The Innkeeper

Chapter 1675: Paranoia

If Lex was 25, then sometimes it felt like the Inn workers were 15. Seen through that specific lens, Luthor was a young teenager going through a dark and emo phase, who would get overly excited at the mere prospect of imprisoning and interrogating enemies. It brought an enthusiastic and genuine side of him, which was in complete contrast with the cool and levelheaded guy he was trying to be.

Perhaps only Lex, who had known Luthor from the moment he was born, could see him as an awkward teenager. After all, he was a man with a genuinely frightening power, and a bloodline that boasted use of the power of time!

Time was such a dangerous concept that even Lex never dared to experiment with it. A small mistake while dealing with Karma caused Lex’s body to blow up, but even the slightest of mistakes while tinkering with the laws of time would result in Lex ceasing to exist entirely. There was no recovery from that, regardless of how tough or durable his body was.

So even though Luthor’s bloodline only affected himself, there was no room for doubt when considering how formidable he was.

Even though he was free now, Lex simply watched Luthor let loose, and did not fight himself at all. Since It was so interested in Lex, he would not make it any easier for It to gather information on him.

As he watched the fight, and eventually witnessed Luthor use his self created ability, Chains of Oblivion, which were basically chains made of Hellfire which trapped and tortured his targets, Lex began to wonder if it was truly so hard to make one’s own Lawcraft.

He seemed to have no trouble doing it, and Luthor had done it too, so why was Z complaining so much?

From the corner of his eye, he glanced towards Z, but then turned his attention away. It was best not to pressure the little guy too much. Instead, he simply watched as the chimera, ignoring the searing torture of the chains, tried to break the chains.

Remarkably, the chains did not break, though it was immediately obvious to Lex that this could not be a long-term solution. He would need to personally create barriers within the dungeons in the castle to trap the chimeras, and preferably even upgrade the entire dungeon itself.

More importantly, before he did any of that, he would need to exorcise It from their bodies so that It would never know what he was capable of, or the interior of the castle, or how it worked.

Lex turned away from the battle even as Luthor yelled at the others to come and reinforce his chains. Z used seals, the battalion suppressed them with the power of the mech, Fenrir froze them and Little Blue spanked the chimeras with his wings.

Remarkably, the chimeras were the only creatures he had encountered so far who could resist being completely sliced by his wings. But even then, it was only resistance, nothing more.

The mercenaries, too, stepped up, unwilling to let this capture of chimeras turn into a fluke. They used everything available to them, from chains, handcuffs, spiritual techniques, sealing techniques, blankets, hemp rope, socks, all and more until, instead of a hundred chimera, there was just a massive mound of cloth – that was both simultaneously frozen and on fire – in front of the castle.

The sight was quite comical, if one ignored the fact that the mercenaries were still quite stressed. The chimera had been contained, but this was very much just a temporary measure. Chimera were extremely adaptable, as they had already shown, and it was only a matter of time before they learned how to break Luthor’s chains without the use of brute strength.

Once that happened, everything else would barely hold them for a few moments. Luthor, though, was not concerned.

More than anyone else at the Inn, he thought about how to contain enemies, how to imprison them effectively, how to extract information, and most of all, how to remain safe from them. Even though Lex was getting ready to test the purification and exorcism capability of his newly acquired Paladin abilities, he quickly learned they weren’t needed.

Luthor had gained a tremendous amount of knowledge about hells, and as it turned out, possession was a frequent habit of Hellions, so naturally Luthor had learned proper exorcism.

With Fenrir’s help, Luthor dragged the cloth ball deep into the castle dungeon, even going as far as telling Lex that his help wouldn’t be needed to contain them. He claimed that he would first exorcise them, then study them, find their weaknesses, and then use them to help mature the Conceptualised Torment he had gathered for the Hell that he was nurturing for the Midnight Inn. Lastly, once he was done with them, he would submit their corpses to the greenhouse to be used as fertilizer.

It was very much an extremely coldhearted and efficient use of one’s enemy, and Lex expected nothing less from Luthor.

That allowed Lex time to study his clone, and any changes it underwent during his time in the ruins. But as Lex sat down in a room, ready to begin working, he could help but pause. He had a feeling – not one from his instincts – but one he got from his memory.

Lex couldn’t help but feel that he and It were in a game of chess, an extremely elaborate game of chess, almost like… almost like a game of Go, one that spanned many levels and layers, and had a depth and complexity to it that was easy to overlook.

Lex’s hair stood up on end and he got goosebumps as he considered a certain possibility – one that struck him purely because he felt a sense of familiarity from It.

Lex couldn’t help but feel that allowing him to capture the chimera was something that It wanted all along, as if It was laying a trap for him far in the future. But that was just the tip of the iceberg.

The very presence of It, the fact that It was obsessed with him and his Karma, the fact that It was studying him just so that It could take him down… all of it felt too coincidental. Now Lex was no stranger to weird coincidences, but he’d hardly ever come across one so obviously blatant.

Lex kept getting the feeling that It had something to do with the Go board in his mind, but he hadn’t seen his mysterious opponent make a move in a long time. Or could it be that… he had been making moves, but they just weren’t visible to Lex?

He frowned. Such a line of thought was going down the path to paranoia, which was not a habit Lex wanted to pick up. At the same time, Lex trusted his instincts, and more importantly, trusted himself.

The question, then, was that if his opponent really was making invisible moves against him, how could he verify it?

Lost deep in thought, Lex couldn’t help but to tap his middle finger on the desk beside him. His clone started doing the same.

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