Chapter 1524 — 1524: Don't sleep in a communal shower

The Innkeeper stood up from his seat, as if to see Wu Kong out of the office.

"By the way, before I leave," said Wu Kong, returning to his casual self. He summoned a small, cylindrical container made of wood, and placed it on the table.

"I'll leave this here with you. It contains a Gabana fruit from the Primordial Garden. Since the fruit cannot survive long without the aura of the garden, the container isolates its aura. With this, you can at least begin working on locating the Primordial Garden, even if you don't intend to connect to it yet. I shall get back to you with the confirmation from Ventura soon."

"In the spirit of our cooperation, I won't refuse this gift," said the Innkeeper. "Normally, I do not easily accept gifts from my guests."

"Come now, Innkeeper. There's no need to be so formal. Trust me, we will be working closely together in the future."

With that said, Wu Kong removed the many barriers he had placed around the room, though their effect did not seem to immediately vanish, continuing to isolate Lex from the rest of the universe.

Wu Kong, instead of teleporting out, walked to the door and exited through the normal way. Lex did not immediately react upon his exit, and instead sat back on his chair and slowly rubbed his chin, as if lost in thought. He did not even look towards the container for the fruit.

If anyone were to see the Innkeeper now, they would assume that he was lost in thought, whereas in truth, Lex had not a single thought running through his mind.

He had no intention of moving either - not until the protective aura around him vanished. In truth, there was no possible way for Lex to know whether or not Wu Kong was spying on him and waiting until he was reconnected to the system was little consolation.

Even so, it was not as if he had much choice in the matter. Fortunately, it did not take long before the effects of the isolation wards began to fade. Unfortunately, just a few moments after Lex regained access to his system, he was struck with an image of a Go board in his mind.

A Rook piece appeared, and crushed one of Lex's beads. Without warning, Lex was struck an immense pain in his gut so severe that, despite his usual indifference to pain, he keeled over

Or maybe it wasn't the pain that caused him to fall. Lex felt like he had been struck by a sledge hammer right in his stomach, right before someone used a flamethrower to help him 'melt' hit fat away.

The pain and burning sensation in his body was not just pain - Lex could feel how his body was suddenly unable to deal with its own increased strength, and his muscles were ripping his intestines apart.

Yet his immense recovery kicked in, healing him even as his organs were shredded, again and again.

"I'm going to make you regret this!" Lex said through gritted teeth as he began to work on handling the situation. Visualising himself ripping that accursed Nas race member apart limb from limb really helped him focus for some reason.

His physical body ripping itself apart, regardless of how painful or drastic it was, was ultimately just a flesh wound and would not permanently harm him. It was a huge inconvenience, that was not in doubt, but the most lethal thing about it was the timing.

The shock of the sudden cultivation deviation - though this was a cultivation deviation of his body - was more than enough to cause him to lose control of himself. It was not a big deal now that he was supposedly alone in his office, and even if it had happened in front of a crowd it wouldn't have mattered.

But Lex couldn't help but notice that the rook piece appeared almost exactly after his own connection with his system was restored. The timing was too coincidental. The most likely scenario of what happened was that the rook had been used while he was in a meeting with his guest, but it had failed to reach Lex since he was being shielded by the guests' isolation wards.

Lex could not even begin to imagine what would have happened if Lex, as the Innkeeper, had suddenly keeled over in front of his guest. The consequences would have been devastating. That could have potentially been the very end of the Midnight Inn!

Much more importantly, Lex refused to believe that this was just a coincidence. That accursed Nas had some way of knowing that Lex was in a precarious situation, and had to have targeted him exactly at that moment.

As Lex took control over every single muscle fibre in his body, one at a time, slowing down and eventually stopping his muscles from ripping his organs apart, a plan began to meticulously brew in his mind.

Up until now, Lex had been taking the Go bard seriously, but apparently he was not taking it seriously enough. He needed to figure out a way to end this game once and for all, and if that wasn't possible, he needed to establish some kind of precautions.

Lex felt provoked, far more than the stupid Go board had managed to achieve before, and he was not one to leave provocation unanswered.

While Lex was plotting his revenge like some evil villain, Wu Kong was standing outside the Innkeepers office building and was looking back. The pressure he had felt as soon as he exited the Innkeepers office… that pressure had given him chills!

As far as the monkey was concerned, it was a clear warning about how serious the Innkeeper was about the rules of his Inn. But that wasn't what Wu Kong was thinking about. Instead, he was wondering why the hell had he been sent to protect a worker of the Inn, if the Innkeeper himself was so strong? It seemed like there was more to this story than he knew.

Meanwhile, on a vessel traveling through the Void, away from the Origin realm, an acolyte was in the middle of a communal shower when he suddenly collapsed, and started dreaming.

The warbringer… he had set his gaze on the universe…