The Innkeeper

The other contestants were stunned. Those two figures secretly watching over the graveyard were stunned. The viewers who were streaming the contest were stunned - though admittedly by the time they watched the show everything was already over. Everyone was stunned.

Yet Lex quietly stood there, mid air, and watched the fire rain down with a neutral expression. The graveyard was truly massive, to the point where he could not see its end. That was why the expected clearing time was months and months, yet now it might be cleared before the day even ended.

The sky was on fire, raining down liquid fire, causing the corpses on the ground to burn as well, finally finding some kind of release from all the abominations.

Giselle, who was standing alone in the fire, unprotected by Lex since even he had not spotted her, looked up at him with a hint of annoyance. She had things she had planned to do here. It was hard to come across a place with such pure Yin energy, which was the perfect place to nurture a few specific Profane treasures. Yet now that was impossible. She sighed, and sat down, rethinking all her future plans. It was very likely that Lex's interference would be strong in all of them, so if she wanted to accomplish all the goals she had set out, she would need to put in extra effort.

Everyone, all the other contestants who had entered the preliminary tournament feeling an abundance of confidence, looked up at Lex with a hint of fear, and wondered what was going through his head.

What they didn't know was Lex was evaluating his escape plan that he had used to avoid the majority of the impact from the blast. Just because an explosion was strong did not mean it could rip a hole through space - otherwise all supernovae would do just that, not to mention all the attacks from stronger Earth Immortals and above.

Instead, only attacks specifically targeting space itself would cause any damage at all. By trapping himself in the Heaven's furnace and coating himself in a layer of space, he made it so that the might of the explosion literally ripped the chunk of space surrounding him away, causing the hole.

By being thrown into the Void, he avoided the brunt of the explosive force. The Heavens furnace then protected him from the pressure of the Void until he came back.

Although for now it was just something he used to avoid too much pressure on his seals, it was a nice escape plan for the future if he ever needed it.

A loud shriek distracted Lex, coming from far in the distance. A tremor traveled through the ground and even the cover of fire in the air, but it lasted just a second. The next thing Lex knew, he was being pulled back through space.

He reappeared in the lobby, and so did everyone else. But even before Lex could talk to the receptionist, everyone around him took a few steps back. Lex looked around, shrugged, and then returned to his room. The next trial would start in 20 hours, and would be the last one he had to attend.

Meanwhile, word of what happened spread, even among the other contestants. In another stream, a war was taking place in the middle of a desert. Blood soaked the pure white sands and corpses fell to the ground, only to become sand as well.

Tens of thousands warriors fought ferociously against a never ending tide of slender, white monsters made of sandstone. Yet despite their pure color, the monsters reeked of pure evil and were driven by a malevolent will to turn all of reality into sand. In fact, everything they ripped with their sharp claws would somehow turn to sand as well.

On a dune overlooking the battlefield stood two men. Both were humans, and one looked the part while the other looked like a walking sack of muscles. Marlo had, through years of training, regained his former gargantuan size much to his wifes chagrin.

"What do you think, Rafa?" Marlo asked, overlooking the fight. Even though the warriors were stronger than the stone monsters, the number of monsters was just too many.

"Yup, that looks like certain death to me," Rafael said. Unlike his abnormal father, Rafael's expertise was in commanding troops. His natural acumen for large scale combat strategy was astounding, allowing him to make the impossible possible. But that was just a saying. That did not mean he would literally do something as stupid as go up against an infinite number of enemies with only a handful of soldiers. Unfortunately, that was the very position his father put them in.

"It can't be helped. My cultivation path has changed. I can no longer cultivate like normal," Marlo said. "Only by facing death can I become stronger. That is the way of the Prime."

"Just because a fortune cookie sounds smart does not mean you take it too seriously. These oracles are untrustworthy. You're going to kill both of us listening to them. No one can predict the future."

Marlo looked at his son and snorted. He had not missed how his son was able to randomly predict things that hadn't happened yet. His lame excuses and explanations didn't fool anyone.

Which means if the oracle who told Marlo his path forward had truly been lying, Rafael would have found a way to stop him.

"I just got news," Marlo said as cracked his knuckles and activated his nano-talismans. "A single contestant in the nascent realm finished an entire trial by himself in less than a day."

"Impossible," Rafael scoffed.

Yet they both knew it was not impossible. It was a fact.

"The guy who did it is an old student of mine," Marlo said, as a powerful aura began to envelop him. "I can't let my students overtake me."

Before Rafael could say something, Marlo leaped forward, crash landing directly in the middle of the stone monsters.

"Dragonsbane…" Rafael murmured and wondered why the timeline was changing once more. What was the point of seeing the future if the future kept changing? Not that he understood his ability all that much.

He had figured out that he would randomly see his whole life playout and remember it clearly. When he'd wake up from the vision, the future would play out mostly as he had seen. But each time, something extremely critical seemed to change.

Even now, changes were already happening before the tourney even began, and he couldn't afford that. They had to become as strong as possible if they were to survive what was to come. That's why he had a hint dropped for how his father could progress his cultivation.

The path of the Primes… it was too difficult, but it was also their only hope.

Rafael sighed, and then jumped down as well.

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