The Innkeeper

Chapter 1739: Holy artifact

“You’re finally awake,” said Kaemon, though he too lay on the ground like a corpse. His eyes were closed and his body limp, though the sound of Lex’s groan alerted him to his partner’s situation.

“What the hell happened?” Lex asked, trying to recall his last vision, yet all he could recall was darkness. A killer migraine was bashing at his nerves, distracting him and keeping him from thinking straight. He tried to use his spiritual energy to recover, and discovered that it worked just fine. That was a surprise. Considering how crappy he felt, he almost would have thought he was critically injured. But no, he was perfectly fine.

“I don’t know about you, but I saw the moment the Chalice of the Abandoned was created. That sight… it’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life,” Kaemon said weakly.

“Don’t be so pessimistic,” Lex said, trying to improve his mood. “You could die in a few hours. In that case, you won’t need to be haunted for so long.”

“Ha ha,” Kaemon fake laughed, and said nothing else. Silence resumed between the two as they tried to recover from their states.

“So what did you see?” Lex asked eventually, once he managed to suppress his migraine somewhat.

“A sacrificial ritual that consisted of trillions, no, hundreds of trillions of souls, all of them Immortals,” Kaemon whispered slowly. “Yet all of them seemed almost… possessed… or enthralled. There was definitely something wrong with them. It almost felt like killing them all was sparing the universe from some great disease or disaster.

“Their anguished souls were ignited, providing the energy for the creation of the chalice. The chalice… oh the chalice. What can I say about it?”

Kaemon became silent, as if he had been mesmerised by his own memory of what he saw, and Lex did not rush him either. He himself was trying to recall what he had seen, but the memory seemed not to exist at all. For some reason, though, Lex was sure that he had seen a vision. The weight of the knowledge, after all, was still present on his soul despite him not remembering anything.

“Lex, I cannot imagine anything as holy or as pure as the chalice the moment it was created,” Kaemon said, his voice a whisper, as if he was afraid of speaking the words. “It doesn’t make sense. Anything born of ritual sacrifice is destined to be tainted, to be corrupt, to be cursed with the most disgusting karma, and yet none of that was the case. The chalice, at the moment of its creation, was nothing less than a holy artifact of the highest proportions.”

Lex didn’t respond for a few seconds, as he thought about it.

“I don’t know about what happened back then, if it’s even real to begin with, but the chalice definitely isn’t some holy artefact anymore.”

He still recalled how ravenous it had been for his soul, and the souls of all his companions, enchanting them with its mere sight.

Speaking of which, now that they were mere feet away from the chalice, its aura was attacking them relentlessly. They were just too numb and burnt out from their visions to be affected by it.

They hadn’t even needed to rely on their will power and reading glasses yet – though Lex didn’t doubt that would come into play soon enough. They were just too drained to be affected by any kind of temptation.

“What about you?” Kaemon asked. “You don’t remember anything at all?”

“Nope,” said Lex, closing his eyes once more, as if that would help him see through the darkness in his memories. “That didn’t change the fact that my soul received the full weight of whatever I saw, and let me tell you, it isn’t anything light.”

Kaemon chuckled, despite his horrendous condition.

“Just when I thought this couldn’t turn into any more of a scam, the ruins charged you full price and didn’t even give you any visions as compensation.”

Lex wanted to snap back at him, but it genuinely felt like that’s exactly what happened.

“Lex, I’m going to complete the quest now,” Kaemon said. “I suggest you keep your eyes closed. This won’t be something you should see. Although, it’s not really a secret or anything like that, so if you want to look go ahead. I just don’t want you to see something that might accidentally harm you.”

Lex groaned. Why was life full of such moments?

“You know what? I think I’m fine with my eyes closed. You can go ahead and do what you need to do. I’ll just occupy my thoughts with something else.”

Kaemon grunted, and began to lift himself off the ground to once and for all complete the quest.

Lex, too, was not just laying on the ground doing nothing. He was honing in on the location of the Well of Forgotten Dreams, and was getting ready to send the clone he had prepared there.

He had no intention of approaching the actual well. Just confirming its location would be good enough. Lex fully expected to receive a system notification, informing him about the quest update as soon as he did.

Just to be safe, though, he wanted to send the clone in the final moment, just as this quest was about to be completed. It seemed like that time was upon him, so he prepared to send the clone.

Fighting through what remained of his migraine, and ignoring Kaemon and whatever he might have been doing, Lex activated his teleportation and sent his clone away.

In the end, Kaemon hadn’t needed his help, although maybe moral support mounted for a lot in such difficult situations.

His clone appeared somewhere, and Lex heard a system notification sound.

Feeling satisfied, he turned to look at his notifications, and froze. What the hell was he seeing? He was drowned in system notifications.

Just glancing at them was enough for him to see that something terrible must have happened. Yet he could not spare them any attention, for something unexpected happened.

Footsteps approached him and Kaemon, and Lex recognized these footsteps all too well. The Dark Knight had followed them.

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