The third Midnight game started in a heavy mood. Not only was the location a desert, a sandstorm was raging. There was no visibility and no way for Alexander to deploy his satellite in this weather. That was not to mention that he wasn't fully recovered from his previous wound. To top it all off, in the surprise attack Pramod had pulled off on the Jotun soldiers with the curse, over 300 of them had died and 800 of them were critically injured. Crawford-41 was also amongst the soldiers that died.
The only slightly positive thing was that Pramod no longer joined the games and had left already.
"Find shelter," Alexander said to his few over 600 remaining soldiers. Too many of them had been critically injured and could no longer fight for now. "We're going to hunker down and wait this one out."
Alexander felt it was unfortunate that he had to avoid fighting today, he would lose his lead in points over Cara, but it was better than being reckless.
But while the Empire and the Earthlings had suffered greatly, the Beasts took this opportunity to gain some points. Their performance had not been the best, but the difficult environment for humans posed no problems to them. The tournament was far from over.
*****
On Earth, the council was having yet another meeting. All the participating members were in a grave mood. Just a short while ago, they were celebrating their grand victory and subsequent freedom, only to be brought to heel by some mysterious 'mistress' and her secretary Fernanda. It was fortunate that she didn't have many requirements – only that civilians remain uninvolved in the conflict and to avoid major damage to the Earth.
The good news was, upon being given the ultimatum, they had responded quickly and eliminated those that could be, or made deals with those that could not be..
"According to the latest report, last night South Korea launched a surprise attack on the North. Within a single night they took over the country. Their attack was extremely precise and calculated, as if they had been preparing for this for a long time. We just received a missive from them. Starting today, there will no longer be a South or North Korea, only a single Korea. They've agreed to join the council so long as they can rule without any external interference. We've gone over a preliminary list of rules they plan to implement and have no issues, so expect one of their members to join us soon.
"The issue about Japan, however, remains. We've lost all contact from all of our agents, and we're not the only ones who've suffered as such. The entire country seems to have stopped all external communications. We're preparing a diplomatic envoy to go and meet with their leaders, but just to be safe, I want a Foundation realm expert on the team.
"Is there anything else on the agenda we need to discuss?"
The room was silent, and no one answered Bernard, who had been speaking. Aware of everyone's mood, he smiled and said, "No need to be upset my friends. This is not a bad thing. Previously, we were going to look towards the Midnight Inn to fuel our progress, but now we know that we have some kind of backing in this vast universe. In a week's time, we will meet Fernanda again, and then we can discuss the future of Earth. We are no longer limited to a single star system, and grander horizons await us."
His words seemed to lift spirits, but only Bernard knew what he was thinking behind his warm, hazel eyes.
*****
Lex did not rush into the house, but walked with quiet and steady steps. When he reached the door he paused to check for any sounds coming from the house, but there were none. He looked at the broken door and saw the imprint of a shoe embedded dead center. The door had broken along with the hinges. Such a kick could not have been delivered by an ordinary person.
Tightening his grip on his gun, Lex slowly entered the house, careful not to step on anything that would make any sound. He ignored the stairs leading upstairs and walked past to check the ground level first. The kitchen was at the far end of the corridor, the living room to the right, and a bathroom under the stairs.
Just as he entered the living room to check it out, the cold, hard barrel of a gun pressed firmly against the side of his head.
Lex froze, suddenly caught by surprise by how quietly and calmly the attack had caught him. Before he could make any plans or try anything though, a familiar, cold voice started to harshly scold him.
"What are you doing, walking around with a gun? Watched too many movies, have you?"
Relief flooded through Lex's veins as he recognized Belle's voice and turned to look at his elder sister.
It was not a gun she was holding up to his forehead, but the front of an unusually shaped candle stand. His own imagination had done the job of mistaking it for a weapon.
"Belle I'm so glad you're alright," he said, taking a step back to get a good look at his sister. She did not look hurt or harmed at all, and was dressed extremely formally. Behind her, Lex could see an open laptop and several documents. It seemed like she had been working when he came in.
"Why would I not be alright? You think everyone is as incompetent as you?"
"I saw the broken door, I thought that…"
"Yes, yes, the broken door. That gave little Moon quite the scare," she said, her voice seemingly still as cold and even as before. Only someone who grew up with her could pick up the trace of concern in that voice.
"Since you're here with a gun, I'm guessing you already know about the situation."
"Yeah, there's a war."
"Yes, a war. But it's very different from normal wars. They're not targeting cities or civilians, only the top brass. Well, that has nothing to do with me. The only reason we're even slightly involved was because I recently started a job in the municipal government. I had been having meetings with a few people of interest to the council, and they were checking to see if I was harboring anyone."
