The Innkeeper

That one, small moment where a cool stream of information was channeled into his mind was the only actual break between his cycles of torture. It was but a fraction of a second, as if just teasing him with a moment of peace before the torture resumed.

Lex, however, did not use it to recover or rest, or to savor the moment of peace. Instead, he reflected on what had happened during the previous torture cycle, how it had affected him, and what he had done.

The cycle was actually quite misleading, and in more than one way. It was called the Crucible of Karma, yet what it actually did was cause him pain - physical pain. That’s it. It did not harm his body or soul, nor did it let him pass out. It simply caused him all the pain he had ever caused himself throughout his life.

Yet even though it was singular in its purpose, that did not mean it was simple in its application, or that there wasn’t a hidden trick behind its actions. The complexity came from converting any and all harm Lex had ever caused and translating it into physical pain.

Now, Lex usually tried to avoid killing people - if one ignored that one time he used the butter knife to kill so many people he literally wiped out an entire faith. In his defense, even he had no idea the Full Strength Butter Knife would do that. Oh, and they started it first.

But putting that aside, if death had to be translated into equivalent physical pain, how much would it be? That was ignoring the method of the death - only the pain value of the death itself was being discussed. The answer, it turns out, is actually not that much.

The emotional anguish from knowing that one is about to die... now that’s something that hurts a lot, but not death itself.

But, without a doubt, the worst pain Lex felt was from any negative emotion his actions caused any Dao Lord. As beings that existed as a higher form of life, anything and everything related to them felt infinitely magnified when it came to immortals. Thus amidst everything Lex had ever done, all the sins he had committed, or the inadvertent pain he had caused, the things that hurt him the most were merely the minor inconveniences he had caused Dao Lords.

It was... it felt uneven, but that’s just how things were.

Yet what could be the purpose of a cycle of torture that only caused him pain? Since he could not be harmed by the pain, how was this torture cycle expected to stop him?

The answer was one of the reasons he felt that the retribution was quite misleading. The real target, from the very beginning, had been his spirit. The cycle of torture was aimed at breaking his spirit and killing his mind.

That is why it waited till he knew, till he understood what he was about to face. The daunting obstacle, one that was entirely inescapable, would crush his spirit. If that didn’t do the trick, then the unending pain would certainly break him.

Except, that’s not what happened. Being able to ignore pain didn’t mean that Lex didn’t suffer from it, nor that it didn’t affect him. It was just that the Hollow probably did not anticipate the way in which it affected him at all.

Instead of breaking him, instead of crushing his spirit and driving him to the edge of insanity, it brought him unprecedented clarity. This was clarity about his situation as a person, as a business owner, and most importantly, about his state of living within a necklace.

For so long, despite being so strong, Lex acted out of caution simply because he was self aware about how many strong beings there were in the universe that could destroy him on a whim.

If he acted with a little more confidence, it would come off as arrogance - especially after he got beaten up by his stalker so badly. Yet the pain was like a splash of cold water on his face, waking him up from his lethargic and reserved state.

Due to how precarious his current situation was, he had been acting a little too cautiously - something one would find hard to believe considering his attempt at taking the flower. Then again, that only happened because he had no other choice.

Regardless, the pain was a good way to clear his head. If he let the pain get to him, Lex would be overwhelmed and his mind fractured, which is why he did the exact opposite. He chose to focus on his task and his purpose.

His current goal was growing strong enough to get revenge. He was already doing that, but he could do more.

His mind flashed back to that moment where he stood in front of Eclipse and she told him that impossible didn’t exist. Impossible simply meant that no one had figured out a way to do it yet, not that it couldn’t be done.

She, the most powerful Dao Lord in the universe, and the absolute best authority on such a topic, had explicitly told him that impossible didn’t exist, and yet when he faced the Primordial Farham egg shell, he had stated that it was impossible to replicate the ability.

That was exactly what Lex meant earlier when he said that he was being too cautious. It wasn’t that he should go and spit on a Dao Lords face, but that he shouldn’t shy away from difficult tasks just because he didn’t have a clear path of doing so. He should boldly go and do the things everyone thought were impossible, instead of accidentally doing them.

He looked within his necklace, ignoring the information on the Prison of Gluttony, and saw the tiniest scrap of the egg shell left. By now, the Disaster Rose had basically entirely lost its shape, and was slowly but surely fusing with the necklace and even Lex’s soul, still activating the phoenix aspect of his being.

The eggshell, however, was preserved elsewhere entirely, surrounded by Lex’s energy. Although he still had no idea how to mimic the shell’s ability, for he most certainly couldn’t create his own laws and then exact them upon the universe, the very presence of the egg shell was evidence that such a thing could be done.

Even if he ultimately failed in doing so, Lex was determined to at least try to absorb some of its ability. After all, he had the most unique cultivation technique in the universe. It should be possible, shouldn’t it?

Lex even had an idea of his own how to do it. The Rebirth by Fire ability he seemed to be on the verge of unlocking was not so simple. Its complexity and profoundness far exceeded Lex’s ability to comprehend. All he understood was that the rebirth came from the very fire, or the very source of destruction that harmed his body.

In this case, he would use the eight cycles of torture as the harm that was being done to him, and during the rebirth phase, he would absorb the egg shell as well, so that it fused with the necklace. He would see if he could gain that ability.

But that was not all. Experiencing the Crucible of Karma had given Lex a first hand experience of a kind of torture he could have never imagined on his own. This... was the perfect template for a new Lawcraft to use to announce his return to his stalker.

He had barely completed that thought when the Prison of Gluttony torture cycle began. Much like the previous one, this one aimed to focus on breaking his spirit.

The torture cycle was a simple one - it marinated Lex’s body and soul with the laws of gluttony before putting him in an energy barren location. His body and soul, due to intense starvation, would begin to eat themselves.

His torture would be twofold - first the intense starvation, and then the sensation of his own being eating itself. When he was on the verge of death, he would immediately be restored to his original state to undergo the torture once again.

There was no clear mention of when or how the cycle would end, but Lex wasn’t bothered in the least. Instead, he noticed how the cycles of torture did not directly kill him, but just tortured him.

Perhaps there was some kind of restriction, or maybe causing the target to suffer was a part of the retribution itself. Pentagal was exacting its revenge, but Lex was treating it entirely as training, not even considering it torture at all.

All he needed to do was get through these eight cycles with his sanity intact, and it would be over. How simple was that?

"So simple," Lex said to himself, even as his eyes turned entirely red, and a single thought kept coming back to his mind: he would make sure to memorise everything that was happening to him, and share the same hospitality with his stalker.

Though technically, the stalker could not be blamed for the retributions, Lex no longer cared. Sharing was caring, and he could not wait to share his experiences with his stalker.

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