Chapter 1716 — 2 decades

"Lex, we have a situation," said Kaemon, his voice especially deep as he approached Lex in his meditation pod.

Lex opened his eyes, a slight disorientation filling them as he opened them for the first time in... that was surprising. He hadn’t been paying attention to the passage of time within Abaddon, and had lost track.

For Jack only a few days had gone by, and he was about finished with his chore of collecting sharks. It wasn’t as if he needed to do that, but it was a good way to familiarise himself with his own and his crew’s strengths after the upgrade.

Simultaneously, not much time had passed inside the Inn. Within Abaddon, however, much more time had passed. Lex checked in on the Pineapple on his forehead to see how much time was left on it, and used that to calculate how long he had been meditating.

It had been nineteen years.

Lex blinked, wiping away the disorientation from his eyes as he stood up, somewhat in disbelief that he could spend so much time in a single meditation session without realizing it.

He opened the door to his pod and found Kaemon, his body looking beat up.

"What’s wrong? It’s been a while since you sought me out," said Lex, a soft smile on his face.

Indeed, the situation, despite being ridiculously unpredictable, had somewhat stabilised in the sense that the other members of the Midnight Inn had improved so drastically that they no longer needed Lex to help out.

Luthor could manage the castle tavern on his own, and was more than capable of overseeing its operations without Lex’s oversight. Z was doing a good job and had grown a lot, at least when it concerned fighting the Dark Knight. Since he had become an immortal at a young age, Lex suspected that for his personality to mature, it would take a lot longer than usual.

Leonidas was taking care of the Midnight Battalion spectacularly, to the point where the mercenaries had no advantage over them at all - save in numbers.

All in all, there was nothing Lex needed to oversee personally, so he had been spending his time studying laws - to be more specific, studying the laws of Abaddon.

So that the constant fights wouldn’t interrupt his meditation, Lex had created a meditation pod which was thoroughly insulated as well as portable, and Fenrir was in charge of carrying it around.

It was just that when Lex got inside his pod, he hadn’t realized he would be meditating for so long. He hadn’t felt the passage of time at all, nor had he felt like he had spent a long time inside.

In fact, he could only measure time by the progress he had made in studying Abaddon, which was substantial. Then again, given how long it had been, and the fact that with each passing year his control over laws increased, it only made sense.

Fortunately, due to the alternating flows of time, not a lot of time must have passed for the other player in his Go board, or he might have faced heavy retaliation in the past few years.

Without the distractions, though, Lex had made significant progress in understanding Abaddon, and would much more easily be able to determine their path forward.

"We’ve encountered the Gon race again," Kaemon explained.

"The Gon race?" Lex asked, not expecting that answer. "We’ve encountered them before and it was hardly worth writing home about. What is it? Are their corpses even more dangerous than last time? Is it their blood again?"

Kaemon shook his head.

"No, it’s not corpses. This time, we’ve encountered living, breathing members of the Gon race, and as if that’s not bad enough, they’re all Heaven Immortals."

Lex paused the joke he was about to make. That was bad news. To make it worse, considering the enmity between the Gon race and humans, it was unlikely that they would let them be.

"Are they coming towards us?" Lex asked as he looked around.

"No, not yet. They’re being besieged by a number of locusts and they aren’t able to break free at the moment. They do, however, look much worse for wear than us, and their numbers aren’t great. Right now, if we want to escape, we can."

"Why do I get a feeling that that’s not what you have in mind?" Lex asked, much more relaxed now that he knew they were under attack at that very moment.

"This is the first other group we’ve come across. If we can capture and interrogate them, then we might be able to gain a lot of information about this place. Maybe we can even gain hints as to what they’re doing here."

Lex looked at Kaemon with an amused expression.

"You know, when you came and told me about a group of Heaven Immortals, I did not expect the first thing that would be on your mind would be to attack. And here I was mentally preparing myself to retreat."

Kaemon snorted.

"In my line of business, it’s expected that we’ll face enemies in higher realms than us. The Condottiere has given us many tools to face such situations, and tip the battle in our favor. That said, this definitely won’t be easy, and we could use all the help we can get. I came here to see if you’d be willing to lend a hand.

"I know that humans have a pretty severe disadvantage against the Gons, which is why I won’t blame you if you’re not up for it. After all, the Midnight Inn came to aid us in our recovery, not to aid us in fights. If you don’t want to take the risk, we can turn back. However, if you’re up for it, then I have an idea about how we can proceed."

Lex didn’t immediately answer, though his instinct was to participate in the fight. Instead, he asked for more details.

"I’ve never faced the Gon race before, so I’m not too familiar with how effective their suppression is. What plan do you have in mind?" he asked.

"Well, your castle has proven itself more than durable enough to survive a Heaven Immortals siege, and the members of your tavern are quite adept at long range combat. My suggestion is that you escort us to the edge of the battlefield before deploying the castle and taking refuge within. From there, you can carry out long range attacks, serving as sufficient distraction and bait for the Gon race.

"The members of the Path of Chaos are a lot more aggressive than those from the Path or Order. There’s no way they’ll miss an opportunity to attack some humans. That distraction will give us more than enough leeway to attack them, taking advantage of the locusts to eliminate most of them, and capture a few for interrogation."

The plan was about as sound as one could expect inside Abaddon.

"How many of them are there?" he asked.

"A little under a hundred of them."

Now, Lex was very confident in his own abilities. But a hundred Heaven Immortals...

"Are you sure we can take on that many of them?" Lex asked. "I don’t want to suffer needless casualties. While I’m not afraid of them myself, I have many mortals with me who would not survive an attack at all."

"I won’t go as far as guaranteeing 100% success, but trust me I would not propose this if my men and I weren’t capable of handling the situation. Like I said, the Condottiere has given us the tools to handle such situations."

Claiming the Condottiere had helped them basically meant that they had the support of a system behind them. That was quite reassuring actually. Random though they may be, none could deny the effectiveness of systems in doing their jobs. Lex could only imagine the kind of advantages a mercenary system would give to the members of the mercenary group.

This was also a good opportunity to face the Gon race and understand the kind of suppression they posed on humans. He had never met an enemy who had a specific biological advantage geared towards the human race specifically, and this would be a good chance to learn how to overcome such enemies.

"Alright, you’ve got a deal," said Lex as he stretched his arms, loosening his muscles after nearly two decades. Of course, he himself had no intentions of hiding behind the castle walls. After so many years of suppressing his breakthrough to the next realm, Lex had grown a lot stronger, not to mention he had dedicated a part of his mind to cultivating while he meditated.

That made this the single longest cultivation session he had ever had, and he was more than excited to see what progress he had made. His realm had not increased, obviously, but there had been a lot of other changes. In fact, he’d even gotten feedback from his Paladin powers due to the success Jack had in rescuing the alligator, despite not needing to fight personally.

It seemed there was more than one way to increase his Paladin powers - something Lotus had been especially glad for.

Speaking of Lotus, up against a 100 Heaven Immortals, Lex might need to pull out his Lotus form. It was kind of exciting.