The Innkeeper

Lex was observing the facility, considering how he could enter without attracting attention. The surrounding area was pitch dark, but the facility was still well lit. They probably had spirit energy powered lanterns or something similar. But instead of helping them, the light acted as a beacon for the robotic invaders, attracting their attention and resulting in this siege.

Their defensive formation was like a transparent bubble around the entire building, only rippling when struck by the invaders – so that meant it was constantly rippling. He didn’t know how much longer the formation could last.

Before Lex could formulate a plan on how to proceed, Mary called out to him.

“Hey Lex, before you do anything else, I just learned something I thought I should share with you.”

“What’s up?” he asked without removing his gaze from the facility.

“While the council was temporarily crippled due to the sudden shutdown of all electronics, surprisingly, they actually had contingencies in place for such an occasion! They’ve finally got a communication network based on spirit tech up and running, and have successfully mobilized a response force.”

“Alright. What does that have to do with my current situation?”

“According to their latest reports, the invaders have not attacked all places equally. They are first mobilizing towards high value resources, some of which the council had actually hidden from the world. Moreover, there are a few special zones on your planet termed as danger zones where people don’t casually venture in, because anyone who goes in rarely comes out. The invaders are all targeting those areas first, as if they want to make sure they get everything precious or valuable before they do anything else.

“This information was corroborated by Marlo, who recently just returned to the Inn. According to him, his wife’s family’s sacred ground was also attacked. Unable to hold them off, she opted to dig out their most valuable tree, and brought it to the Inn’s greenhouse for safekeeping.”

Lex recalled hearing about that tree, if they were talking about the same one. They had used it to keep Rafael alive despite his horrible condition.

“So what you’re suggesting is… the reason there are a lot of robots laying siege to this facility is because it is probably storing something valuable?”

“That is a possibility. There’s one more thing. Although he was not clear about the details, Marlo suggested that this invasion might not be so simple. He suggested that it might have been instigated by someone. He said he would not elaborate more until they were able to contact Fernanda, but there’s been no progress on that yet.”

Lex frowned. Before the invasion happened, Marlo was supposed to be heading towards the ‘prison’ to deal with whoever had been instigating wars on earth. Considering his history, it might not be a stretch that the same person would be responsible for starting something like this, if he was able.

Suppressing his urge to personally beat up that scum, Lex narrowed his eyes as he looked at the facility. What could the facility be hiding that was so valuable? Miranda didn’t mention anything, and he doubted the aliens were interested in the servers.

Just because he had access to the whole universe it did not mean he underestimated the value of things he could find on earth. After all, if earth was so insignificant then the robots themselves would not be interested in them.

More importantly, that meant that as soon as he fought any of these robots, they would likely attract reinforcements. After all, if this was one of their main objectives, they would not treat it lightly.

Lex groaned. The truth was, he had already thought of a way to circumvent the blockade, but he’d been having so much fun crushing robots lately that he wanted to continue.

He sent Fenrir back to the Inn, promising to summon it back if any fighting started. He closed his eyes and started to use the technique he had learnt so long ago back in the Crystal realm, called In-Law effect!

The original purpose of the technique was a sort of last minute escape to save one’s life. It allowed the user to teleport their soul away, but due to the fact that Lex’s soul was fused to his body, for him it became a teleportation technique.

This was far from simple, as Lex had looked at actual teleportation techniques for Golden core cultivators, and they were incredibly convoluted and difficult to master. They were a lot more reliable and versatile, sure, but it would take Lex months of dedicated focus to master the technique. Without exaggeration, it was one of the most difficult techniques he had seen.

But using the power of loopholes, Lex found a much easier solution. The original technique required Lex to stay still for 3 hours, but now powered by his energy which was a better fuel source than anything a Foundation realm expert could supply, it took him barely a minute.

One moment, he was standing in the distance, looking at the facility from far away. The next, he had teleported inside.

Large concrete walls had surrounded the facility, not only protecting it but also hiding it from view. Now that Lex had crossed those walls he could finally see that it was… a very plain and unimpressive looking gray, rectangular building.𝒐𝑣𝐞𝑙xt.𝚌𝑂𝐌

While Lex observed the unremarkable building, his arrival had not gone unnoticed, prompting soldiers to instantly surround him. They pointed their weapons at him and screamed at him to get down on his knees, but Lex wasn’t really in the mood for all this drama.

He would not have called it drama if he could see the intimidating appearance of the mask he was wearing, but that was besides the point. He spread out his spirit sense and firmly held all the soldiers, freezing them where they stood, further scaring everyone in view.

“I have a letter here for Major Gilbert. Can someone go find him? I don’t want to spend too much time on this.”