The Innkeeper

Seeing the mysterious young man disappear in front of their eyes, the acolytes were not relieved, but instead even more concerned. He had said that this used to be his home. If he were to have any ideas of reclaiming it, that would give them immense problems.

After all, a Heaven Immortal was a valued asset anywhere in the Origin realm, and even their respective Deity commanded only so many.

At the same time, he could not help but wonder how Earth could have given rise to someone so powerful. They were acolytes, which meant that all their power came through the grace of their Deity. In return for their power, they enacted their Deities will, and made sure to spend a significant amount of time in worship.

"Yo, that's him," one of the acolytes said excitedly, as if he recalled something. "Don't tell me you don't recognize him! Lord Adamas specifically even gave a ceremony about him!"

The first acolyte was stunned, and then he remembered!

"No, don't tell me that's…" he said, but too frightened to finish his words.

"Yes, that's him! The Kidnapping King of the Human race! They say he has a bounty on his head bigger than some immature realms! They say he's mad, and will kidnap anyone or anything that catches his fancy! From Dragons, to the hearts of Demi-Dao Lords, to an entire realm! There's nothing that's safe from his hands. Who knew that he was from Earth?"

The acolyte felt chills down his back as he thought about how precarious their situation had been. One of the legends about him said that he could even kidnap the will to live in his targets. Some… some forbidden rumors even said that… he once kidnapped his opponent's gender, turning a man into a woman!

The acolytes' knees felt weak as he quickly checked to affirm his own state, and then breathed a sigh of relief.

"Shall we report this to the Lord?" the first acolyte asked, hesitant to even mention the Kidnapping Kings name. Who knew if the mere mention of his name might attract his attention?

"We have no choice," said the second acolyte, shaking his head. "Lately the kidnapping king has attracted too much attention. I heard that the bounty on his head was jointly put up by dozens of different organisations."

The acolytes went silent for a few moments, lost in their own thoughts.

"You think that his name has entered The Culling Ledger?" the first acolyte whispered.

The Culling Ledger was something that had only recently come into being, but had already caused a tremendous disturbance across the universe. With countless wars having erupted, one of the first things any party did was eliminate the strategic assets of their opponents. In short, they would assassinate anyone who had the potential to become a powerhouse in the future, and was their enemy.

Naturally, to do so they could use their own forces as well as utilize the services of certain shady organizations. Since stuff like this was happening on such a large scale across the universe, certain intelligence organizations had compiled an unofficial list of personnel below the Demi-Dao Lord realm with the highest listed bounties. This list was called the Culling Ledger.

As a result, anyone could go ahead and kill those on the list and then claim the associated bounties.

"How can that be possible? No one cares about humanity - we don't own any Major realms at all. As far as I know, the Kidnapping King also doesn't belong to any major force participating in the war. It's unlikely his bounty is high enough for that."

Both the acolytes returned, and submitted their report to their Lord. On the other side of the planet, the A.I. had also detected Lex's identity, and had sent that information over to their main base.

In a matter of mere minutes, countless hidden forces became alerted of Lex's movements, and even more forces began to move in the shadows.

While Lex traveled through his karmic string, he could feel that there were forces conspiring against him. This was not the Arch-Heaven, where Lex's senses were suppressed. No, out here, his senses were as keen as ever. Furthermore, enabled by the relational laws that his new cultivation level allowed him to properly access, alongside his insight into laws that were far beyond his level, he could even foresee some of the plots against him.

It seemed that… while the Midnight Inn itself had built up a significant amount of deterrence, he had not. He'd also been attracting more and more attention lately, which had led to this current situation.

A flicker flashed through his eyes.

"Let them come," he whispered to himself. The days when Lex would worry and cower due to his weakness… were long gone.

Lex's speed while traveling through a karmic string was significantly dependent on the strength of the string itself, and how much of a burden it could tolerate. The string between him and Moon's clone, while not the thickest, was thick enough that it only took him a few hours to reach his destination.

The concept of distance, in this regard, was irrelevant because he was not traveling through space - if he was doing that, then traveling through karmic string could not be considered an upgrade from teleportation. No, Lex was directly traveling through the karmic laws that were connecting him and this clone, which is why the massive distance between entire galaxies was merely a matter of a few hours.

When he reappeared in normal form, he was right in front of a massive star, orbited by dozens of planets, though none of them seemed to support life. Moon's clone was hidden inside a base within the star itself. But first…

Lex turned his back to the star, and summoned Naraka.

"Who's first?" Lex's voice echoed through the void of space, defying common sense.

In response, a number of spaceships which had been waiting around the star turned visible. First it was one, then two, then ten, and then hundreds. In a few seconds, Lex was surrounded by countless ships, all of them pointing their weapons towards him. What's more, Lex could tell that all these ships were not from the same origin. The one thing they all had in common, though, was that all of them bore Damian's karma.

It seemed that Damian had sold the location of the last of Moon's clones, or maybe he'd submitted it willingly, trying to trap Lex. While he wasn't sure why all of these forces were targeting him, he could just find out by searching through their memories after defeating them.

Once all the ships had revealed themselves, Lex made his move. He didn't attack. No, he summoned a barrier around himself and all the ships, so that none of them would be able to escape.

It was time to officially debut his strength… to the universe.