"Wait, you know about the council?" Lex asked, surprised. The only reason he knew about the council was because of the Inn – how did his sister know?
"Yes. They're very reasonable people. After I pointed out the flaws in a number of their plans while they were interrogating me, they hired me. If things go according to plan, I should be assigned assistant to the new acting mayor of London by the end of the month."
"What? I… you… what? You're… working for the council?"
"Yes, they were very impressed with me," Belle said in a bland voice. "Instead of an assistant, I might have become the new acting mayor directly if I was a cultivator. According to their new policy, only cultivators can hold important government positions like that."
"Wait, you know about cultivators?" Lex asked, even more surprised this time.
[0)??? Instead of answering him though, Belle only let out an exasperated sigh.
"Do you have a list of things I shouldn't know about? Can we go over it right now? I hate having to repeat myself."
"No, no, that's not what I meant… just that I only learnt about cultivators myself recently as well. But now that you know, it's great. I won't need to bother explaining it to you. Do you have cultivation techniques? If you don't, I can find some for you guys."
"Don't bother with that, tell me first, are you ill? You don't look so good."
Lex was startled by her sudden question. As far as he knew, his tumor had not affected his appearance at all, but before he could answer, Lex fell limp to the ground, unconscious. Belle did not bother to stop his fall, with his constitution, he would be alright. It was his soul she was concerned about.
Taking a silver pen out of her pocket, she twisted the cap, shooting a ray of energy at Lex that covered his entire body. Since Belle did not know what secrets Lex had, she did not want to take any risks and completely blocked out all of his senses. Even Mary, who was connected to Lex by the system, did not notice his condition as her focus was diverted towards managing the Inn.
"Moon, get down here. Check Lex's soul, it's extremely unstable."
The teenager who had been spying on her siblings was startled when she heard her elder sister and quickly came towards Lex.
"I can't use my abilities like this. I need to connect to the relay station and establish a connection with my main body."
"Then why are you still standing here?" Belle asked, her voice still cold and bland. But little Moon picked up the impatience in her voice and quickly ran before Belle got angry.
Moon ran to her room and retrieved a pair of bangles and what looked like a VR headset. Alone, none of these items were anything special, but when worn together, they connected the wearer's consciousness to something called a relay station – a small base hidden in space somewhere within the solar system.
Although Lex's family on Earth were clones of his original family, that did not mean they were connected to the main consciousness of the original body. If the distance between the clone and the original was small enough, they would be, but in the case of interstellar distances, it was all but impossible. The relay station allowed the clones to connect with the consciousness of the main body, but only for a short time. The time duration was a result of the clone being much, much too weak to sustain such pressure for a long time. In Moon's case, the relay station also served a secondary function. It allowed her to utilize her main body's special abilities – abilities that were completely independent of her cultivation.
Arriving in front of Lex's body, she sat on the ground on her knees and put on the equipment and prepared herself to connect to the relay station. This was not a quick procedure. Connecting to the station was the easy part, but then to wait for the station to locate and then connect to her main body was the difficult part. This was also extremely expensive and consumed resources the cultivators of Earth could not even dream of, but they never paid any mind to it.
[0)??? Nearly three hours later, the connection finally stabilized and Moon gained some of her main body's powers. Not wasting any time, she immediately brought her hands over Lex's forehead and started to scan him.
Considering she was checking Lex's soul, there was a great danger of her discovering the system! This was because, as yet, the system still only existed in the form of the magical treasure that had collided with Lex's body so long ago, and the magical treasure was taking refuge in Lex's soul.
Fortunately, as a result of Moon only being a clone, her ability was greatly weakened and she did not discover the system.
"His soul is… weird," Moon said, in an unsure voice. "It's like it's been changed, but I can't tell how. It's stronger than it should be, so there's no chance of it accidentally disappearing.".
If one was observing Belle carefully, they would be able to tell her shoulders relaxed just a little.
"I can sense… I think… it's Purified Wraiths blood. It strengthened Lex's soul, but since his soul was in an unstable state, the increase in strength only increased the instability. I think Lex knew there was something wrong with his soul, and then tried to strengthen it, but that's not fixing the problem at all."
"He may try to do that again unless the issue is fixed. Just use whatever strength you have left to stabilize his soul as much as you can. Whoever taught him how to fix his soul must be an amateur."
If John knew that he had been called an amateur by a couple of kids, who knew how he would react? But fortunately for everyone, no one was around to see this. Liz, the only remaining sister, had at some point appeared in the room and watched in silence while eating ice cream out of a tub.
