1594  Loophole failure

In the end, Lex's help wasn't required. Between Z and Luthor, they handled the situation well enough and there were no casualties though there were a few minor injuries. The hailstorm did not last long, and dissipated just as abruptly as it appeared.

In the end, no one was able to determine what that foreign energy was, or what exactly it did, though it did become abundantly clear that it somehow enhanced the strength of the hail. However, when Z noticed the energy, he used the effect of his bloodline to manipulate the energy into entering into various tools before discarding them.

But the hail was far from being their last obstacle. A number of locust kings emerged from the purple liquid just as they were about to leave, and assaulted the arks. Much to Lex's dismay, the arks did not make it, though the groups were close enough to land that they could escape.

Even pushed to that point, Lex did not personally make a move - though it was only due to the proximity to land that he stayed his hand. Back on land, attacked by numerous locust kings as well as regular locusts themselves, those from the Midnight Inn immediately formed a mech using their battle formation.

Looked through a certain lens, they just made themselves into a bigger target. But what's more important was that to harm even one of them was infinitely harder now, not to mention that the mech itself was incredibly powerful.

The mercenaries also showed their worth, not only successfully resisting the attack of the kings without suffering a single loss, they even pushed them back and counterattacked. It was not for nothing that they had survived for so long.

Lex, of course, did not join the mech, and simply continued to watch. At the same time, John finally started to buy items that the Rhinocentaurs bought.

The Rhinos, financed through the Inn, had tremendous buying power. Yet that buying power was limited to the lower and weaker members of their groupchat, as the more senior members had no need for money. The Inn's actual resources could possibly have attracted more powerful users of the group, but that would create a direct trail to the Inn Lex didn't want to establish.

Sending the items to Lex required the use of, yet another, loophole in the system, or rather in the Gift Shop. At least, that's what Lex had initially planned. Lex had a system inventory where he could store things, but the premise was that he could only store things that were given to him by the system.

However, things he bought from the System for Gift Shop automatically entered his inventory, since they were technically being given to him by the system. That is why, whenever he used to buy a Botlam Dew for the Gift Shop in the old days, he could immediately pull it out and use it wherever he was.

There was a tiny loophole that Lex had discovered wherein, if he bought something from the Gift shop, he could put that in his inventory as well. He had planned on putting the items collected by John, putting them in the Gift shop, buying them immediately, and then pulling them out of his inventory. Except… it didn't work!

The issue was not that he was in Abaddon. Rather, it was that as the System slowly repaired itself, it had begun to address the many obvious flaws in its operations.

Even if Lex never gave the System any resources, in a few tens of thousands of years, the System would be able to repair itself completely. It seemed that at some point, without Lex noticing, the System had begun to fix its many loopholes. The timing couldn't have been worse, for Lex suddenly had no way to deliver the items to himself.

Just as Lex was thinking of ways to remedy the situation, for he really needed something to help him speed up his search in Abaddon, the Death Match event in the Inn finally ended.

A Henali representative gave an announcement, officially declaring the end of the war between the Fiery Mammoths and the humans, awarding the galaxies of the prior to the latter. To ensure there was no issue, the Henali would personally oversee the transition.

This was one of the ways in which they kept the peace within the Origin realm.

As the event ended, a majority of those who came to watch the fights left, though the Inn was still crowded with far more people than before.

Along with the departure of the guests came the departure of the security. This was one of the shortest events Lex had hosted, especially considering the amount of money he had spent. In fact, Lex himself remained unaware of the full repercussions of what he had done.

Within the Inn, John noticed that the number of system users his device was detecting drastically dropped, but did not return to 0.

Outside the Inn, countless system users returned to where they came from, and had their memories wiped of the task that they had performed. Originally, everything was as it should have been. Until it wasn't.

The Celestial, the one who was cultivating Mo's Blessing, suddenly took out an item he had received from a prior quest.

Exception token

A token that allows the user to legally and lawfully break a system rule once.

As soon as he used the token, his memories of the task he had undertaken suddenly returned to him.

"The Midnight Inn, huh…" he muttered to himself, his thoughts unknown.

Elsewhere in the Origin realm, a system user was to return to the location he came from. Yet his prior location, which was a prison, no longer existed. The immediate vicinity was also unsuitable for his return, for it was right between two blackholes collapsing into each other. So, according to the Systems rules, he was teleported to the closest public area where he was permitted to enter, that was also safe.

As such, he managed to avoid the certain-death imprisonment that had been specifically designed to contain him.

Countless seemingly insignificant such events happened with thousands of system users who returned, the consequences of such events as of yet unknown. However, among the many system users who returned, and successfully completed their quests, there was a number of them who had an additional, unexpected notification.