The Innkeeper



Jess was startled by everything that had happened, especially since she had been informed by her mother that she would be working closely with Lex. Jess was a perfectionist, so any task she did, she did with the aim of achieving perfection. This was both a boon and a flaw.

On one hand, everything she did achieved perfection, catapulting her reputation not only amongst her own family, but the general public as well. On the other hand, she barely ever ended up doing anything, because the more matters she picked up, the less time she would have to achieve perfection in each one.

For this upcoming wedding, she had started working the absolute moment she heard about it. In fact, to aid her in achieving the best possible task, she even asked her family to compile an extensively detailed file on the Midnight tavern so she could research it thoroughly.

She had, in her opinion, perfectly worked out Lex's personality, and mentally prepared herself accordingly so that they could achieve maximum efficiency in attaining results. As for her mothers wish for them to fall in love with each other, she knew nothing. After all, her one track mind could not handle multiple projects at the same time.

But from the very start, a wrench had been thrown into her plans! Who was this Ash? Where did she come from? She was not in the file Jess had studied! Moreover, why did it seem like Lex was transferring his responsibilities to others?

"The pleasure is mine," Jess said, shaking Ash's hand. But then she immediately turned to Lex and said, "when you say we'll be working closely together, do you mean that you won't be the one handling the wedding preparations?"

Lex smiled. Since he knew Jolene was setting some kind of love trap for him, why would he be stupid enough to stay put? Of course the first thing he did was look for someone to take his place. But he was not just shirking his duties - he had grander plans for the wedding than anyone knew, and only he could fulfill them.

"Yes and no," he said. "You and Ash will be handling the normal sequence of events and handle the bulk of the tasks. But that does not mean I won't be doing anything. You may not know this, but Pvarti and I are old friends, so naturally I want to make this wedding amazing as well. As such, I will be handling a special task which, if I succeed in, will take this wedding up by another level."

Jess looked skeptical, but Lex was sincere. From the moment he had received this quest, he had been thinking about how he could make it worthy of an SSS+ ranking. Having over the top theatrics was, of course, necessary, but that would not be enough.

Lex had some experience in completing quests with extremely high rankings, but each time it was more to do with luck than his own performance. Whether it was the appearance of two Demi-Daolords, or an actual Daolord, it was not something he could have anticipated or arranged.

But the experience had taught him something. Although his quests may seem random, they all were ultimately linked to the Midnight Inn. As an Inn, one of the most prideful things was that important or powerful guests made an appearance.

There were probably more layers involved in determining his quest ranking, but it could not be denied that that was a major one. As such, Lex had been thinking along the lines of who he could invite to make this wedding the best or most prestigious.

Originally he was thinking that Aegis would have to do, but now he had a better idea. The realm itself was being destroyed. If Lex could reach the Crystal race in time, and convince them of what was happening, he could use his vast experience in manipulating… eh, he meant his vast experience in persuading people to have the Crystal race treat this wedding as a kind of conference.

If a simple wedding between two human nobles ended up inviting the leaders of all the nations in this realm, he would consider that as an excellent wedding.

He did not know if such a thing would be enough, or if he could even pull it off, but for now that was the best plan he had.

Jess tried asking Lex what he had planned, and convincing him to once again take over planning, but he would not listen. Since he was planning on leaving anyway, he would only be here in the form of his projection anyway. As such, he was only planning on handling and resolving emergencies. His entire personal focus would be on reaching the Crystal empire.

He hoped he could reach it in enough time to set up the meeting with everyone, and make it back as well.

The following day, or, well, 24 hours later since the concept of day and night was screwed up here, Bertram returned to the Inn and handed Lex a leather scroll.

This was not at all what Lex was expecting when he had been told he was getting a map, but it would have to do. Instead of detailing the entire terrain and surrounding areas, the 'map' just listed a path using prominent landmarks as markers. It would have to suffice.

With everything in hand, Lex departed from Babylon, making sure not to be spotted as he did. After all, he was supposed to be inside the tavern this entire time.

After a solid 6 hours of running at his top speed, Lex finally stopped and pulled out the map. Fortunately, other than visual markers, the map also recorded auras and spiritual markers which Lex could track using his spirit sense and intuition. Or better yet…

He summoned Fenrir, who was sleeping, and woke up the pup. He climbed onto its back, and held out the map for it to sniff.

"Follow these auras," Lex told the excited little wolf. "Think of this as… we're going on a long walk, through an endless park, filled with monsters and unknown dangers. Also, we're on a time limit so you better run fast."

Fenrir howled in excitement and began running! Every word Lex had said excited it more than the last!

*****

A single spaceship was moving through space, unbothered by the much larger ships nearby. Each battlefront with the Fuegan was different, in many ways. The battlefront in which Alexander had fought was artificially created, and seemed like an endless plane. This one, which the Midnight Battalion was being brought through, consisted of an unusual region of space enveloped by a cosmic cloud.

Normal cosmic clouds were vast regions of space containing gas, dust and other small particles which brought about the appearance of a cloud. Yet this one not only contained hundreds of rogue planets, it also contained currents of chaos energy - a form of extremely concentrated spiritual energy that not even normal immortals could handle.

The interference from the chaos energy made it so that the actual contents of this cosmic cloud had been hidden from millions of years, serving as a breeding ground for Fuegan forces.

When it was finally discovered, it naturally suffered an all out assault. The rogue planet that the Midnight Battalion was being taken to was an extremely volatile, yet extremely important one!

According to the briefing Luthor got, the planet had some extremely valuable resources that were hard to find in entire galaxies, so taking control of the planet was of the highest priority. Yet the planet also had an unstable core, so it could not tolerate fights between higher level cultivators. Moreover, bombarding it from space was also out of the equation, because that would not only risk further destabilizing it, but also risk destroying the resources.

The man briefing Luthor made it very clear that to the leaders of this war, those resources were a lot more valuable than all of their lives, so he better perform well. The reason they were being led to such an important site as their first deployment was due to their excellent rating and performance. It seemed… that the Battalion had developed a reputation without even setting foot on the battlefield.

Of course, to Luthor, none of that mattered. He was indifferent to his superiors' purposes and reasoning. He simply didn't care. His one and only objective was to ensure that no one from the Inn died.

As the spaceship approached the planet, Luthor looked out at it from one of the screens projecting the outside, then turned to his comrades.

"Once, when I was talking to one of the Inn's oldest guests, I heard him say something extremely profound."

Luthor did not raise his voice, but it carried to everyone in the room, attracting their attention.

"He said the best defense, the best way to protect yourself, is to kill your enemies before they have a chance to attack."

He paused, and looked at the 'soldiers' from the Inn.

"Within one month, I want the planet wiped of all hostiles. That will be our warm up for this war. Let's go."