The Innkeeper Chapter 2355: The retribution I

Four minutes. The cave only lasted for four minutes, and in that time Lex did his best to blindly memorise every interaction the crystalline eyes had with the surrounding laws. The issue was that the interaction was with foreign laws that he didn’t understand too well, so deciphering what was happening would not be easy.

He also looked through the corpse’s memories, but as it turned out the memories had a halflife, meaning that the corpse would lose its older memories in repeated intervals. Thus, what Lex saw was less of the beings regular actions, and more of how across the ages the surrounding laws reacted to the gaze.

While Lex himself didn’t get the answer, at least he got a lot of information from which he could figure out the answer on his own. It was good enough, given the circumstances.

As soon as the formations crashed, the entire cave turned to dust and vanished, as if it could not adapt to the laws of this universe at all. Lex, though, remained seated for a while, both to finish up healing from all the damage he had accumulated, and to consolidate all the information he had memorised so that he could go through it easily in the future.

When he finally stood up, the black dragon had already arrived behind him and was standing guard.

"I have bad news," he said in a sombre voice, disregarding whatever had happened to the cave. "My Retribution sensor has gone off. We’ve already been targeted by the Hollow, and the retribution should land anywhere between ten and fifty hours."

There was no excitement this time, nor was the black dragon in the mood to crack jokes. The retribution, in usual times, was an inescapable death sentence. Only now that the Hollow had opened and been exposed to the laws of this universe had the effect of the retributions been reduced.

Lex looked from the dragon to the strange lines attached to his karma - the very same ones targeting all those who had recently entered the Hollow. Previously, there was only one string, but now they were already up to seven.

It seemed that the others were looting the Hollow much faster than he had anticipated. But this was not what the dragon was walking about.

"Should we teleport back to the waygate and rush back to the stronghold?" Lex asked, since the dragon was the more experienced one.

The black dragon shook his head.

"This is the reason no one leaves the stronghold. Once you’re targeted by the retribution, there is no escape. Did you really think it was so easy to fool the Hollow? If we try to escape, the timing for the retribution speeds up, and so does the intensity. If we try to prepare for it, try to build our defenses or augment our own strength, the same happens. If you try to be smart and try to weaken yourself in the hopes that the retribution will arrive later, then you’re in bad luck because the retribution will take advantage of your weakness and arrive immediately!

"The Hollow’s retribution has slayed many lords, not to mention just immortals like us. If it weren’t for the fact that the Fortune Lord has announced that the retributions have been weakened, I too would not have risked ing out. The only thing we can do now is... accept that it is ing, and be ready for it."

Lex looked at the dragon for a moment, and then shook his head.

"I don’t have the time to waste waiting around," he said and teleported a few miles away from the black dragon and then stabbed himself in the hand. Since the retribution could be summoned quicker, then he might as well see for himself what the retribution had to offer.

There were three types of retribution. The first would teleport the target to a dangerous place, and if they survived the target would be returned to his original location. The second would turn the target’s surroundings directly into some kind of danger zone. Finally, the Hollow would take the target’s soul and put it through a few rounds of torture.

As Lex waited for the retribution to fall, there was no ounce of fear in him, regardless of how grave the danger was. He was perfectly calm, and in fact, studied the descent of the retribution itself. Everything in the Gilded Hollow was a valuable resource - everything!

Insight into how the laws of a different universe worked was not something he’d be able to get easily even if he became a Dao Lord, so he would learn and memorise everything right now.

As if sensing Lex’s challenge, the Hollow seemed infuriated - as if it could feel actual emotions. The sky darkened and streams of red lightning snaked through the bubbling clouds of toxic gas that began to fall from the sky.

The ground beneath his feet came to life and started to grab his legs, turning into millions of arms that reached up with the hope of swallowing him within. The wind turned to blades, the light turned into a flameless fire, and gravity turned into the pull of death itself, trying to unravel his soul from its very source.

The karma attached to his body turned into snakes, trying to bite him, hoping to pump in their venom and swallow the meat off his bones. Fortune became misfortune, strength became hollow, and a plague fell upon him as if it was who was going through armageddon instead of the times.

Lex had no physical body save the necklace in the Hollow. He merely used a projection to show a body like his original one, and yet the changes affected his projection too. Each and every hair on his body turned into miniature locusts, and instead of hopping away they began to attempt to devour him, as if his body was the season’s crop.

Dread, fear, hopelessness rained upon him like the monsoon rains, trying to infect his very spirit and corrode him from within. Such a devastating, targeted vengeance struck Lex with such vicious malice that he could physically feel the hate of the Gilded Hollow. All this... and it was merely the beginning of the weakened retribution.

In the distance, the black dragon watched in horror as Lex stood there, seemingly not resisting at all. The thing that sent a tremor down his spine was not among all the horrors afflicting Lex, though. No, the thing that frightened and horrified him so was the faint hint of a smirk on Lex’s face as all that happened, as if this was amusing to him.