The Innkeeper

On some deep level, Lex knew he was dreaming. But that knowledge did not reflect in any change. He was like a spectator, looking down on himself, but at the same time, feeling all the feelings that his dreamed self was experiencing.

He was being hunted. Something had locked onto him by means he could not understand. It had used something to lock him in place, and prevent him from returning to the Inn. The lock was not actually something that directly blocked him, but something that created an urgent need.

Even at the risk of being discovered, even at the risk of great harm, he could not escape. He needed to reach… he needed to find…

Before the thought could be complete, a familiar pressure he now understood as Dragons Might enveloped him, and a massive yellow eye appeared. Then darkness fell, and the dream transitioned.

Another dream came from the darkness, revealing a dance flood. A dark ominous figure stood at the opposite end of Lex, and a hooting crowd surrounded them. Darkness descended, and the dream ended once more.

He saw a jungle filled with the most viscous beasts imaginable, and a massive cavalry charging through astride magnificent, great peacocks.

He saw an army of caped Marzu, marching to war.

He saw the collapse of civilizations.

He saw a planet, ominous and full of malevolent intent, swallowing its star system.

He saw his beloved door, left alone at the Temple of Fasting, behind countless chains.

There were many more dreams, but they seemed to slip out of his memory as they were happening.

The last dream, however, was the most vivid. He was standing in the Inn, watching as massive balls of red flames fell from the sky all around him, crashing down and causing untold destruction.

He could smell the sulfur in the air, alongside the smell of burnt earth and ash. He could feel the warmth of the distant fireballs in the sky on his skin. He could feel the ground tremble beneath his feet.

In the distance, buildings and people were all engulfed in a tsunami of earth caused by a particularly devastating impact. Yet amidst all the destruction, there was a strange sense of peace.

The Lex in the dream did not feel fear or panic, or even anger. He just stood still and watched as fire rained from the sky, as if accepting an inevitable doom beyond his control. The dream ended when Lex himself was wreathed in fire.

Lex opened his eyes and felt particularly like crap. It had been a while since he had been so uncomfortable, but he felt drained of all life, energy, emotion, and drive. Exhaustion hugged him like a lover, unwilling to part even for a moment.

He felt himself falling back asleep almost a second later, but this time, as if forced by habit, he used the technique to protect himself from divination.

This time, blissful darkness welcomed him. He had no dreams, and time seemed to slip by, so that when he woke up, it seemed like only seconds had passed.

But there was a world of a difference in how he felt, informing him that he was in a much better condition.

"Mary, how long was I out?" he asked as he looked up at the familiar ceiling. He was in a Recovery pod, though not his personal one. That hardly mattered, since they all worked the same.

"It's been a little over two and a half weeks since you all returned. Your condition is extremely strained. The lady who brought you in, Cassandra, comes every day to check up on your condition. She has stated that even if you heal completely, your meridians are extremely strained and will need time to recover. She gave Nurse Jubilation a serum that she said should help you."

Lex smiled weakly. Cassandra was very thoughtful, and whatever serum she gave would probably help him a lot if he took it. But in her considerations, she could not account for the fact that Lex had a cultivation technique that strengthened him against whatever weakness he was experiencing. A few good cultivation sessions and he should be good to go.

But before he got up and went about dealing with the no doubt countless chores that awaited him, he could not help but think back to the last dream. As devastating as it was, the thing he found most prominent in the dream was the fact that… he was still a baby in it!

This was the second time he had a dream about the Inn being destroyed by fire, though some details had changed between the two dreams. The first time he had the dream, he was in his regular form, meaning that he had not been reduced to his baby form. But in the more recent one, he was a baby.

The fact that some details changed was reassuring, which meant that even his future prophecies were not exactly accurate, or even liable to happen. But the fact that this dream had occurred twice was worth consideration.

There was one more dream which had repeated, and fortunately it was not the one where he identified as a banana. Or perhaps it was unfortunate, because it was the one he was being hunted in. Although, this time, in that particular dream, he was not a baby.

But the reappearance of these dreams unsettled him.

He tried to anticipate what kind of danger the Inn could potentially face in the near future, since he was a baby in that dream.

There was only one possibility he could identify, though there was no way of knowing for sure. If his newly developed realm was discovered, he was sure that it would face an invasion. But the Inn had a Destiny level formation hiding it, so that should have been unlikely. Or did he perhaps need to upgrade the protection to the level of Death, or perhaps even higher?

These thoughts plagued him for quite a while.

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