The Innkeeper

"I think I've already proven that I'm not interested in treasures," Lex said. "Otherwise I would have followed you back in the Temple. By now, you've had more than enough time to sell, use, or dispose of the treasure if you managed to find it in time. That was a time bubble, which contained the most valuable treasures in the whole universe. If they did not attract me, why would anything else? But, if it makes you feel any better, I can swear an oath."

"You make a good point about the temple. I'll tell you what. We'll make an agreement. If you can truly help me fulfill my objective, and be forewarned they are not without danger, then I'll help you get to the middle as quickly as I can."

Giselle was slightly suspicious. The oath she had Lex take last time was a very strong one, and he should have felt the binds of it within his soul. That was not the kind of thing anyone would mess with, yet here he was, ready to take another oath to speed things along.

Yet how could she have known that her little oath was no burden to him at all, and that he could unravel it when he wished. After all, most people don't have the courage to mess with their souls.

So she gave in to the idea. After all, Lex had proved himself competent, she was not opposed to speeding up her journey via teleportation. She handed Lex the same stone as last time, and he did not hesitate from swearing an oath.

With a smile, he handed the stone back to her and said, "great, so let's get started. Where to? Or, in case you don't know the exact location of what you're looking for, you can tell me what it is and I can help you find it."

Giselle held up her watch and did something with it. Whatever she was doing was a mystery to Lex, for he could not see any display on the watch.

"Before we begin, do you know what this place is?" she asked.

"Are you insinuating that this is not just a massive, mysterious maze with walls that disable all powers?"

"No it's not," she said. "The reason that this place is so massive is because this is an entirely separate realm. To be specific, this is a realm that was destroyed during the realm war. For whatever reason, the remnants of this realm were absorbed by the Origin realm. It is currently in the process of being digested by the Origin realm, which means that its laws are being absorbed by the Origin realm - the reason why your powers don't work close to the walls is because the walls are constantly absorbing the powers of this place."

Lex's casual attitude subsided. The realm wars was one of the things he was most concerned about since it was in his best interest to keep the Midnight realm hidden - something he literally could not do while using it as an Inn. But Giselle did not seem to notice the change since she was focused on her watch.

"As you can probably guess, since this is an entire realm, then it contains countless valuable treasures, some naturally occurring, some remnants of treasures and items from when this realm was whole. I, obviously, am not after every single treasure from that realm. But the number of things I am after are not few, so you should prepare yourself."

She looked up from her watch to see an unfazed Lex, waiting for her to elaborate on her current goal.

"At the moment I am searching for certain religious artifacts from the Selpak Empire. The history of that empire is truly unique, not just in their realm but in the entire universe, and I'm hoping to get some insight into it through these artifacts."

Giselle pulled out a small, rolled up scroll made of gray rock. It had been sculpted with the utmost care, containing tiny details that were incredibly easy to overlook. But more important than the tiny, countless characters that were etched onto the scroll, appearing as if one could see the shadow of what was written on the other side of the page, was the subtle divine aura it was giving off.

"This is one of them. I expect that there are dozens more spread out across the maze," she said, then paused when she noticed the odd look on Lex's face. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes, yes, everything is fine," Lex said. "I just noticed how the divine aura on this is different from every other kind of divinity I've ever felt. It lives up to the standard of being unique. Anyway, you're right. There are dozens of objects with a similar aura."

Lex cracked his neck as he honed in on his instincts, which were guiding him towards every other object with a similar aura within the maze.

"It's a pity I'm in a rush, otherwise I would have loved to explore the history of this Selpak empire."

Lex couldn't claim to be an expert on divine aura, but he was at least extremely familiar with it. But the aura from this object was genuinely strange. Somehow, it felt more divine than any divine energy he had ever come across, if that made sense.

Yet as intriguing as it was, Lex put all his curiosity away, and instead put his hand on Giselle's shoulder. The next second, they teleported thousands of miles away.

"Wait, I wasn't done explaining!" she exclaimed. "There are dangers! I have enemies trying to stop me!"

"There are always dangers," Lex said casually, and then teleported again. "And there are always people trying to stop you."

It didn't take long to reach the first destination, which happened to be at the intersection of various wind currents. The winds blew in a particular direction, following the path of the walls. But if two wind currents ever met, blowing in the opposite directions, they resulted in devastating storms and tornadoes.

Where they appeared, there was a castle standing upon a hill, in the very epicenter of a standing tornado that filled the entire gap between the walls.

Giselle looked solemnly at the natural disaster before her, and was about to propose a strategy to break through the wall of wind when Lex surrounded the both of them with Heaven's furnace and just chucked it through the walls of the tornado.

For a moment she was startled, but when she noticed that the winds were unable to break through whatever technique he had employed, she calmed down, and then looked at Lex warily.

"I know you're in a rush, but there's no need to take drastic measures. Those winds contain countless laws. They could easily rip an Earth Immortal to shreds."

"Yes, I know," Lex said nonchalantly. "That's why I put you in here. Don't worry, I won't let you come to harm."

Completely oblivious to the fact that Giselle was not concerned about her wellbeing, but rather his, Lex took a look at the castle. It had suffered tremendously, though whether it was the winds that destroyed the once grand castle or something else could not be determined.

"Follow me," Lex said as he flew through a massive hole in the wall, and navigated through the darkness into the lower levels.

Lex did not expect the castle to have so many lower levels, but it kept on going, right up until they ended up entering an enormous underground cavern within which an entire city was built.

"The castle protects the entrance to the city? That's pretty cool," Lex said, as he zoomed directly to where he felt the aura.

They ended up in a highly decorated building, yet just as they entered Lex stopped moving. In front of them, three figures stepped out of the shadows, each of them radiating an aura of an Immortal.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" the man with completely black eyes and deathly pale skin said. "I guess I was wrong. Turns out you can work with someone."

Giselle grimaced, and pulled out her sword. She was not expecting to face three Profanites. More importantly, it seemed like all of these Profanites were directly being controlled by a Defiler.

They all looked towards Lex, who had an unreadable expression, and asked, "do you know who you're working with? Do you know she's going to get you killed? Get everyone you know killed? Get everything you love destroyed?"

They grinned at him menacingly as they began to weigh Lex down with their aura. But he didn't react the way they expected. Instead of being intimidated, he just sighed with disappointment."

"Still not worthy of my sword," he muttered, then attacked. He didn't even bother unsealing his second seal as he full-body slammed the first Profanite, launching his body across the hall.

"I'm in a rush so please skip all the monologuing for today," Lex said, before punching the second Profanite. A fight immediately broke out.

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