The Innkeeper

His thoughts were in chaos, not really following any certain path. Through the Empire\'s guidance and the use of the Inn\'s excellent facilities and services, he had once again returned to the Golden core realm. He had also become much more powerful than he had ever been, which is exactly what he wanted. But for reasons he could not understand, he still felt a strange emptiness.

There was an anxiousness in his chest he could not quieten and an irritation that ate away at his mind he could not comprehend. He had experienced this feeling a couple times before, but every time he did, he would throw himself into some training or battle, but currently he could do neither.

From an early age he had been trained to overcome every obstacle and continuously surpass himself, so he wasn\'t really the type to ignore a little bit of anxiety. The problem was, try as he might, he just could not understand what the cause of the feeling was.

"What\'s her name?" asked a stranger sitting beside Alexander.

The young man was genuinely startled. So lost in his thoughts was he, that he had completely forgotten his surroundings and let down his guard, completely missing the stranger who approached him.

But looking at him, the stranger looked no older than him, and seemed just as weary as him, if not more.

"I\'m sorry, what?" he asked, unsure what the question had meant.

But his question only caused the other to chuckle.

"I know that look well, friend. I know it so well. It\'s a girl. It\'s always a girl." For a moment, he fell silent again, looking down at the ground in front of him.

"Sometimes I wonder what\'s the point of it all? What\'s the point of being born into a wealthy family if it keeps you from doing what you want? What\'s the point of a strong cultivation if you\'re not strong enough to be with the one you love?"

The stranger\'s body trembled as he seemed to be holding himself back from doing something drastic. Eventually, though, the intensity faded and the man let out a defeated sigh.

"Please excuse me," he said, looking down at the ground, somehow feeling it an impossible task to look up at Alexander. "I was supposed to reunite with my girlfriend at the Inn. She\'s the most beautiful girl in the world with the most beautiful name: Ayesha. But it\'s been an entire year, yet she has never appeared again."

If Lex had seen this scene, he would have recognized the boy as Hairs, one of the two teenage lovers who had been guests at the Inn in its early days. Yet now he lacked the vibrancy and vigor of youth he had back then.

"I suspect… I suspect our families have done something behind our back."

Abruptly, Haris stood up.

"Sorry for rambling. I\'ve been like that these past few days."

Without waiting for a response, he disappeared from the Inn, his eyes filled with exhaustion, but also conviction.

Alexander was left feeling bewildered about the strange encounter. But, the encounter had also prompted him to think about a name he hadn\'t thought of in so long: Helen. She too had disappeared so long ago, and had never returned.

Alexander did not even realize his hand had clenched into a fist.

*****

A Jotun soldier ran out of a Minor realm, a rather hidden one that no one else had discovered so far, in a panic. The moment he returned to the Inn he immediately requested his personal hologram to contact General Ragnar! Although the soldier was an insignificant nobody who should not have even had the authority to converse with the general ever, he believed he would be forgiven for the transgression when he shared the news he had discovered!

*****

The race\'s intensity had not decreased as time went on, but had only gotten more extreme! Lex was currently driving on a platform only 15 feet wide. It seemed plenty, honestly, if one overlooked the fact that the platform was attached to an extremely long, moving train. Moreover, Lex had closed the distance with those ahead of him, meaning he shared the platform with several other racers.

So not only did he have to manage the momentum of his own speeding cart, but anticipate centrifugal force applied every time the train itself turned around a bend while also dodging the carts racing beside him.

But, Lex being in a berserk state, wasn\'t really in the mood for carefully dodging all the carts and driving past them. Hitting his power-up that allowed him to ram opponents away, he directly crashed into the cart in front of him. The cart alongside its driver, a familiar demon called Pramod, were hurled directly into the air. This might have worked to his benefit, throwing them far ahead of everyone, if he hadn\'t been using a power-up of his own, binding his cart with that of a racer in front of him.

The two carts pulling each other in different directions were ultimately swept directly off the track and fell somewhere on the side. Laughing with triumph, Lex made his way to the front of the train where there was a boosted ramp that would launch him off the platform and back onto the real track. But how could things be so easy? Right behind him was Z, the big brother of the Inn, and direct employee of Leo.

Although Z was not vindictive by nature, something about watching his boss have the time of his life while Z himself worked endlessly brought out a side of him he had never known.

\'All\'s fair in video games and war,\' he thought to himself and activated his bloodline.