The Innkeeper

Since there were only a few hours to the fight, they passed by quickly. Given that there had only been a 24 hour notice, Lex did not expect too much of a crowd to gather. After all, there was not much time for the news to spread. Even then, by 'not too much of a crowd' Lex meant a few million guests. After all, Ragnar was quite a celebrated figure. In his own empire, or circles, no doubt Warheil was the same. 

It was while having this thought that Lex realized that while he knew a lot about the Jotun empire, he knew next to nothing about the devils. It was something he needed to remedy.

Still, standing in the air above the colosseum, he was beginning to realize, he had no idea what a Heavenly Immortal truly represented.

With 1 hour still remaining to the fight, over 3 billion guests had already gathered at the Inn! Since it had already become one, regardless of whether Lex was originally planning for it or not, Lex turned the fight into an 'event'!

At first when he noticed the surge in guest arrivals, after establishing the event, Lex went through the usual motions. He allowed the match to be viewed from anywhere at the Inn, created millions of temporary rooms and hired more security.

When the guests reached the 1 billion mark, Lex was dumbfounded, and immediately felt the need to manage the crowds. As much as everyone wanted to be as close to the fight as possible, let alone the colosseum, the entire 'village' was too small to accommodate so many people. In fact, even if they spread across the entire Inn, it would be too crowded.

He had no choice but to implement certain rules. The colosseum seats, despite their normally large numbers, were too few and so were reserved for guests with a minimum of prestige level 4.

Up until prestige level 3, guests only needed to spend more MP to increase their prestige level. But 4 onwards there was a minimum cultivation requirement as well. As such, the lowest cultivation level allowed in the colosseum automatically became the nascent level.

Besides that, he changed the viewership rule for the match. The match could no longer be viewed from anywhere in the Inn. Instead, it could only be viewed from inside the colosseum or from within a rented room, whether it was a standard one or one of the temporary ones.

For a while, that reduced traffic drastically as everyone either rented rooms individually, or together.

Lex was dealing with a mind boggling number of guests, and as such his MP was fluctuating in a similar fashion. Before the event began, he had around 190 billion MP. Once 1 billion guests arrived, they rented an approximate 600 million regular room, which at 50 MP per day, gave Lex another 30 billion MP. He had to approximate because not everyone rented rooms, and not everyone rented simple rooms.

Then the number of guests grew to two billion, and then three! Even though a majority of the guests stayed in their rooms, just the few who roamed the Inn equaled to several hundred million.

The Immortal Bastion, which had once been empty and desolate, was now bursting at the seams as the many guests entertained themselves by venturing into the countless Minor realms. Moreover, with such a vast number of guests, new Minor realms which had been hidden across the Inn were being discovered faster than ever before.

It only made sense, since all the guests coming were absolute elites. There were already over 800 million Earth immortals at the Inn, though most of them sat in their rooms patiently. Most of them were devils, with the remainder being soldiers from the Jotun army.

There were few Heavenly immortals too, or at least, those whose level Lex could not identify and he guessed were at that level. Emperor Jotun was there himself, alongside his queen, and a number of his children. None of his brothers had come though.

As things got more and more chaotic, Lex took a deep breath and spent a massive 50 billion MP on more security! There were too many immortals at the Inn, and even the slightest spark could create overwhelming chaos. Especially since there was about to be a fight between two extremely decorated members of the human and devil race!

For once, Lex made a decision that went against his capitalistic side. He did not open up any betting, because he did not feel like he could afford to mess with the money of hundreds of millions of immortals!

Goddamn, why was the Inn so hot today? Lex wondered as he wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead, ignoring all the snow around him.

Only when the new security guards showed up, as well as the dragon, gryffin and other prominent guards he had seen before. They did not hesitate in displaying their overwhelming aura, though they only did so for a moment. They were there to deter, not intimidate.

As the final hour ended, up to 5 billion guests had come to the Inn! Most of the present guests were all either soldiers or elites of the Jotun empire, or devils. Despite this, Lex had to constantly focus on managing the situations and create temporary biomes with unusual environments, as too many of his guests were too uncomfortable without them.

So caught up was he, that he almost missed the fact that Emperor Jotun excused himself for a brief moment, and in secret visited Warheil - almost! Lex was not one who enjoyed gossip, but at that moment all his attention was diverted to the meeting. Unfortunately, they spoke through their spirit sense, if they spoke at all, and separated immediately.

A few minutes later, Ragnar entered the colosseum! A hush spread across the Inn as all eyes were fixed on him. For this occasion it seemed the man had made no special preparation. He wore his usual, extremely bulky armor with the only new addition being he was wearing his helmet as well. For a weapon he held only a flanged mace, seemingly made out of common iron.

Although his entrance had been extremely simple, and he stood there calmly as if it were just another day, the crowd was filled with excitement. Lex, especially, became extremely sensitive to the wave of emotions sweeping the Inn, for they somehow seemed to take on a life on their own, and began to exert their influence on everyone.

This was the first time Lex felt emotions exerting an actual physical pressure akin to the aura of a high level cultivator. Perhaps it needed a large enough collection of people, or perhaps the people involved needed to have a high enough cultivation. Whatever the case, since the Inn wasn't stopping it, that meant that the force was not malicious or harmful. But it was most definitely infectious.

Even those who had no affiliation with the human race, or the Jotun empire, began to feel the feeling of expectation associated with Ragnar. He was a living legend in the empire, and over the course of his service in the army, which itself had spanned more than a thousand years, he had more than built up his reputation. He was called the Son of the Empire, for the services he had rendered to the empire went far beyond what could be expected of a soldier.

While he was handling all the various logistic problems, Lex paid close attention to not only the colosseum, but to Emperor Jotun in particular. While everyone looked out at Ragnar with expectation, only he seemed to have pity in his eyes.

Something was amiss.

But there was no time to speculate, and even if he could, Lex could not interfere in this matter. All he could do was look.

Just as calmly as Ragnar had, Warheil entered the colosseum from the opposite side. He was wearing a fitted black suit with gold embroidery. The smile on his face seemed quite genuine, and he did not seem to feel like he was going to a fight at all.

It seemed that all characters at such a level were extremely confident in themselves. No nervousness could be detected from either of the participants.

"Human, I almost pity you. In your confidence, you do not even know the mistake you have made," he said while looking at Ragnar, as if he was genuinely concerned for him.

"In my life I have made many mistakes. Confronting evil is not one of them," Ragnar replied calmly.

Warheil shook his head one more time, as if he was disappointed in him.

"Realize, child, that you have built up your legend only fighting the servants of devils, not us devils directly. It is time you learnt the difference between a master and a slave."

Without any forewarning or superfluous movements, Warheil lifted his finger and thrust it forward. The world itself seemed to end.