The Innkeeper

Mary did not have time to feel elation at Lex’s return for the situation was truly horrible. An all out battle had erupted at the Inn, and the situation was much worse than the invasion of the Raskals, for at that time at least Lex had been conscious and thus took care of everything.

Gerard too was in a state of confusion because… due to the chaotic state of the Inn, he did not know where to get the Innkeeper his coffee!

While all this was happening, Lex finally sat down on his office chair. The chair made him more in synchronization with the Inn than even his Host Attire, so in a single flash he took in everything that was happening.

He was already under great duress, for his hallucinations made it so that everything he saw was blanketed in a layer of strange colors that did not really exist. Since the colors did not exist, and were incomparable to any color he had ever seen, he was under immense mental strain as it was. On top of that, he had entered his Overdrive state to fight against the insanity that was rushing in to claim him.

Step by step, by fighting back, he was once again bringing his body to an exhausted state, once again heading towards the coma from which he had woken up.

While all of this was happening Lex desperately wanted to understand what was happening to him, yet also had to take care of whatever was happening at the Inn.

Suffice to say, when he finally sat down, and the surge of information entered his mind, just in time for him to see countless guests being hurt in a number of battles happening across the Inn, and countless workers who were severely injured… he was unable to control his rage!

Though it may not always seem like it, Lex thought of himself as a rational man. Even at times when anger took control of him, he was able to keep a head clear enough not to do something so drastic. That is why when his tavern was assaulted and insulted by the kids of those nobles back at the Crystal realm, he managed to keep himself from just straight out destroying them like his first impulse stated.

For better or for worse, though, at this moment, Lex lost all his rationale. He was too strained to stop himself. For the first time in his life, the self-control his elder sister Belle had secretly trained him to keep failed.

One moment, Lex had over 70 billion MP stocked up. The next moment, he had 0.

Outside Lex’s office, the Inn had become a war zone that stretched all corners as beasts and species of all races fought senselessly. Even the sudden appearance of dark clouds or the mysterious weight pressing against their chests had not been enough to dissuade them.

Until, that is, it suddenly became all too much!

From gray clouds, the sky was suddenly filled with black clouds. Streaks of lightning could be seen swimming through the abyssal clouds, yet instead of the usual white or blue, the lightning instead looked searing red, like lava. But the lightning did not have an opportunity to fall, for instead the pressure that had previously been putting them down changed so drastically, instead of a tinge of fear traveling up their spines, all the miscreants felt fear bloom from within their souls.

Every injured guest and worker were suddenly teleported away, brought directly to the Recovery room, while every other innocent was brought away to safety. Every miscreant, those that had already begun battle and even those that were still hiding and biding their time, was teleported to the entrance of the Inn.

In the darkness filled the Inn, deeper and more malevolent than the worst nightmare, a golden light bloomed and encompassed all those that had gathered at the entrance at the Inn.

Everything was happening too fast for anyone to understand or react, but as if the fear that arose from their very souls was not enough, suddenly they felt chained down by the golden light, as if something had imprisoned them.

So far, only those who had been deemed as enemies of the Inn had been victims to the building oppression, but then suddenly, something changed.

The oppression that appeared now was orders of magnitude beyond anything anyone at the Inn had ever felt.

For the first time ever, the Midnight Inn’s protection failed to project its guests from the oppression of an aura. In fact, for the first time ever, the Minor realm in which the Inn was located shuddered, and tore open slightly, revealing the Inn to the rest of the Origin realm in which it resided.

A projection of the Innkeeper appeared in the air, and in the eyes of various people around the Origin realm itself.

He looked like a human, an ordinary man. Yet at the same time, nothing about him was ordinary. His eyes shone with red light and his aura was one that radiated absolute death, as if angering him was the same as angering the universe itself.

“Die!”

The word echoed throughout the Inn, as well as the Origin realm, before the figure threw out the small knife.

Then… there was chaos!

Similar to the way Lex employed Talk to the Hand in a new way, without understanding what he was really doing, Lex used his 1 Minute Butter Knife token to use the strongest version of the Butter Knife to attack in a way he did not even know was possible.

Instead of an enemy, he attacked a line of Karma. He attacked everyone and everything associated with the attack on the Inn. The result… well before he could really see the results, Lex teleported back into a Recovery Pod with a sticky note on it that read ‘next time you wake me up, have my coffee ready’.