The Innkeeper

"Stop, I'll take care of this one," Lex said suddenly, stopping not only the Midnight Battalion mech, but the mercenaries as well.

Though mere hours had passed in the Midnight Inn, entire days had passed within Abaddon. Up until then, Lex had done nothing except observe and analyse, studying the locusts, and Abaddon itself.

Since Lex was particularly talented in space, he noticed something Kaemon had missed. All of Abaddon was constantly changing. It wasn't that they were being teleported to other places. Instead, Abaddon itself had the landscape undergoing serious change.

The only thing was, the change happened far out of view, past the horizon. For some reason, their existence acted as an anchor for Abaddon's existence, making it more real somehow, which is why the changes happened far away from them.

That is also why individuals were teleported away when they left the group's line of sight. Individuals were not nearly enough of an anchor as the collective, which meant they were far more susceptible to being victims of the change.

Lex even felt like that if they all left Abaddon, that it would cease to exist in the way that they view it. Instead, it would be in a state of constant flux.

Its existence would become less real, and more abstract. In fact, Lex felt like the rest of Abaddon existed in its abstract state, and only their surroundings were solid.

He did not try to understand why or how something like that operated. Instead, he only tried to understand how he could make use of it. After all, if there was no defined layout of their surroundings, then theoretically, it was possible to make it so that the chalice appeared on the horizon regardless of where they were. He just had to figure out a way to make that happen.

That is one of the reasons why he wanted to fight the particularly odd locust king flying towards them. The second reason was because hidden within the deranged, hungry locust king was a well concealed sentience that reminded Lex of it.

The thing that suffered universal rejection and hid in the shadows had found a way to appear in the light, so Lex wanted to see for himself what the big deal was. Also, he didn't want to risk the others. This thing was dangerous, and he couldn't confirm he'd be able to react quick enough if something went awry.

He also wanted to take this opportunity to do a few tests on Karma. If he could deepen his understanding of it, then maybe he'd be able to mask his own Karma better.

The two groups looked at Lex concernedly, for this was the first time he had taken initiative to stop them, but he did not explain. Instead, he drew Naraka from its sheath, its mere presence elevating his intent to a higher level, though it didn't quite enter level 4. Not that it mattered.

Lex had never been the one to use his level to fight an equal opponent. He'd always been fighting up.

A part of him was also focusing on the Inn, where his Project Obsidian, as he called it, had already begun. He wasn't sure how exactly the system would deliver the keys, but he'd phrased the general invitation to the various system users. All that he had to do now was wait for them to start coming.

Oddly enough, despite the event already starting, no one had come yet. To be fair, due to the variance in the flow of time, Lex had trouble keeping track of how much actual time would probably have passed for the invited guests.

When they started to come, he would have to orchestrate their entire experience, so a part of him would need to constantly monitor the place. It was not ideal, especially since he was about to fight, but fortunately he had a lot of attention to spare.

Lex was not in the mood to probe, so he attacked the locust king directly, cutting its body in half with a single cleave of his sword, stumping everyone who was watching.

Many of them struggled to leave mere stab wounds in the carapace of a locust king, yet Lex did not even slow down as he cut it in half. Having strength comparable to, if not greater than a Heaven Immortal was not for nothing.

Through the cut, Lex's sword intent, fueled by his over abundant spiritual energy, bore into the king's body, directly fighting against the hunger that was housed in his body. One might say that killing the locust king was much too easy, and was kind of anticlimactic.

To those people, Lex would say why would he honestly struggle with an Earth Immortal when he could not theoretically fight Heaven Immortals? Like seriously, it may as well be him fighting a Golden core cultivator that's how big the difference was.

Soon, Lex encountered the very thing he was on the lookout for. A small piece of dark red energy was hiding in the body, observing what was happening without retaliating. Lex observed it for a moment, trying to study what it was, yet he could not gain any clues, so he decided to attack.

The dark red energy was not strong, nor did it put up a fight. To eradicate it should have been no trouble whatsoever. Yet in his eagerness to learn about Karma, Lex did that which he would soon regret.

Much like he had done with the first locusts, he used his sword intent as a conduit to try and observe the things Karma. That's when he hit a wall.

Literally, that's exactly what it felt like. It felt like Lex was travelling at the speed of light, and then his body crashed into an indestructible wall, leaving his body as nothing more than splatter.

The Karma that he had tried to manipulate was too big. Its enormity was entirely incomprehensible to Lex, not that it mattered. The moment Lex tried to manipulate it, his attempt backfired on him.

Lex's body exploded in a cloud of blood, leaving nothing behind save a red mist, causing everyone to freeze.