The Innkeeper

Chapter 1688: Who ordered takeout?

Lex could survive a lot. His body had literally blown up and had then come back together. So being in the center of a volcanic eruption, for him, would be no problem. That was not the same for Jack.

Now Jack, for a fairy, was strong. Heck, even for a mortal, he was strong. He was far superior to most Nascent realm cultivators, even if he never used his fairy dust, or his most lethal weapon, his puns. But was he strong enough to survive being in the center of a volcanic eruption? It was questionable, since survival didn’t necessarily mean remaining in top condition.

A volcano in hell, though? Well, he would have to find out.

The eruption wasn’t instantaneous. There was a buildup, however brief. Jack was studying the cage Tinker was in when an earthquake struck. By now, there had been a few earthquakes, but none of them were this bad. As if that was not enough, a deep rumbling began all around them.

That was, somehow, enough for Jack to understand that something bad was going to happen.

Jack’s fairy dust was blocked, and he had almost no options. There was only one thing he could think of doing, however insane it was. Wasting no time, he grabbed a loose brick – one that had fallen from a nearby crack – and hugged it as hard as possible, so that his entire body was against the surface of the brick.

He then curled his wings around the bars of Tinker’s cage.

“Talk about a heated situation,” Jack said. Tinker, who had also understood by now what was about to happen, could not help but flash her eyes open in abject shock about the fact that Jack could still crack such lame jokes in such a critical situation.

There was no time for anything else though. The eruption happened, and what an eruption it was.

This particular volcano had its eruption suppressed for countless years, so when it blew, it blew hard. The force of the blast hit Jack like a truck, if that truck had boosters and also was inside an exploding volcano.

His entire body was instantly covered in hundreds if not thousands of hairline fractures simply from the shockwave of the blast. Then came the pressure of the brick that he was gripping, flattening his body like a roller.

His wings were nearly ripped out of his back, but fortunately they held on as the cage flew alongside him.

That was just from the initial impact – then came the heat. What could one say about that heat? Just that if anything that hot ever entered earth’s atmosphere, then the entire atmosphere would erupt into flames, turning it into a tiny replica of the sun.

Jack was air fried from the heat hitting him from the sides, grilled from the heat that the brick absorbed, and seared from the burning rods of the cage. All of that, too, merely happened in the first few seconds.

“Jeez. I know they say you are what you eat, but I don’t remember eating a shawarma, so why am I being grilled like one?” Jack croaked. Of course, over the sound of the explosion, even he couldn’t hear his own voice. Tinker, however, could.

“How the hell are you still cracking jokes at a time like this?” Tinker roared, unable to hold back. She, too, was being cooked alive, though being an immortal helped her endure better than Jack.

Jack was too overwhelmed by the various stimuli of his body breaking apart even as it cooked to understand what was happening. When he heard a voice in his head, he thought he was having a delusion, so he answered in his own mind.

“I was told fairies get their power from joy. There’s not much else to do around here, so I might as well crack some jokes,” he responded. Of course, the only reason Jack could even respond at all in his given situation was because Lex had so much mental power to spare.

Jack had no idea where he was being flung by the eruption, nor did he have any ability to pay attention to such things, for a moment later he entered a new, equally difficult situation.

Once his body was flung out of the vicinity of the labyrinth, he somewhat regained the ability to form fairy dust. However, the brick that was protecting his front was similarly inhibiting him. If he let go, he could use fairy dust, but then there would be nothing preventing his front from being exposed to lava.

He had to choose between the two, and quickly. Ultimately, Jack decided to risk it, and let go of the brick. He turned around and grabbed the cage, freeing his wings to start flapping and producing healing fairy dust.

But, surrounded by lava, captured by the explosive force carrying him upwards, Jack could not see nor focus on anything else, which is why he still couldn’t see Tinker’s situation.

“Out of the frying pan and into the oven,” Jack said.

Tinker, who had been tortured for centuries, imprisoned for longer, deprived of energy for an unknown period of time, heard Jack’s last words and something inside her mind snapped. It just snapped. They were in hell – in literal hell – being cooked alive inside an infernal volcano, and this stupid fairy could still find the time to crack jokes.

If that wasn’t funny, then she didn’t know what was. Or maybe she just had a mental breakdown from her impending death. Either way, she just started laughing, and once she started, she couldn’t stop.

Even Jack, despite his ear drums no longer working, could swear that he heard something, but he couldn’t be sure.

By this point, pain had replaced all his sensations, and his senses, so he had no idea of his surroundings or condition.

That is why, as he continued to try and flap his already burnt off wings, trying to produce healing fairy dust, he had no idea that his trial had already ended. He had returned to the old fairy, who was looking at what looked like a deep fried chicken finger, and wondering who ordered takeout.

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