The Innkeeper

Back in his tent, Lex had gone pale and his entire body was drenched in sweat. His mental exertion had gone beyond anything he had ever experienced before. Between constantly scanning the Inn, coordinating, teleporting and ensuring everyone\'s security, in these few seconds, he had already done hundreds of tasks, and he was not done yet.

The quicker he found a solution, the better, so now all his focus was on searching for an answer.

*****

Gerard was already panting and his hands were trembling, but his grip on the steering wheel never loosened. Even now, he had not suffered a single attack, but he was showing signs of exhaustion. After all, regardless of how powerful his bloodline was, he was facing an enemy 3 major realms higher than himself!

But, despite his severe disadvantage, surprisingly, the Raskal was in a worse condition. He was not bleeding or hurt, but his leathery skin was pressing against his bones as if he was malnourished. The frequency of his attacks had dropped, and he had stopped flying, deciding instead to stand on the ground.

There was no time for hesitation so Gerard sped his cart towards the Raskal in an attempt to ram it once again. Suddenly, as if out of thin air, a massive ball of flame appeared in Gerards path, threatening to crash into him, but just as it touched the cart, it seemed to vanish, as if siphoned into the cart itself.

The four Raskals that had worked together to set up the ambush were dumbstruck, as that attack should have worked. The next thing they saw was two jet blue flames erupting from behind the cart as it smashed into the Nascent Raskal, once again launching him into a crater.

Gerard was not surprised at the presence of the additional enemies, for he had identified them as soon as they started using their techniques. He was, however, concerned about facing more foes. Velma, fortunately, had already retreated somewhere, so at least he didn\'t need to worry about her.

It wasn\'t that she didn\'t want to help, but that she was too weak compared to these enemies to make a meaningful difference.

Quite sure that he hadn\'t managed to deal significant damage to the first Raskal, Gerard instead turned his attention to the other four that had just arrived. Two of them were in the Golden core, and two of them were in the Foundation realm. They, at least, shouldn\'t be as much of a challenge.

Gerard reversed the cart without looking back and swiftly made a turn, changing the direction of the cart to face where the Raskals had been hidden amongst the tree branches. Not giving them any time to evade, he promptly launched the long range attack that traveled forth in the shape of the cart.

The two Golden core Raskals managed to evade, barely, but the two Foundation ones were hit dead on, blowing up their bodies in the process.

An attack hit the golf cart from behind, as the Nascent realm Raskal climbed out of the crater, but it was impossible to surprise Gerard as he was aware of all changes in the surrounding energy. Like all the others before, this attack vanished, and the energy from it was channeled into another attack that Gerard launched towards the other Golden Core experts.

At this point, despite his best efforts, Gerard was having a tough time keeping his eyes open. It might be a good time to retreat.

"Oh dear, oh dear, you Raskals really know how to make a mess," the Galactic Sovereign turtle said, as it walked through the woods. Somewhere behind it stood Velma and the gardener. Velma was looking at Gerard with worry and concern, while the gardener… well, he was crying over the trunk of a broken tree. His art, it seemed, would never see the light of day.

"It seems some punishment is in order," it said, once it got a clear view of all the destruction. What happened next will shock you! No, eh, what happened next was very anticlimactic.

The grass on the ground started growing around the Raskals, tying them up. They tried to resist, but whether it was brute strength or a complicated spiritual attack, the grass seemed impervious.

The Nascent Raskal was especially concerned because it discovered that not only was the grass trapping its body, it was also trapping its soul. In such a dangerous situation, with no alternative, it decided to use the final ultimate attack it had been trained to carry out - the destruction of his core!

As soon as it activated the technique… nothing happened. Like a mummy wrapped in grass instead of cloth, the last Raskal fell over as Little Blue flew over to pick them up one by one. Seeing the situation resolved, Gerard finally relaxed his grip on the steering wheel and nearly fell out, but Velma quickly appeared to help him.

They turned to thank the turtle, but it had already moved on, dragging the weeping gardener behind it. As for the Raskals… back in the day, Lex had made an interrogation room near the greenhouse where Little Blue went and deposited the still struggling Raskals. There were already a few in the room, neatly stacked in a corner.

*****

For the first minute of the fight, the Inn\'s staff managed to hold their own against the small army of Raskals. But, as the second minute started, they immediately fell into a disadvantaged situation. After all, on one side was a trained army and on the other side were waiters and waitresses.

More than Z, who had caused a lot of the Raskals to nearly bleed out, Harry proved to be the man of the hour. Dozens of bodies lay on the ground around him. They were not dead, and in fact, seemed the exact picture of health, as they were still at their physical peak. It was their souls that had been badly damaged.

Harry didn\'t even need to try to kill anyone, as at lower levels, even the mildest of damage to the soul left one nearly crippled and unable to move.

Whether they were Foundation experts or Golden Core ones, just an altered version of the spell he used to cut hair left them with cuts all over their souls. Even if they managed to avoid being crippled, the pain was enough to leave them powerless.

Yet despite his success, he was no longer actively attacking enemies. Now he was focused on defending the Inn\'s staff. The golf carts, unfortunately, had been destroyed and a lot of the staff were injured to various degrees. On this battlefield, only three warriors from the Inn remained in relatively good condition.

One was Harry, of course, while another was Z, and the last was one of the lifeguards from the lake called Todd. Standing at 6 feet eight inches with a body sculpted as if the after in a \'before and after\' collage, Todd had activated his Regalia Bloom bloodline mid battle, and used it on his surfboard to smash enemies like beavers in a carnival game.

With the combined efforts of the three, they had managed to barely hold off the enemies, but no one knew how long it would last. Then, just as the song on Z\'s speaker changed, and the first chords of \'Seven Nation Armwrestlers\' played, John fell from the sky right in front of the three.

He did not waste any time in talking and immediately started a massacre, his speed only increasing the deeper he went into the enemy lines, not slowing down. Out of everyone here, he seemed the most anxious to resolve this battle.

This was because, while his cultivation was sealed, as he had achieved the Earth Immortal realm, his body had gone through a transformation to immortality. Compared to these lower leveled cultivators, his body seemed like an unrelenting force of nature.

As someone who had benefited from such an advantage, it made perfect sense that he was determined to complete his quest, otherwise his cultivation would fall back down to the Nascent realm.

His skills as an assassin were finally put on full display, and even unarmed, he was like a scythe cutting down grass.

For a moment, it seemed like the tide had turned, but then the strongest few of the Raskal army decided to change their plans. According to their training, when fighting an enemy much stronger than themselves, they should focus on causing as much collateral damage as possible.

Following that logic, they gave up on observing the fight and all ran in different directions, determined to kill as many people as they could manage before John got to them.