A few minutes later, Moon collapsed as well. Belle carefully removed the helmet and carried Moon to her room, leaving Lex lying there on the ground.
After a few minutes, when she did not return, Liz sighed in defeat and carried her brother and threw him onto a sofa. It was a good thing his body had improved due to his cultivation, or God knows what condition he would have been in after being handled so roughly.
Liz walked to the kitchen where Belle was perusing through the fridge, eventually pulled out a cold slice of pizza and started eating it directly. If nothing else, the unusual fondness for cold pizza was something Lex shared with this sister of his.
"Do you really have to treat him like that?"
"Like what? Going through the whole drama of acting like I'm in the dark is pointless, I just saved us a lot of time. And besides, I've thought it through. My story is solid, with no plot holes. The reason we know about cultivation is because of the council, and now that I have a job working for the council, our security will be assured. Furthermore, because our bodies are made up of spirit energy, if we try absorbing more, the cloning technique will destabilize and we will die. So now all we need to do is let him know that despite knowing about cultivation, we ourselves cannot cultivate.
"To recap, we know everything about cultivation so he does not need to keep secrets from us, we are safe so he does not need to worry about us, and we cannot cultivate so he does not need to care about resources for us. This will solve all of his problems and he can continue to live his life as he was previously. If he was able to travel from New York and get his hands on something like Purified Wraith's blood, he must have developed some decent connections. Maybe he's following one of the political prisoners mom has sent to the planet. He can now focus on his own growth without worrying about us."
Liz was silent for a few moments, and then eventually said, "You really don't want him to be around, huh?"
Belle looked at her sister and understood what she was actually trying to say.
"He's my little brother, and I'm looking out for him the way I look out for you two. I do not hate him, if that is what you mean. My situation is not his fault… it is simply the result of something as simple as being born a girl instead of a boy. But it is better this way. I do not need someone to hand power to me on a platter, I can take it for myself."
"What you need is a boyfriend," Liz said under her breath as she rolled her eyes at her overly dramatic sister. It was such a burden being the only normal person in a family. No longer paying attention to Belle, Liz went and got some pink nail polish and pulled out a chair in front of Lex. As his beloved younger sister, she had to, of course, make his life miserable in the cutest way possible. When she lifted his hand, she noticed Lex's phone halfway outside his pocket. She picked it up, naturally, to snoop, only to find it dead. She shrugged and put it on charge, before turning back to her beloved brother. He would not wake up till his body adapted to his soul, so she had plenty of time to work.
She recalled once, when they were children, Lex cut her hair while she was sleeping. The result was so bad that she had to get a bob cut. To this day, many years later, she had not forgiven him. Today, for the third time, she would get her revenge.
The hours went by quickly, and the day passed calmly for the Williams family. This was mostly because Moon and Lex were passed out. Moon woke up early the next day, but Lex was still asleep. By now Mary had checked up on Lex, but only thought he was asleep on the couch, so she returned to her duties. The games were progressing with much excitement, and refugees had stopped coming in from Earth. In fact, many of them had even returned now, as things seemed to have calmed down.
The fourth match finally started, this time in a rainforest. The beasts had taken the lead in points during the last match, so this time Alexander felt extremely motivated to regain his place in the front.
At the same time, on Earth, a small diplomatic team was approaching Japan by boat. Most of the team were mortals, with only a single Foundation realm cultivator who had hidden his identity. Unbelievably, they had used a pigeon to deliver a message to the small nation to inform them of their arrival, since there was no other way to communicate at the moment.
The members of the team looked onwards nervously, knowing full well what had happened with all the previous attempts at communication. But this time they came without any hostility, in hopes to simply negotiate, so hopefully things would end differently.
When they arrived at the designated pier, they were surprised to see it completely devoid of other people. There was no movement, no noise, as if they were arriving at a ghost town.
With no other option but to go on, the team disembarked and had only begun discussing how to proceed when they heard a voice.
"Speak, what is it you came here to say."
Startled, the envoys turned to see a handsome Japanese youth, leaning against a nearby building. He was dressed in a gray hakama and stood so perfectly still that up until this moment, he had melded into the background. Even the cultivator had not noticed him, which raised his wariness.
"We are diplomatic envoys from the council, here to meet with the Prime minister and discuss relations between Japan and the rest of the world. We have been unable to communicate with anyone from the country."
"Japan's diplomatic stance is that gaijin are no longer welcome here. You may return with this message."
The envoys looked at one another, then secretly turned to the cultivator. They did not know how to proceed. They did not want to antagonize the locals, but their own bosses weren't people who could be messed with either.
Finally, the cultivator stepped forward and tried to talk to the youth.
