The Innkeeper



When Lex had realized the strength of the attacking creature was equivalent to an immortal, he almost panicked. The keyword here was almost. Just as quickly as he realized how strong it was, he also realized that the attack lacked the somewhat mysterious yet elusive strength that only immortals had. The unknown elusiveness carried by immortals was something Lex had picked up on after countless hours observing brand new immortals who had just survived their first tribulations. Its attack only matched them in terms of pure physical strength.

If that were the case, Lex decided to take it head on! He used Harden on his body, and Impervious hands to prepare his hands. Then he put as many Imperial shields in between the falling limb and himself. Considering all of this happened in a mere moment, the 2 shields he was able to put up was a testament to his sheer skill with defensive techniques.

As a result of all of these, Lex was not immediately killed, not was he completely incapacitated. Moreover, due to his Clark Kent glasses, the true extent of his injuries was hidden from the world to see.

But the seriousness of his injury also let him understand something new his body did! As soon as an attack was strong enough to injure him, its impact would be spread out over the entire body. In fact, a decent percentage of the force that hit Lex's body was channeled through his feet and into the ground. Sure, he did end up suffering a lot. But if the attack had not been diverted, it would have been a lot worse. The most interesting thing was that although many of his bones had been crushed, they retained their shape perfectly. Through the support of his muscles, his body would retain maximum movement and functionality even in such a damaged state!

But his survival was not completely due to his great defense. Impervious hands had, at some point, taken complete control of the limb that was smashing down on him, and stopped its attack!

But the robot had a lot more going on than a laser attack. So, the control of the Impervious hands extended deep into the robot's body, ultimately reaching the soul wisp. Lex could feel his spirit energy draining through his hands and it flooded into the robot's body and took control of it.

But as amazing as that was, it did not end there! Through controlling the wisp, Lex felt a connection leading away from the robot, somewhere far into the distance. His intuition was telling him the robot was extremely vulnerable in this state, but at the same time it was also telling him that his affinity was finally at play.

"Listen here pal. This place here is the Midnight Inn. I don't care what jurisdiction your empire had back in the origin realm, nor what your empire's laws are. Over here, only the laws of the Inn matter, and that's it."

"Inhibiting the capture of criminals will label your organization as enemies of the empire. Consider your actions carefully."

This time, Lex really did let out a small laugh, though not because he thought what the robot said was funny. With his body filled with incredible pain, he had no patience to deal with this idiotic robot and its massive ego.

"The Midnight Inn wishes you good luck with that."

Lex used Evisceration once again. Last time it had failed, but this time he knew it wouldn't. Back when he had used the Butter Knife at its maximum power, he had used the law of karma to trace everyone related to the attack on the Inn to destroy them. Lex did not actually know what he was doing, but he vaguely remembered the feeling.

Now, once again, he felt something similar. His spirit energy which had filled the robots body resonated with something unseen and allowed the attack to fall onto the wisp.

The wisp itself was immediately destroyed, yet that was not the end. The robot fell limp onto the ground. Yet in the air behind the robot, something unusual was happening.

A somewhat transparent image appeared in the sky showing a ridiculously massive spaceship the size of a regular Dwarf Star, traveling through empty space. The image zoomed into the ship, passing through its various barriers and walls, suddenly reaching its centermost chamber made of a completely transparent material.

The chamber was filled with something that anyone who had seen the hearth at the Midnight Inn would recognize: souls!

The image rushed into the souls and focused on one in particular, before attacking it! An earth shattering wail reverberated through the air as the soul was severely damaged, though not completely destroyed.

Slowly the image began to fade, whilst everyone wondered what they had just seen. Yet one onlooker was not completely satisfied with the result. The baby Cthulhu, woken up by the deliciously pleasant cry of pain, looked at the image and let out a wail of its own.

The last thing anyone saw before the image faded were all the remaining souls in the chamber trembling, accompanied by cries of their own.

Feeling very satisfied, the baby Cthulhu went back to sleep, though not before its doting mother took some time to play with its tentacles.

Leo, who was looking up at the image, somehow completely understood what had happened. Yet now was not the time to contemplate.

Releasing a single snort as he looked at the robot, he disappeared.

"Mary, I don't think the robot carcass will make good fertilizer. Send it to Xeon and have him study it. See if he can learn something from it to further upgrade our golf carts."

"I'll let him know."

"Wake me up if something important happens," was the last thing Lex said before lying down in a Recovery pod. Just because he had suffered a lot of pain, and had a high tolerance, did not mean that he wanted to prolong his time feeling pain. It was best to heal as quickly as possible.