The Innkeeper

Kaemon, the Magma Lion, stared up in disbelief. Whether it was the immense mental exhaustion, or the incredible physical fatigue, both were affecting him seriously, making him doubt the reality of what was happening.

Their protective formation was a top of the line product of Reaving Dread, used by their many armies, specifically designed to be the best in their level. It had literally saved their lives by resisting the hordes of behemoths, chimeras and even locusts.

The reason the formation was on the verge of failing was not through a shortcoming of the formation itself, but because of the exhaustion of the mercenary army. How, then, could it so easily have been penetrated?

Kaemon had been expecting reinforcements, true, though he didn’t know who to expect. However, he never expected his reinforcements to make such an entrance. Moreover, he had heard of the Midnight Inn.

The Reaving Dread covered security for the Inn, so he did not expect the Inn to have any formidable forces. If they did, they would not have needed to rely on them to begin with – not that there was anything wrong with that.

Yet as the hundreds of humans easily slipped into their formation and summoned a castle from what looked like a poke-orb. The most absurd thing was that only after they were surrounded by the large, secure looking walls of the castle did Kaemon focus on a message sent to him by the Condottiere informing him about reinforcements from the Midnight Inn.

Kaemon was dazed, and as he turned away from the message and looked at the castle once more, he had a sneaking suspicion that the bricks of the castle were designed to look like dragonscales.

The design choice was very reassuring, not to mention they also gave off a very warm and secure feeling, almost as if they could bear a siege against the universe itself. It was almost like they were actually being protected… by a… dragon…

Kaemon lifted his paw and touched the warm scale and felt the slight tremble in his bloodline – the very one caused by a suppression when facing a superior race – confirming that what he was touching… was real dragon… scale…

Kaemon didn’t remember when his jaw dropped, but it certainly happened because he remembered closing it when he took a deep gulp as he looked up at the human floating above them all.

Lex, meanwhile, hovered in the air, looking down on the mercenary army. The 500 staff members divided themselves into groups, some of them rushing into the castle to prepare it to welcome guests, while others immediately approached the injured soldiers to help them into the castle itself.

Leonidas and his battalion of 300 soldiers, many of whom, but not all, had reached the Earth Immortal realm gathered on the boundary walls of the castle and prepared to defend it. Of course, since Z was taking the lead in the defense, they would wait to see how he commanded them.

Lex, meanwhile, studied their situation himself. Breaking into their formation was incredibly easy for him. It wasn’t because Lex was a master of formations – though having an eye that could see through the truth of the world, while another that could create formations on a whim certainly helped him spot the flaws and weaknesses in most formations.

No, it was his in depth understanding of defense that allowed him to see the weaknesses it had, and easily slip through them. Even then, Lex was not unveiling all his strength, nor was he making extra effort to take any large or drastic measures.

His primary quest was to provide sanctuary and protection to the mercenaries, and he intended on completing that first. But even then, one of the reasons he wanted to let Z take the lead was because he wanted to focus on studying and understanding Abaddon as much as possible.

The system prompt for the quest had made it quite clear to Lex that this place was extremely abnormal, and he wasn’t going to let overconfidence affect his decision making.

Once he understood the depth of the enemies strength, their strategies, and the way that this place functioned, he could then plan on fulfilling all the additional quests.

Besides being dangerous, the very existence of this place intrigued Lex, giving him some dangerous ideas.

Lex had long been looking for a place to build his Midnight Castle. The requirements for a location to build his castle was that it needed to be extremely hidden and hard to find. Once he could locate such a place, he would build his castle there, and hide his Chamber of Rebirth with a drop of blood in there as a backup for him to survive.

Yet he would obviously not do something like that in a place where survival itself was impossible. However, if he could master the rules of this place, such an endeavor wasn’t impossible.

Besides just his own observations, he could rely on the knowledge accumulated by the Reaving Dread.

No matter how he looked at it, this quest would last a long time unless they worked together. Even if they did work together, it might take a long time to find the Chalice and save Xerxes from within it.

“Do not let your guard down, the locusts are not so easily dealt with,” said the Magma Lion once he recovered from his shock. He flew up to Lex and looked out at the army outside the walls.

“Physical attacks do them next to no harm, while spiritual and soul attacks are all but useless. The only concrete way to destroy a locust is to eliminate the hunger within their being. For that, we’ve been using the laws of absolute destruction. If you want, I can show you how we did it.”

“Thank you for the advice. I will definitely take you up on your offer, but first I’d like to see how they react to the means of our forces.”

“Don’t take their threat lightly,” Kaemon advised with a hint of anxiety in his voice. “Too many of our allies have died because they underestimated the enemies here in Abaddon. It’s best to use your full strength right from the start.”

Lex raised an eyebrow, and looked at the Magma Lion. Initially he was going to let Z take the lead, but it wouldn’t hurt to get confirmation about his own lethality against the locusts first.

He pointed a finger towards a certain direction, and shot out a bolt of silver sword intent. That was not his strongest attack, but it was certainly a highly destructive one. The lion and Lex both, alongside many of the battalion members as well as Z, turned to look at the attack, waiting to see how effective it was.

They didn’t have to wait long.