"Young man, we are here for an important matter. We cannot…" before the cultivator could continue his words, the youth took a single step forward. His movement was strange, and the diplomats were unable to clearly see what he had done, but the effect was only taking a step forward. Or so it seemed, until the cultivator's head fell clean off his neck.
"I will not repeat myself again after this. You may return with this message."
The envoys were so scared they practically tripped over themselves as they ran back to their boat, hoping this monster would not change his mind. They had not even seen what he had done to cut the cultivators head off, but it was not something they wanted to know either.
As he watched the gaijin leave, the man revealed his right hand that he had been hiding behind his body to reveal a katana. Slowly, as if he was savoring the action, he returned the weapon to its sheath.
A voice spoke in his head, "quest to kill an enemy with a higher cultivation of one major realm, completed. Hosts authorization of the Samurai System is being raised."
The young man did not respond to the notification, and only watched the water. He was lost in his thoughts.
Waking up was a slow process for Lex, and it was taking a while for his grogginess to clear. Using immense will power he opened a single eye to look around. He did not immediately recognize the place, which filled his still half asleep mind with confusion. But slowly, his memories returned and realized he was in his parents house.
His single eye shut again and it was nearly twenty minutes later that he opened his eyes again, yawning as soon as he did. Despite just waking up, Lex felt incredibly tired, a sensation he hardly felt since he started cultivating. He lay there for a while longer, as the gears of his mind slowly started to turn and he started properly waking up.
The first thing he noticed was the comforting beating of rain drops. He looked outside the window and saw rain. The room that he was in was dark, and slightly chilly, despite the blanket that covered him. Somewhere else, in the background, Lex could hear the muffled noise of a television.
It was strangely peaceful. Lex wanted to continue laying there, so he did. His memories came back to him, and he remembered talking to his elder sister, Belle. She was the same, cold and emotionless yet somehow frustrated at the same time elder sister that he remembered. Somehow, that filled him with relief.
"Mary, what's going on at the Inn?" he asked in his mind, not bothering to get up.
"The fourth match is going on, and should end in a few hours. A lot of guests from Earth have returned to their planet, but other than that, nothing majorly significant. On a level more relevant to you, your friend Larry has fully recovered. It was quite fortunate that he qualified as a refugee, otherwise he would not have been able to pay the Inn to stay there, all his assets on Earth have been seized. He was able to pay for a few days using some artifacts that he happened to have when he arrived at the Inn, but then he ran into Marlo who's paid for a long stay on Larry's behalf."
Lex nodded, taking a mental note to meet up with Larry soon and find out what happened. For now, he finally got up from his sofa and stumbled in the dark to turn on the lights.
The first thing he saw when the lights came on, on his outstretched hand, were pink nails. Lex froze in horror. He had experienced incidents like this before. He quickly ran to the bathroom to look in the mirror and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw there was nothing on his face. He forcefully scraped the polish off his nails, before exiting and yelling, "is anyone home?"
Upon receiving no reply, he walked towards the sound of the television, and found his youngest sister, Moon, watching a video with headphones on in the dark..
"Hey," Lex casually greeted her as he flicked her headphones off.
"Hey hey hey I'm watching something," she yelled, quickly pulling her headphones back, but then turned and looked at Lex. She paused her video and turned to look at her brother. For a moment they only looked at one another, before Moon finally said, "What's up with the gun? You been watching too many American rap videos?"
Lex immediately facepalmed.
"It's dangerous these days, it's for protection."
"Yeah, must be tough, a lone boy living in the big city in America. Not at all like three girls living together in London, pretty safe here."
Lex's lips twitched, but chose to divert the subject.
"Where are mom and dad?"
"Bangladesh."
"Bangladesh? What are they doing in Bangladesh? Where even is Bangladesh?" As startled as he was, he should have expected his parents to be off in some other country. But how was he supposed to check up on them? Ask Will again for another transport?
"'Where is Bangladesh' he asks. You've been to Bangladesh, idiot. How can you not remember? We talked to mom and dad yesterday, after you dozed off, so no need to go gunslinging off to SOUTH ASIA, they're perfectly fine."
Lex relaxed a little, and smiled at his sister. He didn't bother asking how they were able to contact their parents, Moon wouldn't lie to him, all that mattered was that they were fine.
"Speaking of which, what happened yesterday? I don't remember going to sleep."
"I dunno, you were on the couch when I got home."
"What about Liz and Belle? Are they home?"
"Belle went out to work, Liz went out to do groceries. Speaking of which, follow me."
Moon got up and quickly led Lex to the kitchen. She pulled a pot out of the fridge and put it on the stove and started to heat it.
