The Innkeeper - Chapter 1495

Chapter 1495: Flying
“Pebbles, I’m pretty sure this is why you lost your limbs,” said Longbeard, the gnome.

The hamster just looked at the gnome in confusion, tilting its head sideways. Maybe it was because today it had all its limbs, but had patches covering both its missing ears.

“What are you talking about? I lost my limbs when my wife had a cooking accident. For some reason, she cut my hand off instead of the carrot, and when I told her that’s not how it’s done, she cut off another one of my limbs.”

Longbeard simply shook his head. Pebbles was just… he was too simple for this complex world.

Jack took a deep breath and controlled his emotions. Normally, he would have found the interaction between his crew quite entertaining. But with the stink constantly harassing his senses, Jack couldn’t find the humor in the situation.

“Never mind. Let’s just get out of here,” Jack said. “As per the legends of old, we need to travel at exactly 88 miles per hour to pierce through the veil.”

Actually, there was no such legend, but the others didn’t know that. Since Jack had said it, and his crew had heard it, the legend had gained some level of recognition and power. Of course, such a weak legend was in no way enough to actually give them a way out. Instead, it just provided subtext for the legend of his crew that he was in the process of creating.

The antigravity from the eels spread along the chains and slowly encompassed the ship. This antigravity made the ship travel faster, but the ship could not actually escape the pull of the river so easily. In truth, Jack had thoroughly analysed all legends associated with the river and discovered no matter what version of the story he heard, everyone traveled the river by boat. Having a strong and sturdy boat was paramount to survive the waters. But the more important thing was, in a world full of cultivators, no one tried flying over the river.

Yet Jack was flying right now. It wasn’t just that he was flying over the ship, he could even fly away from it. But the longer he did, the more the pull of the waters affected him, and would eventually pull him down. The power and legend of the river was strongly linked to the water, obviously, and a part of that power was to pull things into the water itself.

Conversely, if he could allow his ship to escape the pull of the water after being affected by it for so long, he could similarly resist the other powers of this entire area. That was a secret he did not intend to reveal to others, for explaining the magic behind something would take away the magic.

In essence, escaping the waters and escaping this realm of death were one and the same. Yet even the antigravity of the eels was not enough. If it had been so easy, then the river would not be such a scary place. But as someone with plenty of experience subverting common sense, Lex, and therefore Jack, was not so easily intimidated.

Once the antigravity completely encompassed the ship, and all the formations were activated, a change suddenly started to take place. The sails, which up until now had been nothing more than a decoration as far as anyone could tell, started to change and spread out, looking almost identical to Jack’s fairy wings.

“Tiny-Sparkles, if you will,” Jack said, his tone completely level, as if everything was under his control.

The first mate of the ship, the only one in the crew who seemed to have some idea of what was happening, quickly climbed up to the crows nest and pointed his horn up into the air. The ship was shining under the effects of Purinex, but when the unicorn pointed its horn in the air, all the light was somehow directed towards it, passing through it like some kind of prism, projecting a rainbow light coming out of if and shining onto the sails.

“Everyone, brace yourselves,” Jack said, though his voice transmitted no urgency. “You are about to enter into the midst of legends.”

Whether Jack meant that they themselves were about to become legends, or they were about to reach the seven dwarf dragons who were the stuff of legends, the crew did not know. What they did know was that as Pebbles tied itself to the ship’s mast, they couldn’t decide if it was a genius or a complete idiot.

Jack flew down, still flapping his wings furiously to produce enough fairy dust to keep supplying the Purinex, and walked up to none other than Bob, whose mouth was shut using a legendary jawbreaker. The candy was practically indestructible, and the only way to get rid of it was to lick it till it slowly withered away. Of course, he could also spit it out, but the Drama-cat loved the candy too much to do that.

Without saying anything, Jack handed the deity a piece of paper. When the Drama-cat looked down to read it, Jack slapped him in the back of his head, causing him to spit out the candy.

Unable to help himself, Bob ended up reading what was written on the piece of paper out loud.

“I can’t believe we’re about to become legends on our own. It would be a shame if something suddenly happened that would make our legend much smaller. Oh lawd, what kind of-”

Before Bob, devourer of jawbreakers, could deviate from his script and say something to ruin things, Jack stuffed another jawbreaker into his mouth.

As it happened, at that very moment, a veil tore open in the sky, right above them, and a lone figure jumped down into the waters of the river. Too preoccupied with his escape, Jack just caught a glance of the figure, and recognized that it was a mermaid.

Who the figure was didn’t matter. There was an opening in the realm, which meant that they didn’t need to tear through the veil of the river Sphynx, and could just quickly go through the opening.

“RISE!” Jack roared, as he channeled all his remaining energy into the ship, flapping both his own wings and the wings of the ship. Yet even as the ship seemed to be rising, the waters of the river rose with it, as if they were unwilling to let it go.

“Amitabha, this is so badass,” said Monk, the bear cub as he watched the Jolly Rancher literally resisting the pull of the deathly river.

Ollie, feeling useless, grabbed onto the railing of the ship and started to flap upwards. As a Nascent realm cultivator himself, his physical strength was nothing to scoff at, and his assistance was not insignificant.

Goldilocks, intrigued by the actions of its avian cousin, also began flapping its wings, producing specks of gold glitter that spread around the ship.

Jack felt a ripple of fear in his heart, one produced naturally and organically, an instinct of his body, as he looked at the glittering gold, yet he did not have the time or mind to wonder why it was.

The gold dust didn’t touch the ship, and instead went around it and into the water. As if it had encountered something even more repulsive than Purinex, the water suddenly let go of the ship, and the Jolly Rancher shot into the air like a rocket.

“Oh no!” Jack exclaimed, as the ship went much faster than he anticipated. Like a rainbow colored, shining bazooka the Jolly Rancher emerged from the hole, and rammed into a tide of monsters that had been chasing the mermaid.

As if that was not enough, the ship, led by the two Gravity Eels, cleaved through the horde and crashed into a castle, and then right through it.

The entire crew suddenly felt their hairs stand on end as countless monsters, each one of them incredibly powerful, suddenly looked towards them, anger and fury practically pouring out of their eyes.

“Would you believe me if I said this was a misunderstanding?” Longbeard asked, though it was a redundant question.

“They’re allies of the mermaids. Kill them,” one of the monsters said.

“Ollie, catch someone so we can get directions,” Jack yelled as he deactivated the ship’s wings, and stopped producing Purinex. A mere horde of monsters was not enough for them to go all out. “We should be somewhere close to the Seven Dwarf Dragon’s domain.”

The Shadow Talon dove into the shadows, and would not fail to capture its prey. Meanwhile, the Jolly Rancher took to the skies.

Jack resisted the urge to vomit, yet it was much harder than he expected. Even Lex, who was being bathed in luxury and pampered by the Seraphim services, was unable to enjoy a single moment due to how repulsive the smell was.

“Oh? What business have you with the dragons?” asked a voice in a whisper from right behind Jack. The fairy did not turn back to identify who was speaking. Instead, he simply answered.

“I have news of an event I think they’ll be very interested in participating in.”