The Innkeeper - Chapter 1978

Chapter 1978: Full Story I
This close, Lex could physically feel his parents thinking about him, as well as the nature of their thoughts. They seemed troubled, curious, astounded…

They were all normal things, so at least on the surface, there seemed to be no hidden agenda. That was not enough to get Lex to drop his guard, but at least it was a start.

Besides that, he was also curious about what sacrifices they had made. The gall of them to claim that his success was due to their sacrifices. But… since it had come to this, he was not going to jump to conclusions without hearing the full story. He was curious as to what justifications they had.

Vox led them to a relatively large house in the town, equipped with isolation formations for privacy and security.

“Feel free to stay as long as you like,” Vox said with a large smile. “When you’re ready to leave, you know where to find me.”

Lex merely nodded, appreciating his cooperative attitude. He waited till Vox left before he turned towards his parents. Fenrir sat near his legs and closed his eyes, as if indifferent to everything, and Mango put his fishbowl on a high table so that he could look down on all the humans.

Lex didn’t mind if Fenrir heard, and Mango would forget everything anyway, so…

“You may begin,” said Lex. “Your story better be very good. Do you know that the first time I met Moon, she was in the middle of being assassinated? Her body was so frail in spite of being a Golden Core cultivator that she could barely leave the hammock where she lay. I have killed almost everyone even remotely responsible for that, and the few survivors have only survived because they are hiding where I cannot reach them. So I hope your explanation does not make me count you as one of the people responsible.”

Lex did not directly state his threat, but it was obvious enough.

“There’s so much anger in your voice, but I know you don’t believe we are responsible for that,” said Leon with a pained voice. “You know we are not like that.”

“I don’t know what to believe. You see, I’ve been lied to my whole life,” Lex answered.

“You have a point there,” Leon said, pointing at Lex. “You might want to take a seat – it’s a bit of a long story.”

In fact, Lex had just been about to sit, but now that Leon had said so, he no longer felt like it. He just stared lamely at Leon, until the old man sighed.

Though, technically, he did not look like an old man. Lex’s father looked like someone in his mid thirties, and even that was a very mature appearance for an immortal. Usually, they looked even younger.

“Allow me to start from the very beginning, so that you understand the whole picture,” said Leon. Serene, who was standing right beside him, hadn’t said anything all this while, and simply observed Lex with a confused and curious look.

“I was born in the Williams family – one of the four noble families in the Jotun Empire. That is the largest human empire in the Origin realm, and spans many galaxies. The fours of the four noble families were all high level Heaven Immortals, and were the brothers of the Emperor Jotun. As such, they had a prestigious status in the empire, but among them, the Williams family was declining.

“The empire had other Heaven Immortals besides just the four ancestors, and each of them held high positions in the empire or its armies. They each established powerful families of their own as well, the only thing separating them from the four noble families was the common ancestry with the emperor, and the strength of the ancestors themselves.

“Yet while the Williams family ancestor was considered strong, his bloodline was too difficult to pass down. Unable to awaken our family bloodline, the Williams family produced the fewest number of immortals, and was the weakest among the nobility.

“Despite our glorious status on the outside, internally pressure was high and competition was ruthless. Resources were limited, and the fight for resources merciless. I do not know if you have much experience with many cultivator families, but they often tend to be like this. Due to longer lives, the immortal have many children, and so the strength of the bond fades. Or even if it doesn’t fade initially, over centuries or millennia, it diminishes.

“The irony is that higher level cultivators often actually have fewer children, and lower level cultivators have more, causing a huge imbalance in the family. My father, Damian Arban William, was the descendant of two great families the Arban and the William family. His mother, my grandmother, was a highly ambitious person, and so from a young age she guided him with the aim of making him the family head.

“By the time I was born, he had already established himself somewhat in the family, but his advantage was not decisive. Competition was tough, and his chances of becoming family head were uncertain. That is why my birth, especially, brought about many changes.

“Although I did not awaken the family bloodline, I was born with the Sword Saint physique. Becoming an immortal was, more or less, basically guaranteed and the chances of me becoming a Heaven immortal were also high.

“So, naturally, my father leveraged me every chance he got to gain more support in the family, yet the more he was like this, the more I resented him. We fought often, and I became extremely rebellious in my early years, so he tried to discipline me through various ways, trying to get me under control.

“Yet my nature is that of a sword cultivator. How can I give in before someone with ulterior motives? From the earliest days of my memories, until I was in my youth, famous in the family for my fighting prowess, I kept fighting against my father, and kept facing punishments. Eventually, one of his punishments sent me to a small, desolate planet called Earth – a political prison used by the Williams family to house many of our prisoners. The year, on Earth, was 1748, and that… is when I ran into your mother.”