The Innkeeper

In his tent, Lex was completely drenched in sweat. His shirt was stuck to this skin and his eyes were squeezed shut because he could not continuously wipe them. Right now, it was only due to his 'flow' state that he was not panicking.

No matter what his authority, the Inn never provided him with a single direct way of defending itself. There were a few very specific defensive formations he could buy, but he had neither the MP nor the energy to power them.

Every few seconds he would scan the Inn to ensure everything was not deteriorating into a mess and, fortunately, things had taken a positive turn. John had joined the fight and was rampaging amidst the enemy army.

If only he could buy guards similar to that who could just fight alongside him, but the Inn prevented him from doing that. The only way he could buy anyone with any fighting ability...

"Eureka!" Lex literally yelled out as his mind quickly moved to implement his idea!

*****

20 Nascent Raskals invaded the Inn. Of those, 1 had fought Gerard and 1 was currently exploring the Midnight Mountain, unaware of what else was happening, and the remaining 18 were on the battlefield.

When they decided to split, all 18 moved at the same time. 3 of them decided to target John, to hold his attention and distract him from what the rest were doing. Of the remaining 15, 2 decided to attack the Inn's staff for the same purpose, while the remainder tried to escape the formation.

The speed of a Nascent cultivator was one that was near impossible to keep up with under normal circumstances, and their attacks were only faster. Z and Todd sensed a massive surge in some kind of energy, and immediately tried to divert it all, but not only were they limited in how much energy they could divert at a time, the attack was too fast!

They only saw a bright light, and before they could understand what was happening, they were blown away, crashing into those they had been trying so hard to save.

Harry similarly had sensed a surge in soul energy, and immediately attacked it! His attack had slowed down the other Nascent soul Raskal attacking them, but could not stop it. The Raskal didn't even need to attack Harry - he fainted from exhaustion on his own.

The battle, which had so far been a concert of yelling and clashing weapons, had been blanketed by a shocking silence, followed by endless explosions.

John was an assassin, not a frontal fighter, so the three Raskals that went after him were more than enough to trouble him. He had dodged a dozen sudden attacks without any chance of retaliating. The Raskals, who knew they were ultimately the weaker ones, continued to use long range area of effect attacks, resulting in dozens of explosions that, ironically, did more damage to other Raskals than anyone else.

It was a split second, and the tide of the battle had drastically shifted. The worker who was holding onto Z's bloodied and unconscious body had only just recognized what, or rather who, he was holding when their assailants flashed in front of them.

The workers could not even respond. They only looked at the four-armed, leathery alien like the harbinger of death. The Raskal did not waste any time and gathered a shining white energy in its arms to attack when a shadow fell over its body.

Surprised, it looked around to see for any incoming attackers when a giant, ivory foot crushed him into the ground. The other Nascent Raskal, who had seen the giant appear out of thin air, tried to retreat. Unfortunately for it, the giants size did not diminish its speed in any way, and before the Raskal could move but a few feet, the giant kicked it, breaking dozens of bones and incapacitating it.

The appearance of the giant caused a huge disturbance, as almost everyone turned to look at it as neither the Raskals nor the workers had seen it before.

But, after the initial shock, many immediately realized that the giant strongly resembled the faceless training dummies in the Training room. But while the other training dummies had been made of wood and did not do much other than attack physically, this one seemed to be made of ivory and actually used various techniques.

The ivory giant did not wait around to observe or give his opponents any time to react. It identified its next target and rushed, breaking the sound barrier as it did so, before seriously damaging each one of its targets.

The dummy did not kill any of the Raskals, its sole purpose was training after all. Instead, it helped them train their will power by leaving them with broken bodies and extreme pain.

Just as drastically and quickly as the battle had begun, it ended, and the dummy left the formation to pursue the remaining few Raskals. Except that no one clapped or wooed as the crowds usually did after a tournament. They were still in shock.

"What are you just standing round for?" Mary asked, as she appeared in front of the workers.

"Take all the injured to the Recovery room, quickly! The danger has ended."

She quickly started organizing those that were uninjured or less hurt and, after giving one look to the ruined landscape of the Inn and a kneeling, panting John, turned to her duties. The Raskals were not killed and if left alone, they could cause more of a mess. Fortunately, Lex let her know that the Galactic Sovereign turtle was on the way, and that he would take care of imprisoning the Raskals and fixing the damage from the battle.

She had to focus on only a few things now. First, she had to make sure no one died by immediately sending them to the Recovery room. Second, she had to apologize to all the guests who were caught up in this mess and give them all a one week free stay at the Inn, as instructed by Lex. Of course, it wasn't really free as he could pay for their stay.

Thirdly, and perhaps, most importantly, it was her job to oversee the interrogation of the Raskals and find out exactly why they had come and what was their goal. They needed to know if more enemies would be on the way.

The only suspects Lex had at the moment were the pirates who visited every so often, just because of the nature of their work. But that didn't make sense. She needed to find out if there was any lingering danger.

*****

Lex collapsed onto the ground, his state of flow immediately breaking once the situation at the Inn was resolved. Although the system did not let him directly buy any kind of defensive measures, he had once again found a loophole. He upgraded the Training room even more than he previously had the greenhouse, spending 500,000 MP on the upgrades alone. Then he spent another 250,000 MP on this massive, incredibly powered Training dummy that could reach the peak of the Nascent realm in strength.

This was of course the theoretical peak of the Nascent realm, and also took in mind species much stronger than the Raskals as well, which is why it would be able to easily defeat them. But, technically the training dummies shouldn't have been able to leave the training room, however once upgraded, the room had more features. Not every kind of training can be done in a secure environment, and not every technique can be carried out alone. This is why the Training room allowed for the training to be conducted in any environment within the Inn, and could target not just one person, but entire groups.

Using a massive amount of MP and his remaining energy, he bought and powered this massive training dummy, while registering the entire invading army for training sessions for near death harm and threats.

This was a method Lex would be able to replicate in the future should he be invaded again, but this massive dummy would need him to absorb extra energy to run. This was not to mention that, now that he was once again down to 0% energy, the systems operations were once again compromised and it was running on metaphorical energy saving mode.

While Lex lay on the ground panting like he had just run a marathon, his mind still recovering from the extreme exertion it had just experienced, two thin wooden roots emerged from the ground behind him.

At first, they froze once they left the ground, as if to see whether they would be detected. But, after a few seconds, when Lex didn't show any reaction, they slowly continued to pull out of the ground silently, and stealthily moved towards Lex's neck.

The two roots slithered in the air, as if snakes, slowly approaching helpless prey and only took a few moments before reaching Lex. Too tired, and too caught up with the invasion at the Inn, Lex was completely unprepared when the roots wrapped around his neck!