momentarily stunned when he heard the Innkeepers voice in his mind, but it all made sense when a mere moment later information regarding a certain battle formation just appeared in his mind. The timing for this… couldn't possibly have been better, which proved that even now, the Innkeeper was keeping an eye on them.

"Look, I don't care where you're from or who your backer is," said a rough looking man in military uniform holding a tablet.

"War is not a joke, and can't run on the whim of every little princess who thinks she deserves special accommodation. We need to know the strength level and capability of each and every asset so we can position you accordingly, and be sure you can do your job well. That means we will test everyone individually, and assign them roles as such. If you insist that your…" the man gave a dirty side glance to the paltry 1000 soldiers among the millions this facility processed everyday before continuing, "your 'group' is focused towards 'group combat' then you need to be tested accordingly, and need to pass the minimum performance threshold. Only, and only then will you be allowed to stay together. If you have a problem with that, take it up with someone who cares. Or better yet, get lost and go back where you came from. I don't have time to babysit you lot."

The man had a much higher cultivation realm than Luthor and the rest, which is why he remained unaffected by their suppressive aura for the most part. Moreover, he could identify the luxurious material their 'gear' was made from at a glance, and was thus convinced that the group in front of him consisted of nothing but a bunch of untested greenhorns who had simply been showered in expensive equipment. Such people would never last in a real battle.

He was extremely irritated at the group, but what he didn't realize was that Luthor was irritated too. So what if his cultivation was greater? Luthor was not intimidated. So what if he saw larger armies everyday? They could not compete with those from the Inn. So what if they had countless others coming to fight in their war? They were the ones who had asked the Inn to come, not the other way around!

"Take me to your testing facility, and be quick about it," said Luthor as if he were talking to someone beneath him. "I'm here to fight a war, not stroke the ego of some office worker."

Sure, he was normally extremely courteous towards guests at the Inn, but that didn't mean everyone deserved such an attitude. Besides, he was not a believer in being humble or down to earth when he had the qualifications to back himself up.

Behind his black mask his expressions were hidden, but the extreme derisive tone of his voice could not be hidden. The soldier talking to Luthor turned red, and his anger surged, but he controlled himself. Regardless of what he felt, the discipline of the army had to be maintained, and that was the only thing that kept him from lashing out at Luthor. Little did he know, even if he lashed out it would make no difference.

Unwilling to speak further, the soldier led Luthor and the rest to a testing chamber, completely skipping the queue in which they normally would have had to wait. He sent them in, while he himself went into the control room.

"Survive for a minimum of one hour," he spoke into a mic, not really bothering to let Luthor and the rest get into formation, and began the test at the hardest difficulty! He was breaking more than a few standard operating procedures, and everyone in the room was slightly concerned, but the man was radiating a murderous aura that stopped them from interfering.

As an army of Foundation realm soldiers, the battlefield they were sent to naturally managed their power level. Due to various restrictions and limitations, there were many zones and worlds where the interference of higher level cultivators was extremely difficult if not downright impossible. That did not change the fact that those regions held crucial strategic value.

As such, armies at all power levels were required. Clearly, due to such restrictions, the enemies they would face would at most be slightly more powerful than them. But when the test began at the highest difficulty, what the soldiers from the Inn faced was a purely theoretical threat that they were never expected to actually encounter.

A nascent level robot appeared in the testing hall, alongside an army of 5000 golden core cultivators. The power difference made this a purely impossible force for 1000 foundation realm soldiers to face, and was normally used to test cutting edge technology or extreme innovations in battle formations.

The soldiers from the Midnight Inn, however, did not really know it. Nor were they even alarmed. It wasn't as if none of them had faced a nascent level cultivator before, and each of them had recently even gotten a power up from the star rank increase.

Still, Luthor was not in the mood to do things casually.

"Z, according to the Innkeepers orders, you will be in command of our latest battle formation. Let's get this over with, we have better things to do."

The opposing force did not wait for them, and was already rushing towards them to attack, yet none of the soldiers from the Inn panicked. With extreme precision and efficiency, as if this was not the first time ever they were employing this battle formation, everyone got in position and began channeling their designated techniques.

How this worked was that each of them served as an individual gear in a much larger machine, and thus each of them used a different spiritual technique that served no purpose alone, but when done so in tandem with 999 others who were also using corresponding techniques, gave birth to an awesome phenomenon.

A black, menacing cloud enveloped the entire army, and a few moments later, when it disappeared revealed not the soldiers who were standing there previously, but a massive, 45 feet tall (14 meters) suited mech!