"Liz made you soup and Belle left a few messages for you."
She pulled out a piece of paper from her pocket and read off of it.
"My new job has a lot of security so tell that idiot not to worry, and that he should quickly go back to New York because one of mom and dads friends in Bangladesh has taught them way too much about arranged marriage and they've started looking at girls for Lex…" at that point Moon burst into laughter and dropped the paper.
Lex's lips twitched as he watched his sister laugh at him. He understood Belle well enough, though she never said things up front, she must have understood that Lex had to go through unusual means to come and check up on them and wanted to assure him they were alright. It was well enough, now that he knew they were alright he could return to the Inn to take care of things there. To top it all off, he didn't really need to return to New York and could go to the Inn directly from London. But since he was here, he might as well spend some time before he left.
He pulled out a couple of bowls and laid a table, and caught up with Moon. He asked her about school and life here, and about any… boys she might be interested in. When Moon only took the names of various celebrities Lex secretly breathed a sigh of relief. If she was really interested in someone she would tell him. Despite their large gap in age, they were close to one another and Moon was incapable of keeping secrets from him – as far as he knew. If she really was interested in someone, he wanted to play the role of the cool brother who was okay with it, but secretly it stressed him out.
They exchanged stories for a long time, and eventually the topic of cultivation came up once again. Moon explained how some people from Belle's new work came and told them about cultivation and tested them out. Apparently all of them shared a genetic defect that made them unable to cultivate. Lex had a few doubts, but he buried them deep in his heart. It wasn't as if he didn't have secrets of his own, and one day when he raised the level of the Inn high enough where he could treat any kind of malady, he would bring his family to the Inn. So until that day came, he would choose to believe his sister's words.
The hours passed, and Mary let him know that the forth game had ended. Liz finally came home, but Belle never showed up. The three siblings spent more time together, chatting and making fun of one another. Liz showed him the changes she had made to the Heavy Harley. Last night she decided to paint his gun instead of his face, and so a purple butterfly was painted on the handle of his gun.
Eventually, when it was getting late at night, Lex decided it was time for him to leave. Now that he had checked up on his family, he could focus on the Inn without any worries. Not to mention, even if he did get worried, he could secretly check up on them since he was not planning on leaving London.
After a long, drawn out goodbye, Lex finally left. He told them he would check up on them from time to time, but both his sisters had already stopped paying attention to him as he crossed the door.
Unsure of how to react to his siblings, Lex simply continued walking. After walking a short distance, his smile slowly turned into a frown. As a fledgling cultivator, his instincts had sharpened, and as much as he wanted to ignore it, he had a strong feeling something was wrong. He instinctively overlooked his family, as if there could be nothing suspicious about them, but could not figure out what it was.
He was about to ask Mary what was happening at the Inn when two men walked up in front of him and stopped.
Lex's mind clicked, as if understanding that this is what his instincts were warning him about, and his hand hovered over the handle of his gun, ready to reach for it at a moment's notice.
"Can I help you?" Lex asked, his tone slightly aggressive. Even an idiot would not expect friendly intentions from random strangers so late at night.
"Hello, my name is Ben, I work for INTERPOL," one of the men said, and pulled out a badge for Lex to see. At a glance the badge looked real, but Lex had no way of knowing for sure.
"We're conducting an investigation connected to terrorist organization and have reason to believe you have been in contact with some suspicious characters. Tell me, do you recognize this man?"
Ben flashed Lex a picture of Larry on his phone, and despite trying to be cautious, Lex could not help being startled at seeing his friend's picture.
"I suspected as much," Ben said upon seeing Lex's reaction. He then played a video of Lex walking out of Larys apartment building and asked, "Is that you?"
Instead of answering, Lex asked, "What is this about?"
"Larry Dershaw is a protected citizen, affiliated with various influential people and organizations. Shortly after your visit," Ben pointed at the video of Lex walking out of the building, "we believe there was an assassination attempt on Larry, after which he disappeared. We need to bring you in for questioning."
[0)??? Lex suddenly did not know how to respond. It was indeed a fact that Larry had shown up at the Inn, wounded and bloody shortly after his visit, but Lex had not had an opportunity to ask him yet what had happened. These agents seemed to be real, in which case he should cooperate, right?
In the distance, a man was watching the interaction using a pair of binoculars.
"Tell the client we can only hold the target for a few hours, after which we'll have to let him go. If he wants to get his hands on the target, he'll have to do it himself," the man said on a phone call.
"Understood. In the meantime, find out what he knows about the Larry kid. A proper interrogation before we get our hands on him might be helpful."